Audio: Year of the Griffin - Diana Wynne Jones

Audio CD, 10 h

Narrator: Gemma Dawson

Published December 4th 2018 by Tantor Audio (first published August 19th 2000)

Series: Derkholm #2

Fantasy

My Thoughts

Oh she is so funny! Why did it take me ages to try her books! So far they have all been great fun.

This one takes on the whole wizard boarding school trope and it is hilarious. The University is run down and out of money. After Chesney they have barely any wizards who know real magic. Instead they teach basics that give you nothing.

To this glorious institution comes Elda, Derk's griffin daughter (yes you should read book 1 before, and no you do not have to read it before cos this stands well on its own, but you should still read it.)

She quickly becomes friends with a Dwarf revolutionary, a jinxed princess, a mysterious rich young woman, a crown prince with the worst talent and a man hiding from assassins. Let the good time begin!

They are all hiding from something, and all those things will show up and wreak havoc. There is a professor who knows nothing, another one that is trying to build a ship to get to the moon. There is never a dull moment at school from now on.

We meet old favorites from book 1, and it makes me wish there were more books in this serious. But then again, maybe I should just read more Wynne Jones books instead and hope they are fun too.

Conclusion:
Fun. Humour. Crazy hi jinks.

Narrator

Oh she was perfect and I really felt I was in this world. She had a great range and I was swept in by her.

Cover

I do not get it, sure a griffin, but those people..eh?

Synopsis

It is eight years after the tours from offworld have stopped. High Chancellor Querida has retired, leaving Wizard Corkoran in charge of the Wizards' University. Although Wizard Corkoran's obsession is to be the first man on the moon, and most of his time is devoted to this project, he decides he will teach the new first years himself in hopes of currying the favor of the new students' families—for surely they must all come from wealth, important families—and obtaining money for the University (which it so desperately needs). But Wizard Corkoran is dismayed to discover that one of those students—indeed, one he had such high hopes for, Wizard Derk's own daughter Elda—is a huge golden griffin, and that none of the others has any money at all.

Wizard Corkoran's money-making scheme backfires, and when Elda and her new friends start working magic on their own, the schemes go wronger still. And when, at length, Elda ropes in her brothers Kit and Blade to send Corkoran to the moon... well... life at the Wizards' University spins magically and magnificently out of control.