Archer's Goon [Hardcover]

Diana Wynne Jones (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

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.

It soon became clear not only that Archer wanted those words, but that his wizard siblings, Hathaway, Dillian, Shine, Torquil, Erskine, and Venturus, would also go to any lengths to get them.

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.

Diana Wynne Jones skillfully guides the reader through a riveting, twisty plot, with satisfying surprises at every amazing turn. An exciting science fiction adventure where, happily, nothing is what it first seems to be.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Wickedly witty...a very funny, very suspenseful astral tale. (Publishers Weekly )

Unpredictable and spiced with unexpected humor...Archers Goon leaves readers wanting more. (starred review) (School Library Journal )

A gloriously full-blown fantasy of brilliant dimensions . . . Jones humor and wit are as subtly riotous as ever. (ALA Booklist )

The writing in Archers Goon is fine and the scenes and characters fresh and well-drawn (Washington Post Book World )

Hilarious fantasy. (Horn Book Magazine )

A highly original fantasy...A most intriguing book. (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books )

About the Author

Diana Wynne Jones was raised in the village of Thaxted, in Essex, England. She has been a compulsive storyteller for as long as she can remember enjoying most ardently those tales dealing with witches, hobgoblins, and the like. Ms. Jones lives in Bristol, England, with her husband, a professor of English at Bristol University. They have three sons and two granddaughters. In Her Own Words...

"I decided to be a writer at the age of eight, but I did not receive any encouragement in this ambition until thirty years later. I think this ambition was fired-or perhaps exacerbated is a better word-by early marginal contacts with the Great, when we were evacuated to the English Lakes during the war. The house we were in had belonged to Ruskin's secretary and had also been the home of the children in the books of Arthur Ransome. One day, finding I had no paper to draw on, I stole from the attic a stack of exquisite flower-drawings, almost certainly by Ruskin himself, and proceeded to rub them out. I was punished for this. Soon after, we children offended Arthur Ransome by making a noise on the shore beside his houseboat. He complained. So likewise did Beatrix Potter, who lived nearby. It struck me then that the Great were remarkably touchy and unpleasant (even if, in Ruskin's case, it was posthumous), and I thought I would like to be the same, without the unpleasantness.

"I started writing children's books when we moved to a village in Essex where there were almost no books. The main activities there were hand-weaving, hand-making pottery, and singing madrigals, for none of which I had either taste or talent. So, in intervals between trying to haunt the church and sitting on roofs hoping to learn to fly, I wrote enormous epic adventure stories which I read to my sisters instead of the real books we did not have. This writing was stopped, though, when it was decided I must be coached to go to University. A local philosopher was engaged to teach me Greek and philosophy in exchange for a dollhouse (my family never did things normally), and I eventually got a place at Oxford.

"At this stage, despite attending lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, I did not expect to be writing fantasy. But that was what I started to write when I was married and had children of my own. It was what they liked best. But small children do not allow you the use of your brain. They used to jump on my feet to stop me thinking. And I had not realized how much I needed to teach myself about writing. I took years to learn, and it was not until my youngest child began school that I was able to produce a book which a publisher did not send straight back.

"As soon as my books began to be published, they started coming true. Fantastic things that I thought I had made up keep happening to me. The most spectacular was Drowned Ammet. The first time I went on a boat after writing that book, an island grew up out of the sea and stranded us. This sort of thing, combined with the fact that I have a travel jinx, means that my life is never dull."

Diana Wynne Jones is the author of many highly praised books for young readers, as well as three plays for children and a novel for adults. She lives in Bristol, England, with her husband, a professor of English at Bristol University. They have three sons.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books (February 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060298898
• ISBN-13: 978-0060298890
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #471,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How can this be? How CAN this be?, December 10, 1999

By 

"fantasyfan" (Sandy, UT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Archer's Goon (Paperback)

This is one of Jones's best. With an incredibly surprising ending--and its anticlimax that is almost as good. One of the best and most captivating beginnings in existence. Incredible characters, from stubborn Quentin Sykes to the Goon himself to our minor but no less valuable and amusing Fifi. Awful is one of the best children I have ever read (the way she's portrayed, not the way she behaves) and Howard is an incredibly simple, yet complicated character.

DIANA WYNNE JONES IS ONE OF THE BEST AUTHORS IN EXISTENCE. READ ALL HER BOOKS--NO FOOLING< NO JOKING< NO LIES--THEN BUY THEM ALL--DITTO.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A clever story filled with magic and realism, June 12, 2003

By 

Glen Engel Cox (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Archer's Goon (Hardcover)

I had been wanting to read Archer's Goon for quite some time, following my discovery of Jones' Chrestomanci series and generally feeling that she was my type of writer, something that hadn't been dispelled by the enjoyment of a couple of her other novels like Eight Days of Luke and Howl's Moving Castle (which, I believe, is soon to be a motion picture). But Archer's Goon had been originally published in 1984 and no one had seen fit to bring it back into print. I searched in vain at used book stores while at the same time refusing to pay for overpriced copies over the Internet.

Then J.K. Rowling happened (the analogy to a force of nature is intended), and young adult novels with magic in them have returned to the bestseller lists and the bookshelves. HarperCollins likely combed through their backlist to find this, and I'm glad they did, for it finally gave me an affordable chance to read this novel.

The anticipation was well worth it, too. The book starts immediately with the introduction of the Goon of the title (an oversized ogre of a man) crowding the Sykes household, which consists of the protagonist Howard, aged 13; his little sister Awful; their live-in sitter Fifi; their father Quentin, a writer; and their mother Catriona, a music teacher. Archer sent the Goon there to collect 2,000 words from Quentin, something that Archer...and Archer's brothers and sisters...believe is keeping them from ruling the world. Wait? What was that again?

Yes, Archer is a wizard, and so is the rest of his family. But none of them trust the others, although they've divided the town up into different areas that each of them "farm": for example, Shine controls crime, Torquil music, Dillian law and order, Erskine the sewers, and Archer controls electricity and gas. But one of them is keeping the others from branching out and controlling the world, and it has something to do with those 2,000 words that Howard's father Quentin provides every month. Unfortunately, Quentin refuses to write those words for any of those people--not wanting to help them take over the world--and the wizards begin causing all sorts of problems for the Sykes family very quickly.

The pleasure of Jones' books is how the magic is integrated as a natural part of her worlds. While the characters who aren't magicians still see the magic as surprising, they quickly come to accept and even understand it. In the context of a children's book, such ready acceptance of the irrational mirrors the arbitrary world around young people, which oftentimes seems, if not actually is, illogical: Why can't I stay out late? Why don't we ever see dad's brothers for holidays? Why don't we always let the answering machine answer the phone, even when we are here?

Archer's Goon has plenty of twists in it, as Howard and Awful learn more about the world around them, including how their parents react to each other and the two of them, not to mention the secret of the Goon. I recommend this one highly.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Totally fun (and not outta print anymore!), February 5, 2004

By 

Christa Carlson "bookzinator" (Moorpark, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Archer's Goon (Paperback)

This book was way fun to read, full of humor, magic and character. Amazing to think that when Diana Wynne Jones wrote this even SHE didn't know what was going to happen.

Howard Sykes comes home one day to find a goon- a huge dirty guy, anyway- sitting in his kitchen, saying that he comes from Archer, and refusing to move until he gets the 2000 words Howard's father owes him.

But the words got misplaced by Fifi, a college student who stays at the Sykes's house. So Fifi, Howard and Howard's little sister, Awful (who can live up to her name at times) go to find it.

Well, one thing leads to another and they soon find out that the whole town is run by 7 wizards (who are all related).

For me to give you a play by play here would take too long, but if you're thinking of reading this or just looking for a great book to read, I HIGHLY recommend this.