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The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones
The Blurb On The Back:
"You are now a discard. We have no further use for you in play. You are free to walk the Bounds, but it will be against the rules for you to enter play in any world. If you succeed in returning Home, then you may enter play again in the normal manner."
When Jamie discovers the sinister, dark-cloaked Them playing with human's lives, he is cast out to the boundaries of the worlds. Clinging to Their promise that if he can get Home he is free, he becomes an unwilling Random Factor in Their deadly, eternal game.
Jamie travels alone until he teams up with Helen and Joris, determine to beat Them at Their own game. But Their rules don't allow Homeward Bounders to work together ...
I bought this on the grounds that a writing teacher of mine said that my WIP shares a concept within this book. Thankfully that's not really the case, but I'm still glad to have read this as it's a rollicking children's novel that moves at a cracking pace and makes you really relate to the narrating character of Jamie. Diana Wynne Jones skillfully weaves the legends of the Flying Dutchman, Prometheus and the Wandering Jew into her tale in such a seamless way that there are times when you wonder if she's the one who invented them in the first place. I was particularly impressed with her use of Prometheus because she doesn't flinch from using the whole details of the legend and yet doesn't make it seem unnecessarily grotesque either (giving you just enough detail to know what's going on) and in using and assuming that readers are familiar with the legend, she never has to use his name.
Jamie never feels anything but real as a character and the way he brings out the loneliness of his predicament for the first few chapters is particularly moving (as is his final decision, which I won't spoil but did make me sniff a bit). Helen and Joris are a little more two-dimensional in terms of their set-up, and I wonder if they wouldn't have benefitted from the story being perhaps a little longer (of which I'll talk about more further down). I found the relationship between the later characters of Adam and Vanessa (who appear in the final third of the book) to have a believable sibling relationship, although I found some of the insults that they throw at each other to be a little dated. I particularly liked the scene where Adam investigates the possibility of selling his older sister into slavery on Joris's home world.
My main criticism of the book is that there are times when it feels a little uneven. For example, you have a large chunk of the book that focuses on Jamie's solo travels around the Boundariesm which maybe lasts the first quarter. Then he meets Helen and you get a few chapters investigating their travels together and quite soon after they meet Joris and travel as a trio. The problem is that as a trio, they don't figure out the rules or a way to defeat Them until after they meet Adam and Vanessa (which is past the half-way mark of the book) and Adam tells them what it is that They are doing. For me, this was a bit rushed and then add to that the inclusion of Konstam (Joris's demon hunting master) and the final third of the book relies on a lot of exposition to explain how they intend to defeat Them. For the target audience (which I take to be 8 to 12 year olds), this is perhaps not so much of a consideration, but it does stand out when compared against the more leisurely plot pace of J. K. Rowling or Philip Pullman who take more time to establish the set up for the denouement.
The Verdict:
Some pacing inconsistencies aside, I think that this is still a well-told, interesting book that doesn't talk down to children and makes them think about the concept of 'home' in a new way.
When Jamie discovers the sinister, dark-cloaked Them playing with human's lives, he is cast out to the boundaries of the worlds. Clinging to Their promise that if he can get Home he is free, he becomes an unwilling Random Factor in Their deadly, eternal game.
Jamie travels alone until he teams up with Helen and Joris, determine to beat Them at Their own game. But Their rules don't allow Homeward Bounders to work together ...
I bought this on the grounds that a writing teacher of mine said that my WIP shares a concept within this book. Thankfully that's not really the case, but I'm still glad to have read this as it's a rollicking children's novel that moves at a cracking pace and makes you really relate to the narrating character of Jamie. Diana Wynne Jones skillfully weaves the legends of the Flying Dutchman, Prometheus and the Wandering Jew into her tale in such a seamless way that there are times when you wonder if she's the one who invented them in the first place. I was particularly impressed with her use of Prometheus because she doesn't flinch from using the whole details of the legend and yet doesn't make it seem unnecessarily grotesque either (giving you just enough detail to know what's going on) and in using and assuming that readers are familiar with the legend, she never has to use his name.
Jamie never feels anything but real as a character and the way he brings out the loneliness of his predicament for the first few chapters is particularly moving (as is his final decision, which I won't spoil but did make me sniff a bit). Helen and Joris are a little more two-dimensional in terms of their set-up, and I wonder if they wouldn't have benefitted from the story being perhaps a little longer (of which I'll talk about more further down). I found the relationship between the later characters of Adam and Vanessa (who appear in the final third of the book) to have a believable sibling relationship, although I found some of the insults that they throw at each other to be a little dated. I particularly liked the scene where Adam investigates the possibility of selling his older sister into slavery on Joris's home world.
My main criticism of the book is that there are times when it feels a little uneven. For example, you have a large chunk of the book that focuses on Jamie's solo travels around the Boundariesm which maybe lasts the first quarter. Then he meets Helen and you get a few chapters investigating their travels together and quite soon after they meet Joris and travel as a trio. The problem is that as a trio, they don't figure out the rules or a way to defeat Them until after they meet Adam and Vanessa (which is past the half-way mark of the book) and Adam tells them what it is that They are doing. For me, this was a bit rushed and then add to that the inclusion of Konstam (Joris's demon hunting master) and the final third of the book relies on a lot of exposition to explain how they intend to defeat Them. For the target audience (which I take to be 8 to 12 year olds), this is perhaps not so much of a consideration, but it does stand out when compared against the more leisurely plot pace of J. K. Rowling or Philip Pullman who take more time to establish the set up for the denouement.
The Verdict:
Some pacing inconsistencies aside, I think that this is still a well-told, interesting book that doesn't talk down to children and makes them think about the concept of 'home' in a new way.