Philip Pullman - Clockwork

Approximate Read Time: Less than an hour

Series: No

Illustrations: Yes! Beautiful, cloudy, misty illustrations by Leonid Gore that have poignant moments of clarity.

Point of View: Third person narrator who seems to be directly telling the story to the reader based on the forward note, and several sentences scattered throughout the story.

Summary: The note before the story sets the mood and directives for the rest of the story. It basically describes clockwork with all of its gears and cogs and differentiates it from modern clockwork which seems more mysterious and less understandable. It also describes how even though gears and cogs are solid understandable pieces they are still enigmatic, especially when they are put together and the pieces make the clock work until the time is all wound down.

We are introduced to Karl, the apprentice clockmaker; his master; Fritz, the writer; and Gretl, the daughter of the innkeeper. Karl is in a dark mood because it is the night before he is expected to reveal his grand project, his addition to the great clock. Fritz begins to tell a story called 'Clockwork' (The title of the book!), but he is also nervous because he hasn't actually finished the ending of the story.

Fritz's story is about an incident at a palace that was hushed up. A sledge of horses races into the palace courtyard driven by Prince Otto whose arm keeps whipping them forward even though Prince Otto is discernibly dead. His son, Prince Florian is found in the back of the sledge unharmed. The palace physician who goes to inspect the elder prince discovers that his heart has been taken out and replaced with clockwork, which kept the prince's arm moving even though he was dead. There are many unknown secrets - what happened to the companion Baron Stelgratz who had accompanied the two princes, and what happened exactly to Prince Otto. The physician thinks that Dr. Kalmenius a famous clockmaker can explain what has happened to the prince. The description of Dr. Kalmenius is dark and ominous and in the middle of Fritz's description, a man interrupts the story by opening the inn door.

The man matches Fritz's description of Dr. Kalmenius exactly. The townspeople leave the inn in fear and the only one left is Karl. Karl and Dr. Kalmenius talk and Karl reveals that he has made nothing for the big celebration the next day. Dr. Kalmenius offers to help and gives him a metal clock figure, Sir Ironsoul, an armored knight holding a sword. Karl speaks a certain word, 'devil' and the knight begins to try to kill him. The only thing that stops him is when Dr. Kalmenius whistles the tune 'The Flowers of Lapland'. Dr. Kalmenius leaves, and Karl goes to prepare the clocktower.

Gretl comes into the main room of the inn cold, and sleepless because of Fritz's unfinished story. She unknowingly says the word 'devil' and Sir Ironsoul moves in for the kill.

Part two tells what really happened to Prince Otto. When he married, an heir was expected, but for a long time, no child was conceived. When the Princess finally gave birth, the baby died immediately. Prince Otto takes the child with him to Dr. Kalmenius and the Dr. creates a masterpiece of clockwork that looks just like the dead baby. The baby is named Prince Florian and all goes well until the clockwork boy is five years old and starts to run down. Prince Otto takes the young prince to Dr. Kalmenius and Dr. Kalmenius tells Prince Otto that Prince Florian needs a heart and Prince Otto immediately runs out before the Dr. can tell him the most important part "the heart that is given must also be kept". Prince Otto thinks that he has found the solution, Baron Stelgratz is loyal to the royal family, so without telling the Baron the reason why, he takes him and Prince Florian to Dr. Kalmenius. On the way, ravening wolves threaten to overtake the sleigh and Baron Stelgratz sacrifices himself to save the two princes. Prince Otto realizes that there is nothing to do but continue and ends up convincing the Dr. to transfer Otto's heart to Florian and putting a small mechanical device into Otto's heart to drive Florian back home. Prince Florian is well again, but within five years, he starts to run down again. Everyone remembers that going into the woods made him well again the last time it happened, but they also remember that neither of his companions made it back, so nobody wants to bring him. A groom is paid to drive the prince to a hunting lodge, but puts Prince Florian out before reaching the lodge and tells the prince to walk. Prince Florian walks and makes his way to an inn, his clockwork running down. When he opens the door, he sings his last song....

Which is of course, 'The Flowers of Lapland'. Sir Ironsoul is stopped and Gretl is saved. Gretl realizes that the clockwork boy is Prince Florian and that Fritz needs to finish the story and sort things out, so she goes to find him. Karl comes back and sees not only Sir Ironsoul, but also the prince and realizing that the Prince is of much better quality than Sir Ironsoul decides to put the prince in the clocktower and keep Sir Ironsoul for himself. In the meantime, Gretl speaks to Fritz and Fritz avows that he 'wound the story up' but it would need to finish itself out. Back at the inn, Karl accidentally says the trigger word and is killed by Sir Ironsoul. Gretl comes back to discover Karl dead, Sir Ironsoul unmoving, and Prince Florian missing. She goes to find him in the clocktower and stays with him. The next day the townspeople discover Karl dead and go to wait with morbid curiosity at the clocktower to see Karl's addition. Two children are seen but it is soon discovered that neither of them is clockwork. The story is 'wound up' nicely by explaining some of the finer wording and what happens to various other characters.

Favorite Characters: Gretl and Prince Florian, together.
Stuff I wanted to know more about: What happens to Gretl, Florian, and the Dr.? A sequel would not be amiss.
Other Notes: The story is short, nicely illustrated and stands well at it's length and amount of detail, although more details could have been added to enrich the story without doing any harm.
5/5

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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

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