A review by juushika
Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones

3.0

An experimental time paradox on backwater earth draws in intergalatic rulers and their uniquely powerful servant, or: a disgruntled wizard and a mundane teenage girl raise a little boy in a magical forest. This has an incredible amount of doubling, tripling, quadrupling of identity: the larger plot, its smaller manifestation, the parallels to Arthurian mythos, and the

Spoiler

protagonist's mental "voices"

. There's a playfulness in that density, engaging and rejecting mythic parallels, mixing science fiction with fantasy trappings, building and rebuilding the cast. It culminates in one of those distinctively DWJ-style endings, grandiose and strange but intuitively logical; this one is more explicated than her usual but the final reveals are so convoluted that it still feels confusing. Of all her books that I've read thusfar, this feels most like Fire and Hemlock in the way it engages and exceeds its inspirations, but the comparison makes me wish this had a smaller cast or that the ending had a tighter focus on the central characters, because some of the immediacy and emotional engagement is lost in the cleverness. But it's interesting, and I imagine holds up beautifully to rereads.