Reflections, A Whirlwind Tour of Australia

This book should be compulsory reading for anyone writing fantasy. For good reasons.

Imagination doesn't just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful.

Reflections

It's called Reflections. It's by Diana Wynne Jones but it's her voice and it gives me goosebumps and tears.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, K

Knowledge [...] Sometimes there is the added twist that the Knowledge has been collected without your knowing it. In this case, you must have an inspiration before recognising it. A friendly WIZARD or TOUR MENTOR can help here. They will madden you, but they will give hints.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, J

Journey is of course your Tour. No discovery or action can take place in Fantasyland without a good deal of travelling about. This is in the Rules. The Tour will be set up so that you will find at the outset you need to go to a CITY...

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, I

Immortals are fairly common in Fantasyland. There are three kinds:
     1 GODDESSES AND GODS, who exist forever unless people stop believing in them.
     2 ELVES AND DARK LORDS, who live forever unless someone kills them.
     3 Humans who are
     (a) Cursed...
     (b) MAGIC USERS...

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, H

Heraldry is rampant, passant and even couchant, but the exact rules are vague. Generally the Management is happy to paint an ANIMAL or plant of one colour on a field of another and leave it at that.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, G

Ghosts come both singly and in battalions. Single Ghosts can hurt or bespell you. The called-up battalions usually fight like living soldiers but are, for obvious reasons, very difficult to kill.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, F

Fruit is probably a luxury item. It is seldom served at INNS and usually makes its appearance only at feasts in the courts of KINGS.
     See also SCURVY.

Diana Wynne Jones
1934-2011

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, E

Enemy. The marvellous thing about Fantasyland is that you nearly always know exactly who your Enemy is. Everything is black and white - there is none of the greyness that afflicts enmities in our world, where you are always having to concede that there may be some good in someone...

Dark Lord of Derkholm, chapter 25

"Sick-makingly" is exactly how a cart would slew about.

I don't suppose Diana Wynne Jones would mind if I was to use this for some other appropriate occasion. Various modes of boating spring to mind.

Dark Lord of Derkholm, chapter 5

How thoroughly ordinary Diana Wynne Jones makes having (and being) griffin-brothers and griffin-sisters.

"I can help here, too," Elda muttered into a pile of fruit. "Everyone thinks I'm too small."

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, D

Dreams. They occupy the same slot as LEGENDS. They will be telling you something you need to know for the next phase of your Tour, but they will not be doing so very clearly. You will need to think a bit.

Charmed Life

I began this tale as some chapterly light evening reading, which went well at first: I love Diana Wynne Jones' books and I love children's books.

It lasted about four nights, and then I woke at 6am and finished it. And then I sat, grinning, in a post-good-book glow.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, C

Cloaks are the universal outer garb of everyone who is not a Barbarian. [...] On horseback they leave the shirt-sleeved arms and most of the torso exposed to wind and WEATHER.
     It is thought that the real reason [...] is that the inhabitants like the look of themselves from the back.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, B

Beginnings. Fantasyland, like so many other places, has its Beginnings at a time when no one was around to see it. Opinions vary as to when and how humanity arrived, but the majority seem to favour the notion that humans were imported from another planet or universe.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, A

Apostrophes. Few NAMES in Fantasyland are considered complete unless they are interrupted by an apostrophe somewhere in the middle (as in Gna’ash). No one knows the reasons for this. Nor does anyone really know how an apostrophe should be pronounced...