Diana Wynne Jones - Conrad's Fate

Approximate read time: Couple hours

Series: Chrestomanci

Illustrations: none

Point of View: first person, you are Conrad Tesdinic

There are a lot of details that I haven't written about and subplots that I haven't gotten into, so of course, the book is much more exciting than this dry, straightforward summary. There are probably spoilers ahead.

Summary: Conrad lives in an old bookshop with his sister, Anthea; mother, Franconia; and uncle, Alfred. He constantly thinks about Stallery Mansion, especially when items in his world shift. For example, red mailboxes turn into blue mailboxes and sometimes things disappear entirely. The shifting is due to someone in Stallery Mansion 'pulling probabilities' or manipulating the world in order to make money. His sister, Anthea, leaves the house to go to a university, and his home life becomes more uncomfortable without her care because his mother mostly ignores him to write books and his uncle does expensive magician things. When Conrad decides that he wants to go to high school, his uncle puts a stop to that idea by telling him that he has bad karma and that in a past life he must not have killed someone he was supposed to kill. If he doesn’t fix his karma, his uncle says that he will die within the year. The way to avoid that, according to his uncle, is to find the person he didn’t kill but was supposed to and do away with them with the aid of a cork turned into a magical device that Conrad’s uncle gives to Conrad. Conrad’s uncle arranges for him to apply for a job up at the mansion because according to his magic that is where the fated person lives.

On the way to the mansion, Conrad meets Christopher (who is featured in several other DWJ books). Mr. Amos, the butler arranges for both Conrad and Christopher to be Improvers, trainees for a valet position to Count Robert. The boys are kept busy doing pageboy duties for Mr. Amos and learning to be valets. They wait on the odious countess, mother to Count Robert and Lady Felice. Christoper slowly gives hints that he is from a different series (multiple universe type deal) and can do magic. He finally ends up telling Conrad his entire situation and that he is looking for his friend Millie (also featured in several other DWJ books) who has run away from a boarding school in his own series and somehow gotten lost in Conrad's series.

Conrad is having no luck looking for the person he is supposed to kill, so he assists in Christopher's search. The shifting continues and things keep changing. Some people are incapable of feeling or seeing the change but the boys finally discover a doorway that appears in one of the shifts and step through to discover a completely different landscape than what should be there. The boys continue to step into different worlds when a shift happens, and frantically try to find their way out and make sense of the shifting and the different environments they find themselves in. In one of the different environments they briefly glimpse Millie, but end up losing her.

When they get back to their own world they find that Anthea, Conrad's sister has been hired to do librarian duties at Stallery Mansion, and that Count Robert and Anthea are in a relationship. Anthea explains several key things to Conrad and Uncle Alfred starts looking more like a malignant character. Anthea and Christopher persuade Conrad to use the cork now while it's safe even though he hasn't got any idea who the person he is supposed to kill is. The cork summons a Walker and the walker exchanges a corkscrew with a key handle for Conrad's cork talisman. Conrad and Christoper use the corkscrew key to get into the wine cellar, the only place they are unable to explore during their search for Millie. In the wine cellar they find the computer console where the button to control the shifts (a shift key, of course) resides. They press the shift key and confirm that it does indeed cause the shifts. They also discover that Mr. Amos (the only person who has access to the wine cellar) has an accomplice who tries to speak to them after they press the shift key.

Stallery Mansion is hosting a bunch of guests, so a lot of actors have been hired to fill in as extra servants. A King's Courier and entourage has come to visit Stallery Mansion, but the countess turns them away. The mansion shifts even more than before, and Christopher gets Conrad to cover for him as he goes to search for Millie before she gets lost in the maze of the shifting worlds forever. Millie, however, manages to get instructions from Christopher and find her way to Conrad and starts to pose as one of the maids.

Things start come to the final escalation when all of the countess' guests are gathered and the King's Courier crashes the party. Gabriel DeWitt, the Chrestomanci (the overseer of magic for all series) shows up to sort out the reason why the shifts are happening and to find Christopher and Millie. He announces that there have been so many probability shifts that Conrad's series, series 7, is about to merge with the series on either side of it. Mr. Amos is revealed to be the actual count, who wanted to restore Stallery Mansion to grandeur. In order to do that he hired an actor to take his place and took hands on charge of the household as butler, and shifted probabilites to favor him and his designs for Stallery Mansion.

Conrad, Christopher, and Millie gather together and try to escape Gabriel DeWitt's notice. They head to Conrad's family's bookshop to get something for Millie. Conrad runs into his uncle on the way out and his uncle reveals that he had intended for Conrad to kill Amos Tesdinic so that he could have Stallery Mansion and control of pulling the probabilities. Conrad calls the walker and the corkscrew key disappears along with his Uncle Alfred. Gabriel DeWitt takes Conrad back with him, Christopher, and Millie to get magical training. A few paragraphs of epilogue about what happens to all of the other important but less written about characters concludes.

Favorite Characters: none

Stuff I wanted to know more about: Conrad mentions other enchanters training at Chrestomanci Castle, is there an in between book that is about them? Also, I vaguely remember from other Chrestomanci books that Gabriel DeWitt is an old fuddy duddy, but this story doesn’t refresh on the reasons –why- he is, just says that he is. Karma seems to be an important topic, but it is only mentioned very briefly here and there, mostly with Conrad bemoaning his bad karma, and Christopher telling him that there's no such thing and if there is Conrad's doesn't feel bad. At the end, Karma seems to be highly important and the Lords of Karma are mentioned - I feel as if this must be expanded upon in another DWJ book otherwise there would be a more in depth explanation in this book.

Other Notes: This story doesn’t stand alone well. The characters are much more intriguing and filled out if you have read the other stories that they are in.

3/5

Want to buy it on Amazon?