Dark Lord of Derkholm
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award 1999.
What does it feel like to have your world devastated once a year by offworld tourists?
Not good. Querida, High Chancellor of the wizards' university, has received more than a million letters from wizards, farmers, soldiers,elves, dragons and kings, all begging her to put a stop to Mr Chesney's Pilgrim Parties. But Mr Chesney has his orders enforced by a powerful demon. Querida takes a priest, a thief and another wizard to consult the Oracles. The first person you see, they are told, must be this year's DarkLord and the second person must be Wizard Guide to the last tour. And the first two people they see are Wizard Derk and his son Blade.
What does it feel like to suddenly have to be Dark Lord?
Dreadful. Wizard Derk, who has spent much of his life peacefully breeding griffins, winged horses, flying pigs, nylon plants and intelligent geese,is horrified to find out he has to rebuild his house as an evil fortress and knock down the nearby village because Mr Chesney wants him to. He is even more upset when Mr Chesney orders Derk's wife Mara to become this year's Evil Enchantress.
What does it feel like when most of your brothers and sisters are griffins?
Interesting. Blade and Shona, Derk's human children, share their home with five griffins. Two of them are enormous and Kit, who is the biggest of them all, has a somewhat uncertain temper. But when Derk has an accident with a dragon, all his children, human and griffin, are forced to do the Dark Lord's work for their father. Things do not go well.
What does it feel like to be Wizard Guide to a Pilgrim Party?
Frantic. When Blade at last gets to conduct his party of offworld people around the continent, he is almost glad when Shona decides to come too. Even so, things go from bad to worse, until it seems unlikely that even Querida can help.
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Diana Wynne Jones
Long before fantasy became mainstream, Diana Wynne Jones was quietly rewriting its rules—building magical worlds that felt both whimsical and wise, mischievous and deeply human. Her stories didn’t just sparkle with enchantment; they carried a quiet intelligence that dared young readers to think deeper, look sideways, and always expect the unexpected.
Born in London in 1934, Jones grew up amid wartime evacuations and an often-chaotic household—experiences that would later inform the strange, shifting families and fractured realities in her fiction. She studied English at Oxford under tutors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, though she later remarked she learned more by not imitating them. Instead, she carved out her own voice: lyrical but grounded, funny but never flippant, magical yet steeped in emotional truth.
Derkholm
Derkholm consists of two books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
