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by: Diana Wynne Jones
Amazon.com's Price: $6.99 Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
EAN: 9780064473361
ISBN: 0064473368
Label: HarperTeen
Manufacturer: HarperTeen
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Date: April 01, 2001
Publisher: HarperTeen
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Release Date: April 10, 2001
Sales Rank: 121090
Studio: HarperTeen
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Mr. Chesney operates Pilgrim Parties, a tour group that takes paying participants into an outer realm where the inhabitants play frightening and foreboding roles. The time has come to end the staged madness . . . but can it really be stopped? Master storyteller Diana Wynne Jones serves up twists and turns, introduces Querida, Derk, Blade, and Shona and a remarkable cast of wizards, soldiers, kings, dragons, and griffins, and mixes in a lively dash of humor. With all the ingredients of high fantasy, this unforgettable novel will delight fans old and new.
Amazon.com Review:
If, next door to our ordinary world, there existed a world full of magic, wouldn't you want to visit it? That's the situation that Diana Wynne Jones explores in Dark Lord of Derkholm, and she makes an effective and comical tale of it.
Groups of tourists, called Pilgrim Parties and organized by the cold-hearted profiteer Mr. Chesney, take a portal to the magical realm, where they are shepherded about the countryside by a wizard guide. Mr. Chesney sets the rules, such as that all wizard guides must have long white beards--even 14-year-old Blade--and every Party gets to 'slay' the Dark Lord. No wizard wants to be chosen as the year's Dark Lord, because Mr. Chesney demands large battles that cause great devastation in the local villages and farms, and he doesn't pay very well, but he does have a captive demon to enforce his will. This year, things are going especially badly for the chosen Dark Lord, Derk. He can't seem to keep his evil forces on the right track, despite help from his son Blade, his daughter Shona the bard, and his griffin sons and daughters. His chief aide, Barnabas, is drinking heavily and muddling his spells. And the dwarfs are taking their baskets of gold as tribute to the one they say is the real Dark Lord--Mr. Chesney.
Jones spoofs many of the trappings of fantasy epics, while at the same time portraying a family, with its surface squabbles and underlying love, through a rollicking and somewhat unwieldy story. Her messages about exploitation and responsibility come through clearly. Although not as tightly focused as some of her earlier novels, the galloping pace makes Dark Lord of Derkholm a quick, fun read for her numerous fans. --Blaise Selby
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Even fantasy realms don't appreciate Ugly Americans
DARK LORD OF DERKHOLM falls somewhere in between being a send-up of the heroic fantasy quest genre and being a bit of the actual thing itself. Either way, it's a good read. Even as I ticked off the satiric elements, I couldn't help but be drawn into the terrific story and its huge cast and, more specifically, to the central characters, this neat family of wizards and griffins. It's for sure convinced me to look up its sequel The Year of the Griffin (Gollancz S.F.).
Alarmingly, for this ... Read More
Rating: - Slow start, but good ending
In hindsight, Dark Lord of Derkholm is a great book with a fully realized enviornment and a great plot. In the beginning, the introduction of the tours, it's effect, and all these characters including Derk and his Creations can be a little bit confusing, but will settle in over time when you start to realize the difference between Calette and Mara. It feels like the story travels through several stories, including the fight against Mr. Chesney, the preparation for the tours, an Blade's journey with ... Read More
Rating:  - Fun & fascinating
A wonderful place to spend some time. This is a book I give out to friends - it's a great read and thought provoking too. One of her best (that's saying a lot).
Rating: - A Great Fantasy - very funny, while being an exciting page turner
I was shocked to see several truely awful reviews for a book I consider a masterpiece. It is very funny, while at the same time utterly gripping. Certainly the fact that it is simultainously a spoof and a high fantasy confuses some readers, but that is the delight of the book. I laughed and cried (literally). I have read it twice and my 13 year old son has read it at least three times (once a year). Although he has already devoured every fantasy (and quite a few nonfantasys) imaginable, he keeps ... Read More
Rating:  - If you laugh when someone slips on a banana and gets hurt, this book is for you.
This is the fictional version of Jones' Tough Guide to Fantasyland. I enjoyed that book. Not this one, though. It is over 500 pages of sadism which, apparently, is supposed to be funny. It is not.
I absolutely would not allow a child to read it and I would be suspicious of any adult who enjoyed it.
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