Howl's Moving Castle

           

            On Sunday I continued reading Diana Wynne Jones’s “Howl’s Moving Castle”. This book is growing on me. It seems to correspond culturally to modern England while being technologically Medieval in a world where magic is the technology. Sophie, having been transformed into an old woman, has taken shelter in Howl’s Moving Castle. The spell she is under won’t allow her to tell anyone that she has been transformed unless they can see for themselves. So far the only one who knows is Calcifer, the fire demon that lives in Howl’s fireplace and controls not only the heat of the castle but also causes it to move through the countryside and exist in several places at one. Calcifer has agreed to help her break her spell if Sophie helps him break the contract with Howl that keeps him stuck in the hearth. To the frustration of both Howl and his apprentice, Michael, Sophie has imposed herself on the castle and made herself its cleaning lady and cook. They are starting to like her though. Meanwhile, Sophie has found out that Howl’s reputation for eating young girls’ hearts is really more a metaphorical and romantic one. He falls in love with young women and obsesses over them until they fall for him and then he loses interest. To Sophie’s dismay though, she learns that Howl’s current interest is in her sister Lettie, who is not actually Lettie but rather her sister Martha because they have used magic to trade appearances.

            I watched an episode of Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe entitled “Solar Sky Raiders”. The Universal Ruler has figured out a way to cause multiple suns to appear in the sky, thus scorching the Earth. He communicates that he will keep increasing the number of suns until the planet surrenders. Cody figures out cleverly that there can’t be extra suns because our gravity hasn’t been affected. It wouldn’t be practical to mount mirrors in space so he concludes that they are projecting several refractive force fields to reflect and multiply the sun’s light. Cody finds that each force field is projected by one of the ruler’s space ships so he destroys each one and saves the earth.

            Another flaw in Commando Cody is when he flies into space in his rocket suit without wearing anything over his hands. He could catch frostbite that way!