The Year of the Griffin is the sequel to the Dark Lord of Derkholm, set in the same world several years after the abolition of commercial тАШfantasy worldтАЩ tourism from our world.
The University now aims to produce competent wizards to repair the damage caused by the tours. ItтАЩs broke, and out of date in terms of what it teaches. The new head, Wizard Corkoran, is obsessed with becoming the first man to visit the moon so is mostly preoccupied, and the new faculty is mostly inexperienced.
Wizard Corkoran has selected children from wealthy families to fill his own first-year classes, hoping to beg for money. But his students turn out to be more than he expected in oh-so-many ways, and despite the incompetence of their teacher, it falls to them to save the university... and themselves...
Diana Wynne Jones (1934тАУ2011) spent her childhood in Essex and began writing fantasy novels for children in the 1970s. With her unique combination of magic, humour and imagination, she enthralled generations of children and adults with her work. She won the Guardian Award in 1977 with Charmed Life, was runner-up for the Children's Book Award in 1981 and was twice runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.