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Archer’s Goon

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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. The rest of the plot is far too convoluted to briefly summarise, nor is it desirable to indicate how it may ultimately resolved; all we’re aware of is that it’s up to Howard, who dreams of designing spaceships, to investigate — with both help and obstacles from Archer’s Goon — and that the teenager is somehow key to all the mysteries. Weird Tales reviewer John Gregory Betancourt praised the novel as "a witty little urban fantasy [and] a delight to read." [3]

The Goon takes Howard to see Mountjoy, who reveals that the town is secretly run by seven wizard siblings: Archer, Shine, Dillian, Hathaway, Torquil, Erskine, and Venturus. Each one "farms" some aspects of the town's life and industry (for a list, see below). Mountjoy has instructions from an unknown superior to post the words but does not know who the actual recipient is.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.

Much of the action takes place in a town not too dissimilar to Bristol, the author’s home town, clues coming from (for example) street names like Corn Street, Zed Alley, Woodland Terrace, and Park Row (disguised as Upper Park Street).It’s 1983, and the Sykes family find themselves at the centre of a conspiracy of squabbling siblings who plan to ‘farm’ the world; can Quentin Sykes, the father and a struggling author, stand up against the malevolent forces who besiege the family house and seek to use the power of the written word for nefarious purposes? This six-part children’s sci-fi comedy-thriller series was based on the fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones and won the BAFTA Award for Children’s Programmes in 1993. Overall, Archer’s Goon is a witty, fantastical tale about family and identity, the difficult choice between doing what’s right and what’s easy, and how to stop a group of magical megalomaniacs from taking over the world. Howard gets his own bullet because he was just awesome. I liked how he was both similar and different than Blade from Dark Lord Of Derkholm? Although that revelation at the end... yeah. More about that later. 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?

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 One day, the Sykes family are disturbed to find the intimidating Goon (Morgan Jones) in their kitchen, demanding two thousand words of gibberish that Quentin apparently owes to Archer.

See also

Torquil is probably my second favourite character after the Goon. It's the surprising depth that does it, especially after meeting the other siblings. Although Shine is so distinctive that she holds a high place in my list of favourite characters as well. Although each wizard ruled a section of the town, he or she was a prisoner in it. Each suspected that one of them held the secret behind the words, and that secret was the key to their freedom. Which one of them was it? The Sykes family become pawns in the wizards' fight to win their freedom, wrest control from one another, and fan out to rule the world. EAN: 9780688025823], [SC: 25.34], [PU: New York: Greenwillow Books, 1984. dj], WIZARDS, CHILDREN'S FANTASY, TIME PARADOXES, ALTERNATE WORLDS, HARDCOVER FIRST EDITION - AND ILLUSTRATED NO… More... drugi, treći i četvrti nivo su, međutim, fantastika u stilu Dajane Vin Džouns, što će reći atipična i komplikovana za praćenje i urnebesno duhovita i istovremeno rovari po nekim solidno ozbiljnim problemima identiteta i porodične dinamike i i i. 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.

MacGuffin: The 2000 words. They do nothing, Venturus set them up to mislead the others and to give his adoptive father tax-free income.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. 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] DVD - contains all 6 episodes Digitally Remastered directly from the original studio mastertapes, this has to be seen to be believed! 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.

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