The Goon talks like Freddy from Cotillion, probably my favourite book by Georgette Heyer. For this reason, and because I often have a fondness for large, stupid people (especially when they're actually a lot cleverer than people think), the Goon is my favourite character. He's also surprisingly sweet, especially when you get to know his real motivations. The names! Archer, Dillian, Shine, Hathaway, Torquil, Erskine, Venturus. All actual names as far as I know, though all fairly unusual. But don't they look lovely and interesting all in a row there?

Meeting Erskine. This was one of the twists that surprised me. It gives a whole new layer to most of the previous interactions, as well as to the Goon's character. Howard’s family, comprising of Quentin, mum Catriona and little sister Awful (actual name Andrea), feels like any family you might know; they may have their arguments, but they are always there for each other, and the banter between them feels genuine. Everyone is imperfect in their own ways, but their dynamic together makes for excellent reading. Nice Guy: Hathaway is the only one of the siblings who comes across as a completely decent person, although some of the others are trying to improve. Also the characters are in a constant state of changing around in the eyes of the reader: who’s good, who’s bad, who has devious intents, WHO IS UP TO WHAT AND WHAT ON EARTH OR POSSIBLY OFF OF IT IS GOING ON??? O_O In 1992, the book was adapted as a six-part TV series by the BBC. [5] Of the experience, Diana Wynne Jones says: [6]

Tropes include:

The trouble started when Howard Sykes came home from school and found the "goon" sitting in the kitchen. He said he'd been sent by Archer. But who was Archer? It had to do with the 2,000 words that Howard's author father had failed to deliver. Basically it broke my brain, mixed impossible things together extraordinarily well, had mind-blowing plot twists (SERIOUS. PLOT. TWISTS. WOW. *flail*) and was exciting and breathtaking and downright HILARIOUS! The book is not perfect of course, and there are a couple of notes in particular that stand out reading it as an adult (the reasoning behind Fifi’s final actions in the book, and a couple of moments which feel somewhat like fatphobia spring to mind), but in general, the book is an appropriate read for older children.

While investigating, Howard and his sister Awful learn that their town is secretly controlled by seven mysterious siblings — Archer, Torquil, Dillian, Hathaway, Shine, Erskine, and Venturus — at least one of whom seems to be thinking in terms of "tomorrow, the world". The reveal of what’s actually going on in the town and with the missing words makes this a story that is well worth reading a second (or third!) time, so you can spot all the hints and piece together the clues – they’re subtle enough to miss on a first reading, but they are definitely there. The list of ten facts at the beginning. It's hilarious, and sets a good tone for the rest of the book. "When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight" indeed. (Only problem is, I never got #2: "Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch." Still don't. Is it some sort of vague reference to how many impossible things happen in this book? Cause "when pigs fly" means something impossible? Seems a little non-specific compared to the rest of the facts, though. Don't get it. EDIT: explained here; still don't completely get it; gonna have to sit down and figure it out sometime.) Archer's Goon is a 1984 fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones both for the young adult and adult markets. It was nominated for the 1985 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and is listed as an ALA Notable Children's Book, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book. Overnight Age-Up: When Howard and Awful visit the home of Venturus, which is in the future, they're both temporarily aged up into young adults until they leave.Part of that complexity is the sheer number of important characters present in the book. Not only do we have the seven siblings who "farm" Howard's town, we also have Howard's family, their live-in student Fifi, and Shine's bully boy Ginger Hind, and all of them have well-developed, interesting, but above all unique personalities. And never once do we forget who anyone is. DWJ does this with a few well-chosen quirks, but doesn't leave it at that. Torquil, for example, is a flamboyant, exaggerated character, but then Howard sees him in a moment of quiet that reveals his deeper sadness. Howard's sister Awful bears a striking resemblance to the vicious gangster Shine. And Archer, to his credit, actually cares about Fifi. Of them all, it's Howard whose character is the least well developed (or interesting) and it turns out that even that has a reason. Amnesiac Dissonance: Venturus spends over a decade in a new identity, with no memory of his former self. When he starts encountering evidence of what he used to be like, he doesn't approve. Or is the situation more complex than at first appears, and will the Sykes’ household of parents, son, daughter and student lodger each find they have a role to play, where their decisions and actions have unexpected consequences and their relationships be revealed as contrary to appearances? This seems to be one of her first books, and it really shows how much she has developed as a writer. The book, while not bad, sometimes loses it's drive and I can't really put my finger on why. Sometimes I just don't want to get things resolved or see how they could be. When some things are revealed, I would have liked the book to end, but it kept going and I didn't particularly care for the ending. I don't really feel that the Bad Guys who get dealt with in the end necessarily are the ones who should be punished. Dave Langford reviewed Archer's Goon for White Dwarf #63, and stated that "Mass). After this, things get complicated. Though one dodgy moral question goes unanswered, the ending is splendidly silly; Jones has written better books, but her inventiveness is a reminder that there's life in fantasy if you know where to look." [1]

Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Dillian is easily able to use her magic to charm Howard and Fifi, but Awful is simply too... awful.Family. It's all about family: dysfunctional, chaotic, funny, surprisingly loving and surprisingly heartless. Time travel is a constant theme in the author’s novels (most obviously in titles like The Time of the Ghost and A Tale of Time City) and so it proves here. Secondary Character Title: Neither Archer nor the Goon are the lead character. The Goon plays a large role but the protaganist and viewpoint character is Howard.

Writer Neil Gaiman has said that the novel is probably his "favourite children's book [he has] read as an adult." [4] Television adaptation [ edit ] There's this concept that I for some reason really love, where people stand for, or even are, ideas or abstractions in some sense. It's a similar idea to anthropomorphism. The Greek gods are a pretty good example of this; some of them are considered actual things, like Helios who is the sun, and and some just have qualities similar to the things and are generally in charge of the things, like Apollo the sun god. In this book, this is realized through the idea of "farming". The wizard siblings "farm" various town functions, like education and infrastructure and future related things, or music and entertainment and shopping and fun related things. What they farm seems related to their personalities and powers in some ways, and you could easily imagine Torquil, for example, as the "god of arts and entertainment". My love for abstraction and structure is quite strong, and trumps realism any day, and this idea is an important reason why I love this book so much. (Some of the other books I like for a similar reason are The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton, The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis, and Enchanted by Alethea Kontis. And I'm sure there are more I've forgotten.) Rereading this aloud was so FUN. Doing the voices etc. for this crazy cast of characters was fabulous. I also loved reading it a second time because this time I actually understood what was going on, after all those mindbending plot-twists in the first reading. A.k.a. IT WAS EVEN BETTER THE SECOND TIME AND I DIDN'T THINK THAT WAS POSSIBLE. I love the way Jones writes. She can put two words together and create magic: "unshaven growl"! "watching sarcastically"! When she's not creating awesome new word combinations, her writing is crisp and clear and so easy to drink down. And this might be a kids' book (my library put it under Juvenile), but I didn't feel like she was dumbing anything down. The accurate representation of authors was the greatest thing ever. Quentin was stereotypical but not so much so that he got annoying, and he was still very real and unique. He was one of my favorites.Sam početak romana, prvih recimo pet-šest strana (jer sve dalje od toga zalazi u teritoriju spojlera) deluje kao Harold Pinter za decu. Trinaestogodišnji junak dolazi kući iz škole i u kuhinji zatiče osobu koja se predstavlja kao "Arčerov siledžija". Osoba izgleda kao Vini Džouns, samo je trideset santimetara viši i srazmerno širi. I došao je zato što junakov otac njegovom gazdi (za koga nikad nije čuo a kamoli poslovao s njim) duguje dve hiljade. I sedeće u kuhinji dok ne dobije te dve hiljade (hint: nisu funte u pitanju). Consider this a more cheerful version of Jones' Eight Days of Luke with a hint of Gaiman's Endless thrown into the mix. Seven powerful wizards control Howard's town, and he and his family visit each of them, trying to free themselves from their meddling, eavesdropping ways. It's got a quest, fantastic events, and a strong sense of family. Creative subjects, in the form of literature, music and the arts vie with science and technology, to the ultimate detriment of the latter, in philosophical terms at least. It turns out that seven individuals, siblings all, are vying for total control of the world, having already farmed out among themselves various bits of city administration. It’s up to 13-year-old Howard, his younger sister Anthea (known as “Awful”), the mum Catriona and student Fifi (who must be a nod to the Fiona to whom the novel is dedicated) to discover how to resolve matters. And it’s urgent: the siblings have laid siege to No 10 Upper Park Road with music torture and continuous road excavations in an attempt to convince Quentin to yield up his 2000 words. Archer’s Goon is the complex plot of a town secretly administered by a mafia of seven wizard siblings – Archer, Shine, Dillian, Hathaway, Torquil, Erskine and Venturus – who extract a tax from every aspect of the town’s life and commerce.