Conrad's Fate: A Chrestomance book - Softcover

Jones, Diana Wynne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060747455 ISBN 13: 9780060747459

Publisher: Greenwillow, 2006

Synopsis

Someone at Stallery Mansion is changing the world. At first, only small details, but the changes get bigger and bigger. It's up to Conrad, a twelve-year-old with terrible karma who's just joined the mansion's staff, to find out who is behind it.

But he's not the only one snooping around. His fellow servant-in-training, Christopher Chant, is charming, confident, and from another world, with a mission of his own -- rescuing his friend, lost in an alternate Stallery Mansion. Can they save the day before Conrad's awful fate catches up with them?

About this title

Review:

Apart from the occasional short story, Diana Wynne Jones’ fans have been starved of her most famous creation, the dressing-gown wearing magician Christopher Chant--star of all her Chrestomanci novels--for nearly twenty years. It’s been far too long! J.K. Rowling was knee-high to a grasshopper when the first book in this sequence, Charmed Life, hit the shelves in 1977 and, although this hugely talented fantasy author has gone on to create a myriad of other imagined and fantastically crazy worlds, it is her books featuring the world-hopping Chrestomanci that have remained her most appreciated and popular tomes.

In Conrad’s Fate, his uncle tells twelve-year-old Conrad Tesdinic that his constant and terrible luck is the result of a shocking dose of bad karma that within the year could threaten his very existence. He is despatched at once to Stallery Mansion, high in the mountainous Alps above his hometown of Stallchester, to work in disguise as a servant. There, in the magical fortress that seems to dominate the whole town, he must infiltrate its workings and seek out the person who has interfered so disastrously with his fate.

Along the way, Conrad strikes up a friendship with a mysterious, self-assured older boy, who has a mission of his own--to find his friend Millie who has hidden herself thereabouts. The discovery that Stallery Mansion lays on a ‘probability fault’ adds gloriously to the wonderment and adventure that inevitably follows.

In some ways a prequel to the earlier novels, in that this book features Chant as a teenager before his Chrestomanci guise, there is definitely no need, however, to read it first. Any of other titles such as Witch Week or The Lives of Christopher Chant will be equally superb introductions to this infamous creation and just as entertaining. (Age 10 and over) --John McLay

Review:

"A wild romp with a fast-paced and satisfying conclusion."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Hilariously droll and totally heartfelt at the same time. Witty, satisfying, a must for all Jones fans."--School Library Journal

"Magic, mystery and snortingly funny slapstick."--Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Greenwillow
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0060747455
• ISBN 13: 9780060747459
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 375