The tomb scene and the scene where the Smith fixes the cauldron are both incredible
The mountain prison of the Boneless King is like something out of lost-world weird fiction: the towering fungal growths, the stillness, the sense of something else being alive in there with you, but not knowing what it is; the flat, slithery tracks in the sand, the pale floating patch in the river. The presence of the dog feels like it should be reassuring, but it totally is not.
Shimmer's narration is incredibly full of personality, too.
Agreed. And of course the switch to Monkey allows you to see her from the outside, in ways which are congruent with her narration, but not identical, allowing for biases on both sides. I read years ago in an article or an interview that Yep did it because all attempts to write the novel in Shimmer's voice were hitting a wall, but I feel this just proves the point that if you give Monkey a cameo, he'll take the next two books.
"Studied" is slightly too clinical a word, but the other Yep narrator I noticed first was Squeaky in Mountain Light. I need to re-read Child of the Owl; I haven't since I was in middle school, I think.
I think Yep and DWJ are the people who first taught me how to first person and who I'm probably always modeling myself after to some extent.
I associate it less with Diana Wynne Jones because the novels of hers that were really formative for me are all tight third person, but she and Lloyd Alexander were early models for dialogue between characters who always, no matter their register, sound like themselves.
In this version Thorn is probably still a cauldron and the whole gang ends up on the run from the Lord of the Flowers, but it might be worth it.
Technically Thorn is still a cauldron at the end of the original series, he's just a cauldron that walks like a boy (and occasionally makes creaky metal noises like a cauldron), so I feel this is a salvageable ending.
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The mountain prison of the Boneless King is like something out of lost-world weird fiction: the towering fungal growths, the stillness, the sense of something else being alive in there with you, but not knowing what it is; the flat, slithery tracks in the sand, the pale floating patch in the river. The presence of the dog feels like it should be reassuring, but it totally is not.
Shimmer's narration is incredibly full of personality, too.
Agreed. And of course the switch to Monkey allows you to see her from the outside, in ways which are congruent with her narration, but not identical, allowing for biases on both sides. I read years ago in an article or an interview that Yep did it because all attempts to write the novel in Shimmer's voice were hitting a wall, but I feel this just proves the point that if you give Monkey a cameo, he'll take the next two books.
"Studied" is slightly too clinical a word, but the other Yep narrator I noticed first was Squeaky in Mountain Light. I need to re-read Child of the Owl; I haven't since I was in middle school, I think.
I think Yep and DWJ are the people who first taught me how to first person and who I'm probably always modeling myself after to some extent.
I associate it less with Diana Wynne Jones because the novels of hers that were really formative for me are all tight third person, but she and Lloyd Alexander were early models for dialogue between characters who always, no matter their register, sound like themselves.
In this version Thorn is probably still a cauldron and the whole gang ends up on the run from the Lord of the Flowers, but it might be worth it.
Technically Thorn is still a cauldron at the end of the original series, he's just a cauldron that walks like a boy (and occasionally makes creaky metal noises like a cauldron), so I feel this is a salvageable ending.