Had Diana simply written a story about Kathleen and her dog from the dog’s point of view, one that felt as right as this one does, that would have been an achievement, but she does so much more than that: she creates a whole cosmology of effulgences—creatures who inhabit stars, or, perhaps, who are stars. There is something called a Zoi that must be found before Sirius runs out of time. Then she adds the Wild Hunt, the hounds of Annwn, the Celtic underworld, to the tale, while never losing sight of the humanity at the heart of it.

I remember reading Dogsbody to my youngest daughter, almost ten years ago.

When I finished it, she didn’t say very much. Then she looked at me and put her head on one side and said, “Daddy? Was that a happy end? Or a sad one?”

“Both,” I told her.

“Yes,” she said. “That was what I thought. I was really happy, but it made me want to cry.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Me too.”

It also made me try to figure out why and how Diana had made the ending work so well, triumphant and heartbreaking at the same time. I wanted to be able to do that.

Three weeks ago, I was in England, in Bristol, in a hospice, which is a place that provides care for people who are going to die. I sat beside Diana Wynne Jones’s bed.

I felt very alone, and very helpless. Watching someone you care for die is hard.

And then I thought of this introduction. I had been looking forward to writing it, looking forward to talking to Diana about the book, and now it would never happen. I thought, If Diana was a star, I wonder which star she would be, and I imagined her shining in the night sky, and I was comforted.

Once, long ago, people thought that heroes were placed in the night sky, as stars or as constellations, after their death. Diana Wynne Jones was my hero: a brilliant writer who wrote satisfying book after satisfying book for generations of readers; the kind of writer whose work will be remembered and loved forever, and who was as funny and smart and honest and wise in person as she was on the page. She will shine for a long time to come.

(My friend Peter Nicholls, who was Diana’s friend too, told me that he thought she could be Bellatrix, the Female Warrior, who is the star in the constellation Orion’s left shoulder, and I think that is a fine suggestion. Diana was a warrior, even if her weapon was not a sword.)

This is one of her best books, although many of her books are good, and all of them are different in their own respective ways. I hope it made you happy and sad.

This is the introduction to Dogsbody, by Diana Wynne Jones, and was written in 2011.

Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore

One measures a circle starting anywhere, said Alan Moore quoting Charles Fort, at the beginning of his exploration of Victorian society, From Hell. The circle here is temporal, and the circle is geographical. It is a circle made of black dogs and November fires, of dead feet and severed heads, of longing and loss and lust. It is a circle that will take you several miles and six thousand years.