It effortlessly blends past, present, future, ordinary contemporary, fantasy, and sci-fi, of which I have NEVER seen the like.

Creative subjects, in the form of literature, music and the arts vie with science and technology, to the ultimate detriment of the latter, in philosophical terms at least. Story summary: The Sykes are living their ordinary family life, with unwanted music lessons and awful little sisters, until one day, there's an enormous goon in their kitchen. He demands that Mr. Sykes (an author) write two thousand words (any words) for his boss Archer. It turns out Archer is one of seven wizard siblings ruling the town and battling each other for power. And all of them, in their own ways, are out to get Mr. Syke's two thousand words. Basically it broke my brain, mixed impossible things together extraordinarily well, had mind-blowing plot twists (SERIOUS. PLOT. TWISTS. WOW. *flail*) and was exciting and breathtaking and downright HILARIOUS! The Goon talks like Freddy from Cotillion, probably my favourite book by Georgette Heyer. For this reason, and because I often have a fondness for large, stupid people (especially when they're actually a lot cleverer than people think), the Goon is my favourite character. He's also surprisingly sweet, especially when you get to know his real motivations. Jones’ descriptions throughout the book are simple but effective, easily conjuring up an image of the action; from the way Catriona locates each family member by their noises, to the reflection of each sibling’s character in their surroundings, even to the splart-thump of the soggy hole in Howard’s boot.

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Happily Married: Hathaway and his wife Bess, as a deliberate contrast to the other siblings who all live alone apart from their minions, servants, or robots. But what I'm truly impressed with here is the way the plot unfolds, starting with the Goon in Howard's kitchen and proceeding through the introductions of the seven siblings. Parallel to this is the secondary plot (and I do think it's secondary despite its being the motivation for all the action) in which Howard scrambles to figure out who wants the 2000 words his father writes each month and what that person does with them. It's probably a mistake to say they run in parallel; it's more accurate to say that they are intertwined, and I think they are perfectly balanced, one plot advancing the other and then handing off the lead to be advanced in turn. In the climax to the story, both plots intersect, with Quentin Sykes's words being the device that keeps the world from being run by the megalomaniac Archer--a scene that is a true delight.

Meeting Erskine. This was one of the twists that surprised me. It gives a whole new layer to most of the previous interactions, as well as to the Goon's character. Rereading this aloud was so FUN. Doing the voices etc. for this crazy cast of characters was fabulous. I also loved reading it a second time because this time I actually understood what was going on, after all those mindbending plot-twists in the first reading. A.k.a. IT WAS EVEN BETTER THE SECOND TIME AND I DIDN'T THINK THAT WAS POSSIBLE. Torquil and Hathaway's relationship. There's a reason why so many people like Torquil, and this is a large part of it. D'aaaaww, the crying. Reconciliation is the best. Also his obvious loneliness before this happened was sweet and sad.Despite having a broad cast of characters – the Sykes family, the siblings who run the town, the Goon and Fifi, plus Shine’s lieutenant Ginger Hind – every single one is fully fleshed out with their own motivations, schemes, beliefs and opinions on what’s going on. The rest of the plot is far too convoluted to briefly summarise, nor is it desirable to indicate how it may ultimately resolved; all we’re aware of is that it’s up to Howard, who dreams of designing spaceships, to investigate — with both help and obstacles from Archer’s Goon — and that the teenager is somehow key to all the mysteries.

Fairytale elements abound, principally seven siblings (with the youngest being special) as also absent parents, and hints of other fantasies ( The Hobbit, Arthurian legends), with underground sequences hinting at mythology. Lynn Bryant reviewed Archer's Goon in Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer No. 79. [2] Bryant commented that "Well written and original, a gripping read." [2] Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Dillian is easily able to use her magic to charm Howard and Fifi, but Awful is simply too... awful. There's this concept that I for some reason really love, where people stand for, or even are, ideas or abstractions in some sense. It's a similar idea to anthropomorphism. The Greek gods are a pretty good example of this; some of them are considered actual things, like Helios who is the sun, and and some just have qualities similar to the things and are generally in charge of the things, like Apollo the sun god. In this book, this is realized through the idea of "farming". The wizard siblings "farm" various town functions, like education and infrastructure and future related things, or music and entertainment and shopping and fun related things. What they farm seems related to their personalities and powers in some ways, and you could easily imagine Torquil, for example, as the "god of arts and entertainment". My love for abstraction and structure is quite strong, and trumps realism any day, and this idea is an important reason why I love this book so much. (Some of the other books I like for a similar reason are The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton, The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis, and Enchanted by Alethea Kontis. And I'm sure there are more I've forgotten.)

Tropes include:

Torquil is probably my second favourite character after the Goon. It's the surprising depth that does it, especially after meeting the other siblings. Although Shine is so distinctive that she holds a high place in my list of favourite characters as well. Ambiguously Gay: Torquil. Has a great love for theatrical outfits (eyeliner included), shopping, and disco dancers. This trope is even more true for the TV miniseries. The trouble started when Howard Sykes came home from school and found the "goon" sitting in the kitchen. He said he'd been sent by Archer. But who was Archer? It had to do with the 2,000 words that Howard's author father had failed to deliver. Dave Langford reviewed Archer's Goon for White Dwarf #63, and stated that "Mass). After this, things get complicated. Though one dodgy moral question goes unanswered, the ending is splendidly silly; Jones has written better books, but her inventiveness is a reminder that there's life in fantasy if you know where to look." [1]