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Title: Castle in the Air
Series:
World of Howl #2
Author: Diana Jones
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Pages:
176
Words: 67K
From Wikipedia
Castle
in the Air follows the adventures of Abdullah, a handsome young
carpet salesman from Zanzib, who daydreams constantly about being a
stolen prince. One day a strange traveler comes to his stand to sell
a magic carpet. During the night, Abdullah goes to sleep on the
carpet but wakes up to find himself in a beautiful garden with a
young woman. He tells the woman, Flower-in-the-Night, that he is the
stolen prince of his daydreams, believing that he is in fact
dreaming. Flower-in-the-Night, who has never seen a man other than
her father, first believes that Abdullah is a woman, so Abdullah
agrees to return the next night with portraits of many men so that
she can make a proper comparison. He does so, and Abdullah and
Flower-in-the-Night decide to get married.
Abdullah
returns the next night, but he arrives just as Flower-in-the-Night is
snatched away by a huge flying djinn. Soon after, the Sultan of
Zanzib captures Abdullah who then discovers that Flower is actually
the Sultan's daughter. Enraged that his daughter is missing, the
Sultan blames Abdullah and throws him in jail, threatening to impale
him on a 40-foot pole if his daughter is not found. Fortunately,
Abdullah is saved by his magic carpet and escapes from Zanzib.
Abdullah
ends up in the desert and stumbles upon a group of bandits, who have
in their possession a particularly cranky genie who grants only one
wish a day. In the night, Abdullah steals the genie and flees. After
a wish, Abdullah is transported to Ingary and ends up traveling with
a bitter Strangian soldier whose country was recently taken in a war
with Ingary. While traveling to Kingsbury in search of a wizard, the
two stumble upon a cat and her kitten, whom the soldier names
Midnight and Whippersnapper, respectively.
As
they travel, Abdullah wishes for the return of his flying carpet, who
brings with it the very Djinn that kidnapped Flower-in-the-Night. It
is revealed that the Djinn, Hasruel, is being forced to kidnap
princesses from all over the world by his brother, Dalzel. The two
proceed on the carpet to Kingsbury, which is where they find Wizard
Suliman, who, upon realizing that Midnight is actually a person in
cat form, returns her to being a human. As the spell is lifted from
the woman, who turns out to be Sophie Pendragon, her baby, Morgan is
returned to his normal self as well. However, when they go to collect
the baby, he is no longer in the inn, where he was left with the
soldier.
Abdullah
and Sophie then order the carpet to take them to Morgan. The carpet
does so, taking them far into the sky, to the castle in the air,
which is merely Wizard Howl's castle, having been greatly enlarged.
There they meet the abducted princesses and plot with them to escape
the flying moving castle. Led by Abdullah, they overpower the two
Djinn, freeing Hasruel who banishes his brother. Flower-of-the-Night
had by then wished the Genie free, who turned out to be Sophie's
husband, the top-level sorcerer Howl.
My feelings about this book almost exactly what I felt when reading
Howl's Moving Castle. That always makes writing a review that
much harder.
The light fairytale'ish feeling permeates the entire book and not at
any time did I feel that things weren't going to work out for
Abullah, even if we come to realize that things might not work out
exactly how he planned or wants. When I reviewed
Castle
in the Air in '08, I ended it with the words “Light and
Delightful”. Both still definitely apply in the best sense of the
words.
This isn't exactly a sequel to Howl though. More of another book set
in the same world where some of the same characters from the previous
book intrude. Just to make things complicated though, Howl's
Moving Castle was made into an anime movie by Hayao Miyazaki.
Beautiful film that is more “inspired” by the book than a direct
medium change. The complicated part comes because Miyazaki had
previously made a movie called Castle in the Sky. It has
nothing to do with this book however. What's more, this book was
written in 1990 while the anime movie Castle in the Sky was
made in 1996. Howl the book was written in 1986 while Howl the movie
was made in 2004. Confused yet? Good. You're just a schmuck if that
confuses you. But even if it does confuse you and makes you a
schmuck, at least now you're a better educated schmuck about
something that nobody really cares about. And if that doesn't stand
for everything that the internet represents, well then, I guess I'M a
schmuck.
(no schmucks were harmed (very much) in the writing of this review)
★★★★★
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