Derkholm
2 primary works
Book 1
A hilarious adventure about a fantasy world in danger of destruction from that most vile of threats… tourism .Winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature in 1999.
A humorous fantasy from Diana Wynne Jones. In a world next door to ours, the tourist industry is devastating the population by its desire to experience all the fantasy clichés - Dark Lords, impoverished villages, dragons etc.
The Head of the University resolves to shut the tours down; the only problem being the ruthless tour-master - and his all-powerful demons. To save them all, the incompetent wizard Derk is appointed as Dark Lord in the hope that he will ruin the tours, and sure enough proceeds to fail at everything due to his general uselessness. But can failing at everything lead to a win this time?
Book 2
A hilarious fantasy sequel to The Dark Lord of Derkholm, set at the University after the `fantasy world’ tours have stopped, and centred around 6 students (one a Griffin) and the bumbling new University Head Wizard. From the `Godmother of Fantasy’, Diana Wynne Jones.
The Year of the Griffin is the sequel to the Dark Lord of Derkholm, set in the same world several years after the abolition of commercial `fantasy world’ tourism from our world.
The University now aims to produce competent wizards to repair the damage caused by the tours. It’s broke, and out of date in terms of what it teaches. The new head, Wizard Corkoran, is obsessed with becoming the first man to visit the moon so is mostly preoccupied, and the new faculty is mostly inexperienced.
Wizard Corkoran has selected children from wealthy families to fill his own first-year classes, hoping to beg for money. But his students turn out to be more than he expected in oh-so-many ways, and despite the incompetence of their teacher, it falls to them to save the university… and themselves…