This book is left over from ones I provided to the con bag for the Second Australian Discworld Convention in 2009. It seemed like a good idea to reduce the load of books I had in stock and also bulk up the con bag. I can be certain of that as I put stickers inside the book to tell people who’d donated it and to give them a 50% discount on their order. I seem to have been left with a lot of bags and I was trying to reduce the size of them to be able to squeeze more into a box, so I pulled all the books out and put them on my shelf. This was in the days when I was trying to expand my business, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Between 2009 and when I stopped selling pre-loved books online in about 2012 I received zero orders using the code in this book. I’m not sure what that says about my stock or the books I put in the bags. But anyway, that’s all old history now and I only have a handful of books and my memories of my time selling online.
This book is book two in The Ash Staff series published under the Magic Quest name. It’s also the seventh Magic Quest book. Originally published in 1980 it’s listed as a YA fantasy. This almost destroys my theory that there were no books specifically published for YA when I was young. Almost, but not quite. I was a late teen in those days. It really depends how you want to define ‘when I was young’. This book is one of the earliest I’ve seen specifically published for the YA market.
There’s all the standard stuff you find in a book like this. A riddle, a birthright and a prophesy, and then there’s an impending war. I did enjoy the wizard. Early on in the book we see he’s decided that being tall is not for him, so he’s made himself shorter. There follows a passage dedicated to those who are like me, short. Essentially, it’s harder to be tall than short. It’s harder to get beds your size, harder to walk through door frames, and definitely harder to find chairs comfortable for long legs. I don’t know about that last one. Chairs seem to be made for people taller than me. I might stand outside in the rain tomorrow, a little rain might help me grow…it works for the plants.
And the wizard is called the War Horn of Thrinedor. Why? Because war always follows him. I felt this was a throwback to Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. Some people called Gandalf, Stormcrow, as he always brought bad news.
Anyway, it’s a cracking read. If you look a little harder than me you’ll be able to see where Fisher has derived some of his ideas from. I’d need to read this book again to see more and that’s not going to happen any time soon. I need to do a video of my TBR Pile as that’s changed substantially, and also read many of the books I’m putting on it. I’m also doing well on my manuscript, I’m close to being on track to having the first draft of my book finished by the end of the year. I need to up the ante though. I’m currently on 33,658 words and I’m hoping to get up to 63,000 words. I agree that’s not enough words for a non-fiction, but it is a first draft. I’ve added about 1,200 words in the past week and I need to at least double that in order to make my goal.
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