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Deep Secret

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Deep Secret

By: Diana Wynne Jones
Narrated by: Christopher Webster, Harriet Carmichael
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Summary

A fantasy adventure about saving the universe one world at a time from Diana Wynne Jones. The companion novel to the bestselling The Merlin Conspiracy.

Magids look after all worlds, steer them towards magic, and keep history happening. But Rupert Venables’ mentor has just died, and as the junior magid on earth he has to find a replacement while also trying to find the lost heir of a collapsing empire, worlds away. Rupert interweaves the fate lines to get all the candidates together at a sci-fi fantasy convention, and havoc ensues as they all converge on a very strange hotel, where everything is always linked, the walls keep moving, people are trying to kill him, and nothing is as it seems…a magical, epic story from the Godmother of fantasy.

 Fantasy Growing Up & Facts of Life Literature & Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction Magic Science Fiction Arthurian
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Critic reviews

“…Her hallmarks include laugh-aloud humour, plenty of magic and imaginative array of alternate worlds. Yet, at the same time, a great seriousness is present in all of her novels, a sense of urgency that links Jones’s most outrageous plots to her readers’ hopes and fears…”
Publishers Weekly

“Diana Wynne Jones ought to be crowned with coloured garlands because she is the best writer of magical fantasy for children in this country ” Evening Standard

“Diana Wynne Jones could teach Stephen King and JK Rowling a thing or two … [she] has a skill for inserting just the right amount of detail in her written words, leaving you satiated but not stuffed.” SFX
All stars
Most relevant

Would you listen to Deep Secret again? Why?

One of DWJ'a best - such a credible fantasy with fully developed characters and plot.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Chris Webster and Harriet Carmichael ?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Fantastic story

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This was brilliant! Read on a suggestion from a friend and am delighted. Magic and technology is a great combination! Really enjoyed the characters and their voice acting!

Great Story!

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This has been wrongly described as a children’s book and wrongly categorised. It is an excellent young adult/adult title. It contains descriptions of orgies, graphic murder of children and is very adult in its story line and subject matter. A brilliant book but not suitable for children.

This is definitely NOT suitable for children!!

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The worldbuilsing in this was quite well done. Where in other stories Diana Wynne Jones likes to put the occasional modern bit in her historic magical books, this was the opposite. A book about current times (at least of the 90s) with some magic thrown in. She manages to weave these two worlds together quite well.
Setting it at a con for fantasy book lovers was a clever choice. I think what she tried to do was make a slight parody of a world she probably occasionally visits. Some of the parts work quite well for that. However in the way she describes most female characters it falls quite flat. They are either fat (and often not the brightest besides the main character) or slender and beautiful. In general the way she describes fat people is very in line with the 90s way of dehumanizing them. A parody is only fun if the people it is about can laugh along, which is not always the case here.
Besides that it is a very fun book, the main characters all really have their own personality.
The narrators also did quite well, they coordinated well with each other and gave fun voices to a lot of background characters. The different accents and voices really did help keep them apart.
I do have one thing. I really wish the male narrator would have looked into what a Dutch accent sounds like. Because as a Dutch person I have no idea where he got his inspiration for the Dutch character, but it was not from my country.

Good story but some very badly aged descriptions

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Any additional comments?

This is one of my favourite DWJ stories. There's a lot going on in it, it is clever, in a subtle way, rather than being in your face. It stretches across worlds with a narrative that unfurls slowly, revealing things as it goes along. One of the best things about DWJ characters is that they are believable... they are not perfect and you like them in spite of or even because of their failings. The central characters, Rupert and Maree are beautifully drawn. I wasn't sure about the performances initially, but they really grew on me. One slight annoyance is that the sound level of Chris Webster's performance varies a bit too much. You can suggest whispering or shouting without doing it. Apart from that, it is a great performance of all the voices and I liked Harriet Carmichael too, although I tend to think Maree's voice is a bit lower than she plays it. I particularly liked that they both seemed to have worked together to make their character voices similar but without overdoing it. This book is like an old friend that is a joy to revisit time after time and I'm pleased that now I can revisit the audio version as well as on the page. Also a relief to get an unabridged version. Whoever thinks that DWJ needs abridging is frankly nuts - she's never wastes a word, so why would you cut them?

A great interpretation of a favourite DWJ story

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