Watching a novelist really getting it all together is one of the great pleasures of life. This is why I so hugely enjoyed Diana Wynne Jones's [Drowned Ammet]—itself surely ranking as one of the best examples of 'sub-creation' of recent years…. [Magic] is not used arbitrarily but to further the developing insights of the main characters. Humour and near-farce intermingle with vivid danger and action; relationships and responsibilities are portrayed squarely and unsentimentally. There are echoes towards the end of [John] Masefield and [Ursula K.] Le Guin—nevertheless, the whole brew is unique. It is a story which illustrates perfectly Jill Paton Walsh's image of 'the rainbow surface'—for here indeed is a brilliant outside with real pressure behind it.