The Game (Firebird)
by Diana Wynne JonesSign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
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Read in March, 2008
Children's contemporary fantasy. Hayley grew up with her grandparents, isolated from the world. Only then Hayley did something wrong - she's not sure what, only that it was to do with Fiddle and Flute and the boy with the dogs - and now she's been packed off to a house full of aunts and cousins in Ireland. The house is riotous and warm and, best of all, the children play something called The Game, in the mysterious Mythosphere. But Hayley's misdeed has attracted the attention of the dangerous he...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
6th grade and up, fans of Rowling, Pratchett, Gaiman, McKinley
This was my first experience reading the prolific Diana Wynne Jones, and I was very impressed! I'd heartily recommend her to anyone who is pining for more J.K. Rowling, or any good fantasy that incorporates both strong writing and good storytelling.
Hayley does something to upset her grandma -- she's not sure what -- and is sent to live with her cousins in Ireland, where everyone runs amok in a huge, leaky mansion and aunts are aplenty but uncles are mysteriously absent. The children invite ...more
Hayley does something to upset her grandma -- she's not sure what -- and is sent to live with her cousins in Ireland, where everyone runs amok in a huge, leaky mansion and aunts are aplenty but uncles are mysteriously absent. The children invite ...more
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Read in September, 2008
This was a very cute and entertaining book. The main character, a younger girl named Hayley, is sent away from her grandparents to live with her Aunt. Once there, she discovers secrets about her family. The basis behind the story is yet another take on myths. It reminded me a lot of The Myth Hunters by Christopher Golden, except I enjoyed The Game much more. Hayley is an endearing and fun character -- you immediately care about what happens to her. And the situations she's in, as well as the fam...more
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Read in June, 2008
The back of this book had little snippets from other authors, and that was pretty much why I checked it out. I mean, if Robin McKinley says "I love Diana Wynne Jones and Neil Gaiman says "Diana Wynne Jones is, quite simply, the best writer of magic there is, for readers of any age," and some chick named Megan Whalen Turner (who I'm sure is famous in her own right but I've never heard of before this) expresses a similar sort of reckless devotion, I'm willing to put aside m...more
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Read in October, 2008
Comparable to Lloyd Alexander's The Arkadians, Diana Wynne Jones's The Game sings in parts (the introduction of the game, when things are still unravelling towards their reveal, the comet) before getting bogged down in the specifics of Greco-Roman mythology. When the magic is most explicit, the book's magic is least so. Still, it's Diana, and thus marvelous and giddy and reminds you of that ache in the corner of your heart you forgot you had.
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
YA fantasy fans
Hayley is a young orphan living with her grandmother, whose strict rules and serious manner have whittled all the fun out of Hayley's life. Luckily, her grandfather loves to teach her the oddest things--including a glimpse at the "mythosphere". From that first glimpse, Hayley is drawn into the magical game her cousins play in secret. The children keep the game (in which they travel to various mythological places) a secret from their older relatives, but slowly their game is revealed ...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in July, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Read in December, 2007
So good. I like DWJ's prose; it's like water -- no distinctive taste of its own, and you see right through it, but it is everything the story need. I admire tremendously her way of starting out with what appears to be a fairly mundane situation -- here, Hayley being sent to her aunt's because she's displeased her grandparents -- and introduces a shower of characters and ideas and places, and then starts pulling all these disparate threads together and weaving them into a story until it builds an...more
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Read in November, 2008
An interesting tie in with various myths and stories. It could get confusing if you don't know the Greek myths all that well (which I don't) which could be especially an issue seeing as this book is aimed at younger readers.
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Read in February, 2008
jones does this cool thing sometimes, where she'll take mythical figures (loki, jupiter, etc.) and say, 'what if this figure were an 8 or 9 year old human? or what if this figure was masquerading as a human adult, and an 8 or 9 yearold found it out?'
and then the story unfolds.
the game is one of those. it's a fun yarn that unfolds in quirky, unexpected ways. i think eight days of luke is a more successful variation on this theme, but that doesn't mean the game isn't ...more
and then the story unfolds.
the game is one of those. it's a fun yarn that unfolds in quirky, unexpected ways. i think eight days of luke is a more successful variation on this theme, but that doesn't mean the game isn't ...more
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Read in August, 2008
I've only read a few books by Diana Wynn Jones, but I've liked them. I was very disappointed with this one. It didn't flow well, and it just felt awkward. My impression was that it was really a YA book that she tried to boil down into a children's book. It really needed to be fleshed out far more for the story to work. There were too many characters for any of them to be fully developed in such a short book, and the story seemed to jump from one point to the next instead of developin...more
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It is a really cool book, even though it is short and it is a bit tacky.....
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Pretty imaginative gods-as-Brits story. Not as good as Hexwood, though.
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Read in March, 2008
Quite a baffling book, at least without the assistance of the extras section at the end (or an excellent knowledge of the Greek legends and the constellations). It's an odd length for the author, which makes me wonder if this is a truncated book, or the first in a series, or just an idea for a longer book that didn't pan out. Unless I missed something (I often do), the significance of the game is never made clear, other than as a kind of quiet revolt. All in all, it feels like the first third of...more
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Read in September, 2007
Diana Wynne Jones is another author whose books I will read no matter what even though she is so prolific that they end up being a little hit-or-miss. This is a novella, which is the right framework for a fairly slight story with a cool premise that I won't spoil here, since most of the fun (for me) was figuring out what was happening. Suffice it to say that strange things happen when Hayley is abruptly shipped off to live with her aunts and cousins in Ireland, and there plays "the Game&q...more
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G
The praise on the back was wholey acurate-- she has an idea and just runs with it, and what comes out is a brave and fun story.
I was a little disopointed by this book-- but only because it was a children's book. I wished that it could be longer. I wish it could have been more involved. I wished it was a really big adult fantasy. But, shockingly, it wasn't.
I bet children would be wholy delighted by it. When they're old enough I plan on reading it to my boys to find out.
The praise on the back was wholey acurate-- she has an idea and just runs with it, and what comes out is a brave and fun story.
I was a little disopointed by this book-- but only because it was a children's book. I wished that it could be longer. I wish it could have been more involved. I wished it was a really big adult fantasy. But, shockingly, it wasn't.
I bet children would be wholy delighted by it. When they're old enough I plan on reading it to my boys to find out.
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This was easily one of the weakest books by Diana Wynne Jones, one of my favorite writers. I enjoyed the book, yes, but I didn't come out of it jumping for joy and desperate to push the book on everyone I know. This is unusual!
I think part of the problem is that, although I knew this was a novella, I kept expecting a novel. And so I felt a bit letdown at the end, with a sense of "so that's it?"
Having said all that, this was still enjoyable and well-written (of course!).
I think part of the problem is that, although I knew this was a novella, I kept expecting a novel. And so I felt a bit letdown at the end, with a sense of "so that's it?"
Having said all that, this was still enjoyable and well-written (of course!).
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This YA fantasy book had a premise I should have liked (a girl meets up with her zany relatives and discovers they all have ties to the realm of the mythosphere, i.e. all the stories ever told, plus they have connections to classical mythology), but it was really insubstantial. It's being marketed as a novella but I found myself wishing Jones had just written a full-on novel. The characters were interesting, but there wasn't much there, and the ending felt really rushed. C+.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.59 (232 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.57 (228 ratings) number of reviews: 53
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quote
"'This is the mythosphere. It's made up of all the stories, theories and beliefs, legends, myths and hopes, that are generated here on Earth. As you can see, it's constantly growing and moving as people invent new tales to tell or find new things to believe. The older strands move out to become these spirals, where things tend to become quite crude and dangerous. They've hardened off, you see.'"
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