A Sudden Wild Magic

by Diana Wynne Jones

Book Overview

When the mages of the neighboring universe create environmental catastrophes on Earth, only ""The Ring,"" a secret society of powerful occultists dedicated to the well-being of humankind, can halt... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380718510
• ISBN13: 9780380718511
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 10 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Love the Author, Love the Book

So far, Diana Wynne Jones has not failed to disappoint!!! The characters and plot are engaging from beginning to end. A thourghly pleasant summer read! Yes, the plot is not wholly unpredicatable but what plot isn't? A light and interesting story of witches (and a magician) up against monastic magicians (and a witch) and an explanation of our planets the excessive troubles from WWII to Global Warming...

An Intercontinual Intrusion

A Sudden Wild Magic is an independent fantasy novel. In a universe like ours, but in which magic is potent, the Ring oversees the mages and witches of Great Britain. The head of the Inner Ring begins to suspect covert external influence in recent history. He tests his suspicions with great care to avoid detection and then takes his evidence to another member of the Inner Ring for advice.In this novel, Mark Lister travels to Hereford to consult with Gladys, the old women in the Inner Ring. After a bit of confusion over his purpose, they visit a dreadfully injured young women in the local hospital and hear an incoherent story. The evidence brought by Mark and the young woman's story lead them to believe that the external influence is coming from another universe. After dreaming of the intruders, Mark and Gladys gather Amanda and Maureen, the other two members of the Inner Ring, and determine a plan to invade the hostile base and eliminate the interference.Zillah is Amanda's sister. Some time before, she had an affair with Mark and had a young son, Marcus, by him, but now the two are estranged. However, Zillah still loves Mark and decides to stow away on the assault vehicle to separate Marcus and herself from Mark. She soon finds herself in an unexpectedly strange environment.The High Head of All Horns and King's Vicar on Arth is the head honcho of the observation base watching our universe. The Arth garrison is out of favor back in the Pentarchy. When the High Head inspects the latest batch of servicemen, he finds them to be a lot of odds and sods, with only the spoiled son of the Pentarch of Frinjen, a throwback of a gualdian, and a knock-kneed centaur standing out in the rabble.When the converted bus used as an intercontinual assault vehicle arrives in the target universe, many of the inhabitants have been unexpectedly killed, leaving six women and Marcus, and their weapons have been short-circuited and made useless. They are rescued by the Arth garrison, who don't really know what to do with them. Despite their disastrous start, the remaining commandos decide to carry on and soon begin to disrupt the routine of the male garrison. Zillah inadvertently gets Tod, the Pentarch's son, banished to Earth and she is forced to flee from capture with Philo the gualdian and Josh the Centaur. Then strange things begin to happen to the Arth fortress itself.This story describes the defense of our universe against a subtle and powerful interference from the outside The lady commandos strike back directly against Arth, the forward base, and Gladys finds another way to influence the outsiders. Meanwhile, infiltrators from Arth are trying to pierce the veil of secrecy placed around the Ring's operations.Highly recommended for Jones fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of daring and magic with more than a touch of intrigue.

No Title

Read this book. It's great. A little long, and not for readers who enjoy low grade, easy to read vocabulary. Lots of fun. Her second best book. Her best is Deep Secret.

A wonderful book by my favorite fantasy author

It starts out on Earth with a magician named Mark Lister and he finds proof for his theory that there is a "pirate universe" that started World War II, caused Chernobyl and Global Warming, and other major problems on Earth in order to find solutions to similar problems on their worlds. He goes to another wizard in the Inner Ring (a society of magicians who make sure that nothing too bad happens on Earth), Gladys, and convinces her that he is right. Then after much planning, they launch a capsule full of people armed with virus magic to try to stop the pirate universe. There, the people run into problems because half of the people die in crossing and so does the virus magic, so they have no way of stopping their enemies. In Arth (the pirate universe) there are other people who are also out of place. They become friends with Zillah (one of the people from the capsule) and her baby son Marcus. Very complicated with many sets of characters because the action goes back and forth from Earth (Mark's point of view)to the pirate universe (point of view of the people living there). Very good!

Comedy, sci-fi, fantasy--and much, much more.

Global warming, world wars, nuclear fission: Did you ever stop to think that any of these were not exactly natural? That perhaps someone else, some outsider was manipulating Earth for reasons unknown? That's part of the premise of "A Sudden Wild Magic," a hilarious sci-fi/fantasy novel set on Earth, a parllel universe, and a small orbiting dimension known as Arth.When the Ring--a society of benevolent witches and wizards, and quite sophisticated ones I might add, who guard Earth without the knowledge of ordinary humans--discovers the existence of a "pirate" universe, one manipulating Earth's climate and politics in order to gain answers for problems in their own world, they decide that these pirates must be stopped. This is to be accomplished by sending a small commando crew into the citadel of Arth, an offshoot of the pirate universe, where they will learn the otherworlders' plans and stop them. Of course, nothing goes as scheduled, and the invading crack force is diminished into a scant handful of women who, their original plans gone awry, decide to wreak as much havoc as possible. And how do they plan to succeed with no weapons, no sorcery, no nothing? Well, in a citadel devoted to (enforced) celibacy and where food is your basic nutritive...substance...a pretty face and a good cook can do a *lot* of damage. Wait: There's more coming. Add several centaurs, a young ruler who's fed up to the eyeballs with training at Arth (the food is bad enough, but it's the celibacy that's really getting to him), and a megalomaniac witch who sorcerously cloned her son several years ago, and you begin to get a general idea of the time you're in for. And it only gets better...Fascinating and comedic characters abound in this book: Gladys, a quirky old woman who talks to cats and gods with equal nonchalance; Jimbo, her other-dimensional pet; the rigid High Head of Arth and his perennially put-upon aide, Edward; Mark, a Ring mage with what you could definitely call a split personality; and Zillah, a young mother with a wild, strange power of her own. Even minor characters appear fully drawn, such as Sim the crooked mechanic, or the king of the Pentarchy who looks something like a clerk and likes to shop while invisible. Philo the gualdian (a race very similar to humans, but the eyes are different) and Josh the centaur are charming. The variation in this book is incredible--there are terrifying moments, serious ones, humorous episodes, and literally laugh-out-loud moments. (Picture a citadel of formerly sober and sedate monks doing the conga, and you'll see what I mean.) This is a book to be read once through for the story, once for the language, once to savor it, and several more times, merely because it deserves it. Enjoy, enjoy! And don't annoy any ether monkeys...