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    Conrad's Fate
    Conrad's Fate
    Conrad's Fate
    Audiobook8 hours

    Conrad's Fate

    Written by Diana Wynne Jones

    Narrated by Gerard Doyle

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Conrad's Fate is part of the clever and humorous Chrestomanci series. Twelve-year-old Conrad Tesdinic is in disguise as a servant-in-training at Stallery Mansion in the town of Stallchester. He wants to figure out what evil he caused in a past life. He and his friend Christopher Chant are trying to repair Conrad's very bad karma and to discover what mysterious entity is haunting the town. Diana Wynne Jones' The Lives of Christopher Chant and the other books from this smart fantasy series are also available from Recorded Books.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 4, 2008
    ISBN9781440797002
    Author

    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.

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    Reviews for Conrad's Fate

    4/5

    489 ratings22 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It could well be argued that, for me, the Chrestomanci books are the most lasting books I've read. I first encountered them when I was pretty young, probably around 9 or 10, and have read most of them multiple times. When Jones came out with a new one a couple of years ago, I was very excited, and I remember reading part of it in the Indigo on Ste. Catharine. But, for some reason or another, I never got around to reading it until now.Thankfully, it didn't disappoint. I don't think I liked it more than Charmed Life or the Lives of Christopher Chant, but it was still a very good book, with a nicely realized world and good characters. I felt that I probably was missing some of the tie-ins from the other books, since I hadn't actually read any of them for a long time, but I think I got most of it, anyway. What I didn't were probably just throwaway references to reward very loyal readers. Maybe I'm not loyal enough.The story follows Conrad Grant through an appointment at the local nobility's mansion as a valet-in-training, and goes through meeting different of the Chrestomanci series characters and encountering the mysteries of the grounds. Some of it's fairly guessable, but not all of it, and one can be forgiven for guessability in a book aimed at younger audiences. All in all, it's good writing, and twisty without feeling like the author's cheating. I continue to love this author, and I'll have to read more by her again soon.
    • 3/5
      A lightweight entry in the Chrestomanci cycle targeted to the younger audience. Though set in an alternative universe in "the English Alps", the action is so local to one town that the implications of that really don't come into play. It doesn't seem relevant to explaining the somewhat odd mix of old European village with a few modern elements such as cars computers but no phones or television. Christopher Chant (last name not mentioned I think) is present through most of the story, but in his younger pre-Chrestomanci phase. The main character is yet another young boy who believes he has no magical gifts. There's an evil uncle and mysterious goings-on in a large manor / castle, with more playing around with the parallel universe aspect than usual.Fun.
    • 4/5
      Currently rereading this series in the authors suggested order. I'm enjoying myself but it does seen strange to be about to follow up this book with one written over 2 decades before it.
    • 4/5
      After listening to Fallen, some DWJ was just the ticket. Conrad's story is on of neglectful family and being a twelve year old ready for adventure despite the dire fate that his uncle warns him of. A young Christopher Chant features prominently, so I got a nice little Chrestomanci fix while I was at it.
    • 4/5
      This is a new Chrestomanci novel, this time set in a Series Seven world where Christopher Chant has, for various good and sufficient reasons of his own, gone in defiance of his guardian and teacher, Gabriel de Witt.

      But this is really the story of Conrad Tesdinic, who has grown up in a bookstore with an inattentive mother who spends all her time writing; an uncle who generously allows his sister and her family to live with him after her husband sold his share of the bookstore to her brother, gambled away the money, and then killed himself; and a sister who is intent on her own very sensible agenda of completing her education and getting out of the house before her magician-uncle realizes what she's doing and takes steps to keep her there permanently.

      Conrad, who has his own plans to continue his education and move out, is horrified when his uncle tells him he has bad karma from an important deed left undone in a previous life, and if he doesn't take the opportunity to complete the task immediately in this life, he'll soon die and be forced to start over in his next life. And in order to do this, he has to leave school now, take a job as a servant in Stallery Mansion (home of the local Count), find the person he didn't deal with in the last life, and kill him.

      Conrad would almost rather die than leave school and take a job as a servant at the Stallery—but not quite, and he reluctantly boards the tram, armed only with a false name—Conrad Grant—and wine cork and a spell to summon a Walker and get "what he needs" when he's identified the villain and is ready to do the job. Almost the first person he meets, of course, is Christopher Chant, who's looking for his missing and possibly trapped friend Millie, and has also come to take a job at the Stallery in order to look for. From there things get delightfully strange, as Conrad and Christopher attempt to sort out who's who, and who's putting what over on who, and not get caught or killed in the process.

      Great fun.
    • 4/5
      I've read or re-read four of the book in the Chrestomanci series, and three of them have almost the same general plot: a boy or girl is taken advantage of by elders and persuaded that they are mostly powerless. At the conclusion of the book, things change, and the character escapes their bad situation and misapprehension about themselves. Jones really had this concept on the brain. Within this overall plot, though, Jones works in a great deal of variety. In many ways, this book was a bit lighter than the others with the same plot. It is set in a stately home and grounds, and I felt convinced that it was a satire on "Downton Abbey", but it was published about five years before the show was broadcast. So, again, Diana Wynne Jones was a bit ahead of a phenomenon, but in the best way.This tale is told in the first person, which is also an enjoyable change, and we get to meet the teenage Christopher Chant, which is fun.
    • 4/5
      The fifth in the Chrestomanci series sees Diana Wynne Jones in fine form.
      It's light, but not too light, charming but not saccharin. It's witty, but also touches on serious topics.
      I really despise reviewers who say every single even slightly fantasy-related book should be read by 'fans of Harry Potter,' but I have to say that this series really is one that Potter fans would probably like.

      Although it's part of a series, it's also a stand-alone story. Fans will recognize some of the characters as they appear, but a reader isn't required to know their background & history.
      As the title implies, this is a story about Conrad, a boy who wants to go to high school, but instead is convinced by an obviously cockamamie story cooked up by his uncle that in order to expiate his karmic sins, he must go into service at the Castle and magically assassinate an unknown person... Luckily (as it turns out) for him, he makes friends with another boy who's applying for the same job - but also has an agenda that involves more than learning the finer points of the serving arts.
      As always, in these books, parallel worlds and plenty of magic come into play...
    • 3/5
      This is my favorite Chrestomanci book so far, and the only one I'd recommend (so far.)
    • 4/5
      Conrad's Fate is...perhaps the least interesting Chrestomanci book, for me. Conrad is such an idiot at times - he's being strong and tricky and figuring out how to get his way, and his uncle has him so neatly wrapped around his finger.... It took me two readings to figure out what the heck was going on at the castle, and it's still not really clear. The sidelight on Christopher's youth is mildly interesting, though I thought he and Gabriel had reached an agreement by the end of Lives of Christopher Chant. And like that. Not a favorite. Not bad, and a good addition to the Chrestomanci series, but it doesn't stand on its own very well.
    • 4/5
      Full of interesting ideas as usual, though the story wasn't quite as well-paced as I'd like. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the ending is a bit pat, and Conrad feels rather passive. Still enjoyable though, mainly because of learning more about Christopher's background and getting to see a little of Millie.
    • 3/5
      I liked parts of this very much. Don't know if it was just that I was in a mood or if it was the book, but I lost interest in the last couple of chapters and felt bored by the rather ex machina conclusion. Chrestomanci shows up out of nowhere and saves the day, rewards and punishes everyone according to their just deserts and sets everyone straight. Yeah, maybe I was just in a mood.
    • 4/5
      A solid Wynne Jones book, with her usual resourceful children, neglectful and self-centred parental figures, neat plotting and ever-present sharp humour. Marred only slightly by a too-pat ending, I think.
    • 4/5
      This was the first of the Chrestomanci sequence that I read, and it is testament to its standalone qualities that the story was intelligible without previous familiarity with the others in the series. Like many a traditional fairytale hero Conrad is thrust into a magical adventure where he has to balance his innate gifts with the usual resourcefulness required of such a hero. I liked the underlying idea that, while a lot of fantasy is reliant on the fulfillment of predictions, prophecies and "fate", Conrad has to come to terms with whether such a fate is predetermined (because everybody says it is so) or whether he is indeed master of his own fate and therefore able to change the future that has been expected to happen.
    • 4/5
      Conrad is told that everything bad that happens to him he deserves because he was a rotten person in a past life. He is told that the only way to fix his curse is to go to Stallery Castle and kill the evil person he was supposed to have killed in his past life. At Stallery Castle he meets a strange boy named Christopher who is looking for his enchantress friend Milly. Together they try to find the right people while being servant boys. The book cumulated in the way that Diana Wynne Jones books often do; everyone of import being in the same room at the same time while dramatically revealing the history to the plot. However it is a quite well written book, and I would definitely read this again. I was able to envision the characters really well; they are well described.
    • 5/5
      A new Wynne Jones is always good news, and a new Chrestomanci book was decidedly unexpected – although Christopher Chant takes a supporting role in this. Generally delightful, although it suffered from Diana's (I've met her twice, I can call her Diana) habitual tendency to go off at a sudden tangent just as the plot seems to be about to be resolved which, although admirable in some ways, does tend to muddy the waters.
    • 4/5
      I've read most of Wynne Jones's other Chrestomanci books - they are "kids books" but very well-written and can be enjoyed by open-minded adults as well. Quite a British flavor, clever, quirky. Excellent characterizations.Just finished listening to this. Makes me want to re-read the earlier ones. The reader was excellent as well (of course, I can't recall his name just now).
    • 4/5
      It could well be argued that, for me, the Chrestomanci books are the most lasting books I've read. I first encountered them when I was pretty young, probably around 9 or 10, and have read most of them multiple times. When Jones came out with a new one a couple of years ago, I was very excited, and I remember reading part of it in the Indigo on Ste. Catharine. But, for some reason or another, I never got around to reading it until now.Thankfully, it didn't disappoint. I don't think I liked it more than Charmed Life or the Lives of Christopher Chant, but it was still a very good book, with a nicely realized world and good characters. I felt that I probably was missing some of the tie-ins from the other books, since I hadn't actually read any of them for a long time, but I think I got most of it, anyway. What I didn't were probably just throwaway references to reward very loyal readers. Maybe I'm not loyal enough.The story follows Conrad Grant through an appointment at the local nobility's mansion as a valet-in-training, and goes through meeting different of the Chrestomanci series characters and encountering the mysteries of the grounds. Some of it's fairly guessable, but not all of it, and one can be forgiven for guessability in a book aimed at younger audiences. All in all, it's good writing, and twisty without feeling like the author's cheating. I continue to love this author, and I'll have to read more by her again soon.
    • 2/5
      This was a reasonably enjoyable read, and has several good ideas: I particularly liked the series of overlapping buildings in alternate realities. However, I felt that the resolution of the plot really didn't hang together consistently with the previous behaviour of some of the major characters. No doubt many children reading this book would neither notice nor care, but I don't think that's an excuse in a genre such as fantasy with so many adult readers. When the author works so hard (possibly too hard) to construct a self-consistent setting, I think the coherence of plot and characterization deserves at least as much attention. There were also some pretty clunky links to the rest of the series, which jar if (like me) you're reading this book in isolation. (For example, the author laboriously explains the existence of the drably-named "Series" of alternate worlds, but it seems out of place for Conrad either to know about this, or to refer to it in exactly these terms early in the book.) Not her best. MB 2-vii-2007
    • 3/5
      A good book, but not as strong as other Chrestomanci volumes.
    • 4/5
      I'm amused at this series being re-released riding on the cloak-tails of Harry Potter, as it were. Then again, it's not that I mind. It's an excellent series which I thoroughly enjoyed as a child, and still do.
    • 5/5
      I liked this Chrestomanci book much more than Witch Week! The characters in this one were just so great -- I especially loved Conrad's mother, who is a rather batty and forgetful (although that's not all her fault...) academic who writes feminist texts that no one reads.
    • 4/5
      A new Diana Wynne Jones is always cause for celebration. This is another book in the Chrestomanci universe(s) and, though not among her BEST, still very enjoyable, humourous and well-written. It was neat to see what Chrestomanci was like as a teenager. Good stuff.