crantz | Dec. 2nd, 2010

"LUBBOCK: a creature fortunately rare. A lubbock is a purple-hued insectile being of any size from grasshopper to larger than human. It is very dangerous, though nowadays luckily only to be encountered in wild or uninhabited areas. A lubbock will attack any human it sees, either with its pincer-like appendages or its formidable proboscis. For ten months of the year, it will merely tear the human to pieces for food, but in the months of July and August it comes into its breeding season and is then especially dangerous; for in those months it will lie in wait for human travelers and, having caught one, it will lay its eggs in that human's body. The eggs hatch after twelve months, whereupon the first hatched will eat the rest, and this single new lubbock will then carve its way out of its human host. A male human will die. A female human will give birth in the normal fashion, and the offspring so born will be a LUBBOCKIN (see below). The human female then usually dies."

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"LUBBOCKIN: the offspring of a LUBBOCK qv and a human female. These creatures normally have the appearance of a human child except that they invariably have purple eyes. Some will have purple skin, and a few may even be born with vestigial wings. A midwife will destroy an obvious lubbockin on sight, but in many cases lubbockins have been mistakenly reared as if they were human children. They are almost invariably evil, and since lubbockins can breed with humans, the evil nature does not disappear until several generations have passed. It is rumored that many of the inhabitants of remote areas such as High Norland and Montalbino owe their origins to a lubbockin ancestor."

--Things get a little more horrifying than usual in House Of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

Above, the monsters featured in House of Many Ways, which I have just finished reading. It was good! It had a lot going for it, from a plot I enjoyed to little amusing things like the main character Charmain learning basic life skills. While she didn't give into the urge I had for her to slap Peter, the male main character, silly, she did pretty good. Also. Waif? One of the great dogs of literature.

Of course there's tons of magic, and given this is one of the two sequels to Howl's Moving Castle, there was also a moving castle that was up to hijinx. Also features: Twinkle the lisping beautiful boy, a disguise of Howl's that leads to funny Sophie-rage.

It's even better when you can actually remember the book it's a sequel to, unlike the first time I read House of Many Ways. If all you can remember is the Miyazaki movie, things can get a little weird.

I'm not sure what to do with myself right now. Maybe I WILL read Castle In The Air, the other Howl sequel. Or I'll move onto Ozma of Oz by Frank L. Baum, the third Oz book.