This is a collection of mainly short fiction with one novella. The introduction by DWJ tells about the genesis of the stories and some at least were written to explore how a character in a traditional tale might feel; hence 'The Girl who Loved the Sun' is written to explore why characters in mythology are turned into trees or animals - which she felt must be because at some level they wanted to be.

I had read two of the stories before and wasn't that taken with them especially with 'The Master' which just reads like the account of a dream and has no real conclusion. 'The Sage of Theare' is a minor puzzle set in the Chrestomanci worlds featuring him as a minor character and with a somewhat inconclusive ending.

'Dragon Reserve, Home Eight' could again be set in the multiverse of Chrestomanci as a group of worlds are defended by punitive rulers who execute anyone who has psychic abilities - but it then turns out that those abilities - which include being able to communicate with dragons - are the only thing that can defend them against aliens who run amok and capture the population as slaves.

'What the Cat told me' is an odd story told from a cat's POV, said cat having been used as a tool by a black magician - so this is the tale of how it helped a boy in its own self satisfied cat way and the outcome. 'nad and Dan adn Quafly' is a daft story about a writer whose word processor becomes a conduit to a male rebellion against a female space faring dictatorship. I actually disliked that one whereas the others were so-so.

The best item in the collection, though I still won't be keeping it, is the novella which concludes it - 'The True State of Affairs'. This, DWJ's introduction reveals, was a story for adults inspired by reading the account by James I of Scotland of how he wiled away his time while imprisoned by watching a young woman who he always saw in the distance and never spoke to and afterwards never considered again. DWJ wrote this as an exploration of how the recipient might have felt. So the ending is sort of given away in the intro. But the interest in the story is its character development as the female prisoner writes down her feelings and experience on paper that is granted her by her jailors.

We soon learn that she should not be locked in a turret room in a fortress with only a small yard outside for exercise because she was arrested in the mistaken belief that she was someone else called Hilda. When it became clear that she wasn't, she remained in prison because it was felt that she must be a supporter of Hilda's although they seem to think she is from 'the north'. Gradually it becomes clear that the country in which she finds herself is a fantasy one split into different regions and that there is rebellion by oppressed areas against a couple of tyrants.

The prisoner, Emily, who is from Kent in our world, soon realises that there is a male prisoner across the way on the far side of a deep drop - a man she can only see by standing in a certain area of her exercise yard and he also has to appear within a narrow area to be seen. His bearing and appearance make a deep impression on her and she ends up having a secret correspondence with him on scraps of paper carried by an oblidging serf, against a background of the continuing conflict outside their jail and the other man's role in it. For it becomes clear that he is an important leader of the resistence.

The characterisation is interesting: despite Emily's loathing of the chief of her jailors, Wolfram, who is related to one of the tyrants, she eventually comes to see that he is a deeply unhappy man and even to have sympathy for him although this is almost her undoing. The small cast of characters are well delineated and all the various vissitudes of confinement. The only thing that I found a bit of a let down is that the ending, although 'obvious', lacks a real sense of closure: we are left not knowing not only how Emily has got to this world but also how she can get home. And because it is slipped in very late in the tale that this is Dalemark (but I think probably quite different to the Dalemark series written much later - for a start, these people worship Norse gods) it also raises the question of whether Dalemark also forms part of the multiverse that features so much in a lot of DWJ's other fiction. Anyway, I enjoyed that story much more than anything else in the book and it was an interesting insight into the kind of thing that DWJ could have written more of if there had been receptive publishers/agents - in the intro, she tells how an agent she sent it to told her some years later that she hadn't bothered to read it as no one wanted to read this fantasy stuff and DWJ should really give up writing!

Overall this rates at 3 stars. ( )

I wanted to love this book. Short stories have such potential, and Jones has such power in her writing as a general rule. But I found that these typically fell flat - that they weren't the stories that she necessarily wanted told, but that they need writing so that she could get on to the next thing. Or maybe they were the indulgences that she allowed herself between writing semi-successful populist literature.

Either way, I struggled. I struggled with most of the stories, and the very last (novella length, I'm guessing) I struggled the most. A tedious story, with no obvious redeeming features, and characters that it seemed the author fell more in love with as the story progressed, as I came more and more to have no sympathy for any other than the viewpoint character.

Having said that, there are some interesting conceits. 'What the Cat Told Me' has a great underlying idea, and the denouement wouldn't work without the rambling that happens before. "The Sage Of Theare', for all that it has metaphysical underpinnings, and a setting in the world of Chrestomanci just irritated me, and the weird tech hate/gender hate of 'nad and Dan adn Quaffy' just about had me rehoming the book unfinished.

This one quite likely to be rehomed. ( )

I had read nearly all of the stories in this collection before (and didn't reread them), with the exception of "The True State of Affairs".

It's a novella in the form of the diary of an imprisoned young English woman who has somehow ended up in another world, where she has been mistaken for someone else. (It's set in Dalemark, or perhaps a proto-Dalemark, kind of like how The Hobbit isn't set in quite the same Middle-earth as The Lord of the Rings is.)

Emily describes her imprisonment, her interactions with her jailors and the other prisoner, and what she knows about the conflict unfolding beyond the castle's walls. It's surprising gripping, partly because of the circumstances and partly because of the vividness of Emily's voice. I found parts of it disquieting - but I was hooked.

And then I was intensely disappointed by the abrupt ending.

And yet, that the ending felt true to the story, and that felt important. Especially for a story that is about truth.

When I got this paper, I had a fancy that I would write great things and spend my pends discovering truths. I would love to. I have a feeling that truths are gathering at the back of my head, ready to burst through. But they will not burst. The dreary trivia of prison air are too much for them. I am bound to the minute perpetually, and, besides, I am not one of those who finds it easy to think in grand abstractions, and I find it even more difficult to set them down clearly. ( )

This is a signed copy of a collection of short stories that Diana Wynne Jones compliled with an explanation of how she came to write and publish them. Content:
- Introduction
1. The Sage of Theare - a Chrestomanci short story in which a Sage of Dissolution is born into an orderly world run by Gods that do not want change. They try to stop the prophecy coming true by taking the boy to another world, but the prophecies efficiently happen anyway, and Chrestomanci steps in to save the day!
2. The Master - dream about an experiment with wolves gone wrong
3. The girl who loved the sun - an origin myth about the beech tree
4. Dragon reserve, home eight - Science fiction/fantasy story of a universe where the dragonate, protectors of a number of planets, also carry out witch hunts to find and execute Hegs - people with special abilities. One dragonate party arrives on the matriarchal world of Home eight to follow up reports of a Heg girl, but end up needing her help and the help of the dragons on the local dragon reserve to repel the Thrallers - slavers who enthrall their captives with their special abilities
5. What the cat told me - amusing tale of an enchanted & enchanting cat trapped into service to an old magician along with a young red-headed boy. The cat and boy become good friends and help each other escape the magician's power.
6. nad and Dan adn Quaffy - Typing mistakes as inspiration for parallel universe adventure for a writer who is contacted through her wordprocessor by a rebellious slave in a matriarchal universe.
7. The true state of affairs - a novella - set in Dalemark, but without any characters I recognized from the quartet. Written in an interesting style in which a woman, Emily, from England has been held captive in a tower and through her diary relates her experience and relationship with Asgrim held prisoner across the way. I enjoyed the developing story, but the end was rather unsatisfactory, as there is no clue as to what she did after she learns Asgrim has escaped, taken control of the lands and married Hilda, whom had duped Emily in the first place to become captured. I understand that the novella was based on Emily's diary and the story ended obviously when she stopped writing, but would have been nice to know how she even got there in the first place and if there was any way she could leave. Oh well, it had its moments. ( )

This book contains a number of short stories and one novella. The bulk of it was compelling reading as always. The novella felt like it should have really been a novel because the end was unsatisfyingly abrupt. ( )