The Homeward Bounders

By Diana Wynne Jones

"You are now a discard. We have no further use for you in play. You are free to walk the Bounds, but it will be against the rules for you to enter play in any world. If you succeed in returning Home, then you may enter play again in the normal manner."

When Jamie unwittingly discovers the scary, dark-cloaked Them playing games with human’s lives, he is cast out to the boundaries of the worlds. Only then does he discover that there are a vast number of parallel worlds, all linked by the bounds, and these sinister creatures are using them all as a massive gamesboard.

Clinging to Their promise that if he can get Home he is free, he becomes the unwilling Random Factor in an endless game of chance.

Irresistible Diana Wynne Jones fantasy adventure, featuring an insect-loving shapeshifter, an apprentice demon hunter and a whole host of exotic characters clinging to the hope that one day they will return Home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Sep 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9780007499991

Diana Wynne Jones

DIANA WYNNE JONES was born in August 1934 in London, where she had a chaotic and unsettled childhood against the background of World War II. The family moved around a lot, finally settling in rural Essex. As children, Diana and her two sisters were deprived of a good, steady supply of books by a father, ‘who could beat Scrooge in a meanness contest’. So, armed with a vivid imagination and an insatiable quest for good books to read, she decided that she would have to write them herself.

Reviews for The Homeward Bounders

[maureene87 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had a very strange experience recently. I’ve been re-reading Diana Wynne Jones’s book, in order to write them up for my Official Read-through Index (which, erm, hasn’t been updated in awhile). So I read Homeward Bounders, which is utterly tragic and well-written and yet I don’t love it as much as some of her other books. Then a few days later I started Mister Monday, the first in the Keys of the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. As I was reading along I began to notice certain similarities. Both feature young boys, of about the same age, who are challenged to take up something larger than themselves, oversetting a shadowy group which is controlling (to some extent) Earth. Both are separated from their families, although the end results are quite different. And then there’s the really weird one(slight spoiler alert): both books figure Prometheus as a helper of the main character, although he is not specifically named in either (just surrounded with really, really significant clues).

Is it me, or is that just slightly bizarre?

Actual reviews of the books: As I said above, Homeward Bounders is, in my opinion, utterly tragic and although it’s about a twelve-year-old feels like a much older read. Of course, this makes sense given Jamie’s experiences and the difference between his personal timeline and the rest of the world. I appreciate it, but for some unknown reason it’s just not my favorite.

Mister Monday is much more squarely in the younger group. I found it engaging and fast-moving, but wasn’t wowed by the prose or all of the characterizations as an adult reader. I know it’s the first in a series (which I will probably keep reading) but it felt like it was setting up a lot for the future. I did find the way Nix handled the end really interesting–what Arthur’s decisions and motivations are. It seemed a little more realistic than some children’s fantasy series. I was also interested in the overlap of the different mythologies. Arthur Penhaligon seems quite close to Arthur Pendragon, and with the image of the key as a sword it’s hard not to think of that group of legends.

Book source: public library

[ajbraithwaite_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'd lost this for ages and it mysteriously reappeared just recently, so I treated myself to an indulgent afternoon of rereading it. I like the way it binds together old myths in a new way, although it is ultimately quite a sad story. It makes me reflect on the fact that there is always a Them in our lives and only constant vigilance and awareness of that that can keep things real.

[eragonhedre · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

About a boy who comes across Them by accident and sees them playing Their Game. He gets thrown in and is forced to travel from world to world meeting other people like himself. Forming a team, he and the others go up against Them to stop Yhem from playing Their game which involves the lives and destinies of people.

[sandglass_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow, what a downer ending! I read this one as a cooldown from the depressing but amazing slog that was Native Son, and I definitely did not get that. The story is about Jamie, who happens upon a silent garden with a triangular windowed building in the middle of a city. Inside the building, he meets Them and They kick him out of his world for seeing them. They're playing some kind of a war game with the world, and he becomes a random variable. They tell him if he gets back Home, they'll let him "reenter play." He travels between the worlds, and gets pretty good at it. He meets Helen Hara-usquar, who has an arm she can turn into just about anything. Then they meet Jaris, who is a slave and demon-hunter in training, who is pretty much in love with his owner.Overall, it's a little Euro-centric, but it's pretty awesome, aside from a ridiculously downer ending.

[capfox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Diana Wynne Jones is someone I often admire for having a seemingly endless quiver of pretty original ideas. At first glance, this isn't really one of them; the story is driven by the initial idea of there being a race of Them, pairs or groups of whom play games with different worlds, controlling events and manipulating them in vast war games. These worlds, of course, include Earth, but many others as well.I still have to hand it to her for the creativity, though. The main character's a boy who finds out about Them playing on Earth, circa about 1879 or so. They then kick him out of the game, to roam the boundaries of the world, thus having to travel from one to another, and there Jones gets to describe a wide range of societies that are interesting in different ways. Warring societies, party societies, nomadic, religious, scientific... they're all here.Jamie, the main character, provides a sympathetic view of what it is to be dragged from place to place, and how lonely it is. In the end, he does meet up with various others who travel with him, and in the end, attempt to take down the whole system. The secondary characters, beyond the first one introduced, aren't particularly well fleshed out, but they do provide a better focus, and Jones does do fairly well with broad strokes.The book suffers from somewhat poor pacing, and the aforementioned lack of character development, but I still did quite like it. It's ultimately about hope and the lack of it, and personal sacrifice, and Jones does a good job of getting a nuanced view of each into a early young adult book. And, as she often does, she integrates mythological characters (Prometheus, the Wandering Jew, the Flying Dutchman) into the narrative in a way that works. I don't think it's her finest work, but if you're a fan, you're not going to be disappointed, really.

[colinfine · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favourite books. The basic conception is interesting, the story ranging through time, worlds and myths is fascinating, and the end is bitter-sweet.