I never read White Fang as a kid, but I would have liked it. While Jack London wasn't writing primarily for children, it's very much a Boy's AdventureI never read White Fang as a kid, but I would have liked it. While Jack London wasn't writing primarily for children, it's very much a Boy's Adventure sort of novel, especially nowadays, when Alaska is no longer quite the unimaginable alien wilderness it was in London's day, and wolves are mostly consigned to lurking at the borders of civilization, and regarded more with pity (when not being exterminated) than fear. So the story of this half-dog, half-wolf who started out as an Indian sled dog and winds up the happy housepet of a judge in California reads as a quaint adventure from a bygone time.
White Fang tells the story of a wolf-dog born wild but eventually captured by an Alaskan Indian tribe and made to lead a sled. White Fang is the fiercest and most savage of his pack, and learns to fight and survive with greater cunning and skill than any of his kind. London imparts a great deal of willfulness and reasoning to White Fang that is probably more than could actually be attributed to a canine, but it reads almost believably, as if you're getting into the actual mind of this fierce, intelligent, savage creature who isn't quite a person and not quite fully sapient, but still has a definite personality and memories and motivations.
In many ways, White Fang is a Conan-like hero. He's a singular specimen of his kind, raised on hardship and brutality, genetically gifted, destined to become the most fearsome warrior in the land. He defeats dogs and wolves alike. He spends some time forced to become a fighting dog, at the hands of a particularly brutal white man, before he is taken by another white man who manages to earn his trust and loyalty and eventually (and improbably) bend him to domesticated life in sunny California.
White Fang's adventures are high-spirited and often bloody, but even when White Fang is being a real son-of-a-bitch, you're always rooting for the dog....more
The Troop is good. Stephen King good. It's no surprise it got blurbed by King — it's just the sort of creepy, gross, and disturbing tale he wrote in hThe Troop is good. Stephen King good. It's no surprise it got blurbed by King — it's just the sort of creepy, gross, and disturbing tale he wrote in his glory days, where the real horror is not the supernatural or science gone mad, but how human beings treat each other.
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"AAAAAAAAHH!!!! They're inside me!!!!"
(Okay, I just Google image-searched "tapeworm" so you don't have to. Do not do this. You will be sorry.)
Five boys in a Boy Scout troop, led by small-town doctor Scoutmaster Tim, embark on a weekend of camping and merit badge-collecting on a tiny island off the coast of Canada. Unfortunately, someone else joins them on the island, a visitor who is gaunt and almost insane with hunger.
Once the bad shit starts happening, the boys notice that there are boats, military boats, surrounding the island. And no one is coming to rescue them.
This is not a book for those with weak stomachs or who can't handle stories in which children die. You will grow attached to these five boys - Kent, the big, brash son of the town's police chief; Max, sensible and easy-going; Ephraim, fearless, wired, coiled and angry; Shelly, the odd, "slow" boy who makes everyone uneasy; and Newt, the chubby, nerdy butt of everyone's jokes.
This boys' adventure is a pretty horrific survival tale. It's got blood and guts and solid characterization, and smooth, pleasing writing that will still creep you the hell out. As a long-time Stephen King fan, and a former Boy Scout, The Troop gets high marks from me - I will definitely be checking out Nick Cutter's next....more
Ah, this is more like it. For those of you who miss those Heinlein juveniles, Apollo's Outcasts is perfectly billed as a successor to books like StarmAh, this is more like it. For those of you who miss those Heinlein juveniles, Apollo's Outcasts is perfectly billed as a successor to books like Starman Jones and Have Space Suit -- Will Travel. And look, is it too much to ask for some boy-centered YA now and then? This was a great juvenile hard SF novel, updated for the times.
Jamey Barlowe was born on the moon, but brought back to Earth after his mother died. Thanks to Lunar Birth Deficiency Syndrome, his bones aren't strong enough to hold his weight in Earth's gravity, so he's spent his life in a mobil, a kind of high-tech wheelchair. His father is a scientist for the International Space Consortium, a multinational space agency that has replaced NASA in this world of the late 21st century. When the President of the United States dies under suspicious circumstances, his Vice President, a right-wing fanatic named Lina Shapar who has what one might suspect to be more than a passing resemblance to certain real-life politicians
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seizes control in what is effectively a coup d'etat. She starts throwing her political enemies — including Jamey's father, who had not long before, along with many other scientists, signed a letter opposing her — in jail.
Having seen this coming, Jamey's father packs him and his sisters into a transport to the Moon, where they can (he hopes) hide on Apollo, the ISC moon colony that mines helium-3 for Earth's fusion power plants.
This is a very traditional YA SF story. "Heinleinesque" cannot be said too often. If you liked those old Heinlein juveniles, you will like this book. If they do nothing for you, then you probably will find Apollo's Outcasts falls flat for you too, because it's a boy's adventure on the moon, with plenty of science and just enough politics and economics to make it vaguely plausible.
Advantage Steele: This book was written in 2012, not 1952, and Allen Steele does not, so far as I know, have a spanking fetish, nor a "feisty-girls-who-inevitably-bite-their-lips-submissively-and-cast-demure-glances-downward" fetish, so the girls in this book are feisty and do shit and they don't stop being feisty and doing shit just because they've got boyfriends.
Jamey meets a cast of fairly stock YA characters: besides his whiny brat of an older sister, there is the precocious little kid and her mentally handicapped older brother, there's Jamey's best friend, there's the girl who's got a crush on Jamey and the girl Jamey has a crush on, there's the bully who's on his case from day one, and so on. Jamey and his pals have to learn the ropes, they become contributing members of the lunar colony, and when President Shapar launches an invasion to capture the base, Jamey winds up fighting to defend it. There are some deaths, obviously meant to be tearjerkers, but this is a YA novel so things get resolved relatively neatly.
So it may not quite achieve the status of science fiction classic, but Apollo's Outcasts is just the kind of book I loved when I was in the target audience age range, and who am I kidding, I still am the target audience. Recommended for all SF fans if you can stand YA....more
This was a random pick from the library because the cover caught my eye. I'm glad it did — Hannah Tinti's debut novel is very readable, and superior tThis was a random pick from the library because the cover caught my eye. I'm glad it did — Hannah Tinti's debut novel is very readable, and superior to most YA fiction, but part of its problem is that the author couldn't seem to quite decide whether this was YA or not. You will see a lot of reviewers comparing it to Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, mainly because it's about a hard-luck orphan (missing a hand for as long as he can remember) who embarks upon a fantastic if rather dark and creepy adventure. But other than those superficial similarities, I hardly think Tinti's prose resembles either Dickens or Stevenson. There are occasional literary flourishes and some cleverness, and an awful lot of imagination, but the depth isn't quite there to make this an American classic.
The addition of mad doctors doing bad things with corpses and naked dwarves coming down chimneys gets added comparisons to Stephen King or Mary Shelley. But again — no, not really either of them in style or tone.
Ren's childhood is not quite as hard-luck as Oliver Twist's — the monks of St. Anthony's are stern but not cruel. The yearning of Ren and his friends for a family to adopt them, and their fear of being impressed into the army (the fate of those boys who aren't adopted) is an almost-effective tug at the heartstrings. Ren is a far more believable orphan boy than Harry Potter, and not quite as melodramatic as Oliver Twist.
A con artist named Benjamin Nab shows up with a fantastic tale, claiming that he is Ren's older brother. Ren quickly figures out he's not, but goes along with Nab and his partner and learns the arts of lying, thieving, and "fishing." Like most glib traveling con men, Benjamin Nab's luck runs out and he attracts the attention of more dangerous people. This eventually leads to Ren (of course) discovering the truth about his parentage.
Ren makes a variety of friends, from the hard-of-hearing, eternally-shouting landlady Mrs. Sands to the murderous giant Dolly, and the mousetrap girl known only as "the Harelip." (In fairness, none of the "hat boys" are ever named either.) These sorts of zany characters and a slightly whimsical tone make this an entertaining and imaginative book, but also made me unable to really take it seriously when Tinti tried to shift into dark and creepy mode. It was like reading Peter Pan where you've just seen Peter partying with the Lost Boys and Tiger Lily, and then Captain Hook comes along and actually kills someone. Oh, is this the part where shit gets real?
(Yeah, I didn't like Hook either.)
But, it's still a good read with likable characters you root for by the end. Hannah Tinti is a promising author who kind of reminds me of Laini Taylor, except in Taylor's case, I thought her writing was great while her story fell flat, while Hannah Tinti's story was compelling and never lost me, but her writing was lacking a "wow" factor for me.
3.5 stars, which I am rounding up because I'm feeling generous....more
I have a bunch of manga on my shelves I have never gotten around to reading, as I'm not really into modern manga. But I picked this up on a whim becauI have a bunch of manga on my shelves I have never gotten around to reading, as I'm not really into modern manga. But I picked this up on a whim because I have always been fascinated with the game of go, even though I never got beyond the rank beginner level.
The basic premise is a typical silly manga plot: Hikaru Shindo is an eleven-year-old boy who discovers an ancient go board. It turns out that the board is possessed by the spirit of a Heian-period go master, who then begins haunting Hikaru and urging him to play go. Hikaru has no interest in the game, but the go master manages to push him into situations in which Hikaru becomes a reluctant student of the game.
Mostly what is interesting about this is the amount of drama the writer manages to evoke from a bunch of go players. Of course go really is an intense, drama-filled game to its devotees. Also, Hikaru's characterization is realistic. Instead of being one of those manga child prodigies who acts like a tiny adult with adult skills, Hikaru is a typical sixth grader: he's immature, selfish, bratty, and impulsive, and only slowly does he start taking go even a little bit seriously.
I have another volume of this series on my shelf which I will get to next and see if I become a fan....more
The protagonist of I Am Not a Serial Killer is a 15-year-old sociopath. Fascinated by serial killers, supposedly because he doesn't want to become oneThe protagonist of I Am Not a Serial Killer is a 15-year-old sociopath. Fascinated by serial killers, supposedly because he doesn't want to become one himself, he greets the arrival of a serial killer in his town like the most exciting thing ever. Then he decides to try to stop the killer. The battle of wits between John Wayne Cleaver and his adversary can best be summarized by that famous Nietzsche quote:
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
This was a surprisingly good read with a teenage main character you really want to like despite his increasingly creepy behavior, but it becomes harder and harder to overlook it. In fairness, he warns you up front what he is, but by the end of the book, you'll be torn between pity and disgust for him. I thought the story itself was very well executed, as it delivered several twists I didn't see coming, and for the most part, John remained believable as a sociopath who really doesn't want to be one.
This was overall a decent little thriller that scored solidly above average in story, interesting characters, and writing. Be warned, though, that even though it's YA, it gets pretty gruesome, and the main character does some seriously skeevy stuff. The author makes an attempt at an uplifting ending of sorts, but after the events of the previous few chapters, you're just not going to have a lot of warm fuzzies for Johnny....more
Paolo Bacigalupi is destined to be one of the Grand Old Masters of science fiction in another couple of decades. His books are uniformly excellent andPaolo Bacigalupi is destined to be one of the Grand Old Masters of science fiction in another couple of decades. His books are uniformly excellent and capture perfectly the aesthetic of modern SF. His pet theme is environmental and economic catastrophe creating an impoverished, post-oil world. Ship Breaker reads very much like a YA version of his Hugo and Nebula-winning The Windup Girl. Although it's never explicitly stated that Ship Breaker takes place in the same world, it is similar enough that it very well could.
The main character, Nailer, is a ship breaker, a teenager who lives his life crawling around in old vessels trying to salvage anything that will earn a little coin. It's a dirty, dangerous job, yet he considers himself lucky to have it, because the alternative is worse. The dystopian element is not an oppressive government, but a nonexistent government, in a world of drowned cities.
When a storm washes an expensive ship and a pretty girl ashore, Nailer and his friends have to decide whether to help the girl or strip her ship (and her) for parts. Obviously we know which way Nailer must choose for the story to go further. The rich girl turns out to have been fleeing from enemies of her wealthy and powerful family, and so Nailer is dragged along on an adventure that will take him far beyond any horizons he'd previously imagined.
You can tell this is a YA novel by the fact that Bacigalupi tones down the violence a little (but there are still some pretty gruesome deaths), and sex is only implied. The story is kept fast-paced and adventurous, with Nailer going from one close call to another. I'd compare Ship Breaker favorably to one of Heinlein's juveniles; its science and worldbuilding is (of course) more contemporary, but the story is very much a boy's adventure, with a pretty girl (who has plenty of will of her own) as a motivating factor.
Highly recommended: if you liked The Windup Girl, you should like this somewhat lighter story told in a similar vein, and it's better than a lot of adult SF....more
One of Heinlein's early juveniles, this one has all the elements seen throughout his juvenile series: a plucky boy hero who's always wanted to go to sOne of Heinlein's early juveniles, this one has all the elements seen throughout his juvenile series: a plucky boy hero who's always wanted to go to space, precocious girl heroine (who fortunately is too young to be mooning over boys), Father Knows Best who turns out to be a hidden genius and former Very Important Person in the government, and interesting 50ish aliens.
The thing I like about Heinlein's juveniles is that they still hold up pretty well 50 years later, if you can ignore all the references to slide rules. The entertaining quality of this book made it a great listen (I listened to the Full Cast Audio version which used different voice actors for different parts, and sound effects for all the alien voices) and the story just hums along. It manages to retain the "hard SF" feel of most of Heinlein's early work despite the surprising turn the story takes when what seems to be another "space camp gone amiss" adventure ends up becoming literally intergalactic in scope.
Heinlein was writing to be paid, not to make his mark on the genre, so there isn't much here to challenge your expectations. The author does slip a bit of his slightly smug philosophy into the pages, but fortunately this was before he went Full-Tilt Libertarian. It's Boy's Adventure for Boys, but the character of Peewee - a spunky genius 10-year-old - makes it something a girl could enjoy too. She isn't as active a protagonist as Kip, but she does do things and figure things out on her own and generally acts like a super-bright super-perky thorn in Kip's side.
Basically, this is just a helluva fun book, and a good one to read for any sci-fi fan, whether you are a Heinlein virgin or a long-time fan....more
I read a lot of Heinlein's juveniles when I was younger, but I missed this one and it was on sale from Audible, so it was nice to enjoy one of his earI read a lot of Heinlein's juveniles when I was younger, but I missed this one and it was on sale from Audible, so it was nice to enjoy one of his earlier works, before he started getting old and wanky. Everything from Friday on was pretty much Heinlein getting his freak on, but his earlier novels are still sci-fi classics for good reason.
Starman Jones is your basic boys' adventure story: Max is a kid from Earth who runs away from home when his stepmother marries an abusive bum. He meets an amiable drifter who turns out to be a not-so-good Samaritan, but he meets the man again when they're both trying to find a way off-planet, and the two of them lie their away aboard a spaceship. From there, Max's talent for math and his inherent good nature and sense of decency lead him from one position to another aboard ship, and when the ship gets lost, taking a bad "jump" to an unknown star system, Max of course is the one who saves the day.
Obviously, this book was written for teenagers, but it stands up as pretty good adult SF even today, though it is a bit dated (it was written in 1951). The gender roles are pretty old-fashioned, and while Heinlein's FTL drives and beam weapons are standard sci-fi, you may chuckle when Max breaks out his slide rule to perform astrogation. Still, I think it compares favorably to any genre fiction written for kids today, and Heinlein did a much better job than most writers of bridging the gap between YA and adult fiction. I might not start with Starman Jones if you haven't read any of Heinlein's juveniles before -- it's pretty good, but it's not his best -- but if you're already a Heinlein fan, this will definitely be an enjoyable read....more
At first I was wary of this book. It's YA, and Cory Doctorow is a technologist with very strong anarcho-libertarian-leaning views on privacy, piracy, At first I was wary of this book. It's YA, and Cory Doctorow is a technologist with very strong anarcho-libertarian-leaning views on privacy, piracy, and intellectual property rights. I happen to (mostly) agree with his views, but not without a few misgivings, and anyway, a preachy book that's a vehicle for an agenda will turn me off even if I agree with the agenda.
Despite a few spots where I think Doctorow simplified the issues too much, this is in fact a great book (taking into account that the target audience is young people, which is why there is so much spelling out of the ideas and history behind the arguments Doctorow is making). It's a great book because the story is compelling and the characters make you care about them, independently of the ideological background.
The story in a nutshell: terrorists blow up the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, provoking a hysterical reaction even more extreme than post-9/11. The Department of Homeland Security turns into a virtual occupying army, and Marcus, the main character, because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time (and because he's a hacker) finds himself imprisoned, interrogated, and classified as a terrorist himself.
From there the novel proceeds in a sort of stripped-down and more optimistic version of 1984, one in which the "underground" actually exists and actually has a chance of winning. Doctorow deliberately exaggerates the security apparatus and the anti-terrorism hysteria of the U.S., but only a little. The story is also a light primer on hacking, jamming, and generally screwing with security systems.
Marcus is a real teenager, and manages to have real teenager parent and girl issues, despite being pursued by an increasingly zealous police state. All of the secondary characters are equally real, and quite reflective of the real Bay Area. Since again, this is a YA novel, it can perhaps be forgiven for making it just a little too easy for a bunch of teenagers to take on DHS, but I do think Doctorow punted by making all the bad guys (i.e., anyone supporting the government/anti-terrorist position) purely stupid and/or evil.
Nonetheless, it's still a great story, and it should be enjoyable (though perhaps a bit vexing) even to those who actually think the Patriot Act is a good idea. (Hopefully it will make you reconsider...)...more
Most fan fiction is unreadable crap, but there are a few authors who can actually write at a professional level, or nearly so. If you like Harry PotteMost fan fiction is unreadable crap, but there are a few authors who can actually write at a professional level, or nearly so. If you like Harry Potter and the very idea of fan fiction doesn't make you turn up your nose, then this next generation story is worth reading. While I didn't like all of the elements Lippert added into the "canon" universe (the Americans and the "quantum" explanation of magic, for instance), it's otherwise very much in the same spirit as the original books....more
Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old; Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea; All sh
Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old; Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea; All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree.
This was my Harry Potter, you kids.
It is still magic.
September 2013 reread
I still remember the day in fifth grade, many, many years ago, when the school librarian told me that the book I'd been waiting for was in. Silver on the Tree, the fifth and final volume in Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence.
It was this cover:
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I had torn through the first four books. (I think I read the first one, Over Sea, Under Stone, out of order the first time, which was okay because it's kind of a prequel to the rest of the series.) With the second one, The Dark is Rising, I was hooked. For some reason I had to wait for the fifth book, though. When the librarian handed it to me, I was thrilled... but also sad. I remember that distinctly. I was sad, because I was about to read the last book and then it would be over.
I remember loving this concluding volume, but also feeling such sadness when I was finished because the series was over.
I haven't felt anything like that since, until a few years ago when I read the entire Harry Potter series in a month. While the feelings were not as strong because I'm older and more jaded, and while I can certainly recognize Rowling's flaws as a writer, the fact that Harry and his friends in their silly boy wizard fantasy world managed to conjure some of the same emotions I once felt as a ten-year-old is the reason why I credit Rowling with having created something truly timeless and special, even if I can point to a dozen fantasy series that are objectively better-written. I don't know what that "special sauce" is in a children's book series that makes it transcend plot and prose and curl literary fingers around your heart, but Rowling had it, and Susan Cooper had it.
Now, I am not much of a rereader. I almost never reread books. I understand a lot of people reread their favorite books often. There are people who boast of reading the entire Harry Potter series a dozen times. (I read them each once. That's it.) It's a habit I just don't get, even if I realize I am the unusual one. To my way of thinking, there are thousands of books I'd like to read and will never get to before I die, so why waste one of the finite "reading slots" allotted to me in my lifetime to a book I've already read?
Still, now and then I do reread something, usually something I read so long ago I've forgotten it. Maybe in twenty or thirty years I will reread Harry Potter.
Over the past year, I cautiously and with some trepidation approached my favorite childhood series once again. Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising. I was afraid the series I loved so much as a child would be a pale, childish shadow when read as an adult who's read thousands of books since. I've read the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings (well, I lie, I have never read the LotR all the way through, I need to do that one of these days) and lots of other fantasy, MG and YA and adult and grimdark. So nothing can be as new and fresh for me as Susan Cooper's books were when I first read them, nor as tragic.
I didn't want to find out that they just weren't that special, though.
To be honest, I enjoyed them on my reread, but yes, I'm an adult now and these books are written for children, so they just didn't enthrall me the way they did when I was ten. A fine series, and great, descriptive, evocative writing — Susan Cooper is so much better than J.K. Rowling when it comes to putting words on the page and imagery in your head.
But until the last book, it was a pleasant nostalgia trip, but as I expected, they have aged perfectly well but they have aged.
Then I got to the last few chapters of Silver on the Tree. And... it wasn't quite the same. Not quite. But I felt it again. That ten-year-old inside me remembers.
Silver on the Tree relates the final battle between the Dark and the Light. It brings together all the characters who have been serving the cause of the Light throughout the first four books, sometimes together and sometimes separately: the Drew children, Jane, Simon, and Barney; Will Stanton, the last of the Old Ones, simultaneously a pre-adolescent boy and an immortal wizard with all the magical knowledge of the ages at his command; Bran, the albino boy taken out of time to fulfill a destiny set for him a thousand years earlier; and Merriman, of course.
The Dark Rider returns too, along with a White Rider, and all the other forces of the Dark. Susan Cooper didn't write a plot so full of crafty easter eggs as Rowling did, but like Rowling, she will make use in the last book of things mentioned in all the preceding ones. Will and Bran have to go on a quest that resounds with Celto-Arthurian mythology, and the Drew children have their own mortal part to play. All that was fun and splendid and rich, that alone would have made this the best book of the series.
But the ending — in which there is love and loss and sacrifice on a scale that probably only J.R.R. Tolkien or CS Lewis have approached in children's literature. Definitely not Rowling. I'm sorry, killing an owl and a Weasley or two is cheap tear-jerking. But the part that John Rowlands plays in the final confrontation, even after learning the truth about his wife, was about as intense as a ten-year-old reader could probably have grasped, when conveying adult feelings of grief and loss. Followed by the arrival of the King, and Bran's decision, and then... Will, left alone with the Drews, and what they lose as well.
It's a happy ending - the good guys win, of course. And Susan Cooper's finale is more bloodless than Rowling's. There's hardly any actual bloodshed throughout the series; for all that the Dark is the manifestation of everything evil and selfish in the human heart, the child protagonists are always protected by "rules" that limit when the forces at war can do direct harm.
But it's a very bittersweet victory. You can see them walking off into the sunset, and know that it's over.
This fourth book is where the Dark is Rising sequence begins to pick up its pace and become more epic, weaving the final battle of theJuly 2013 reread
This fourth book is where the Dark is Rising sequence begins to pick up its pace and become more epic, weaving the final battle of the Dark vs. the Light into a retold Arthurian mythos. Rereading it as an adult, I began to feel again a little bit of the magic that so entranced me as a child when this was my favorite series ever.
In The Grey King, Will Stanton, last of the Old Ones, has been sent to stay with an uncle in Wales to recover from an illness, thus continuing to contrast his humanity (physically he is still an eleven-year-old boy) with his immortal nature as an Old One. He is coming into his power and is now able to work magic and know things without everything being fed to him by his mentor Merriman, who makes only a token appearance in this book. Indeed, this is Will's first true solo quest. Notably, the Drew children, who starred in book one and shared the story with Will in book three, are completely absent and unmentioned here.
On the day of the dead, when the year too dies, Must the youngest open the oldest hills Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks. There fire shall fly from the raven boy, And the silver eyes that see the wind, And the light shall have the harp of gold.
By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie, On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call; Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall, Yet singing the golden harp shall guide To break their sleep and bid them ride.
When light from the lost land shall return, Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn, And where the midsummer tree grows tall By Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.
Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu, ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.
Susan Cooper definitely has a more poetic pen than Rowling, and in The Grey King you get a lot of Welsh — Welsh landscapes, Welsh mythology, even a little bit of Welsh language lessons. The Grey King is the Brenin Llwyd, a great Lord of the Dark who dwells in Cader Idris, a misty mountain over a pleasant farm valley, where six sleepers lie sleeping, to be awoken by a harp of gold — if Will can find it and play it and prevent the Grey King from preventing him.
Also to play a role in this story is Bran, the Raven Boy, an albino the same age as Will, whose true nature is revealed in dramatic and powerful fashion.
Highlights of this book, besides the magnificent Welsh scenery, were the bits of magic, much more forceful and powerful this time. Will isn't playing around any more, but he's no god or even a full-fledged wizard, and the Light and the Dark both have hard limits on what they can do, bound by universal rules. Susan Cooper gives the magic powers a sense of mystery and epic scope even while applying appropriate narrative constraints and without trying to enumerate them in the style of a modern fantasy novel.
There is also much more powerful human drama this time around. Caradog Prichard, the human "villain" of the piece, is a nasty piece of work, yet ultimately just a man, and so Will's inevitably doomed efforts to save him from his own folly read as real and yet foreordained. There is an eternal human tragedy replayed as Will proceeds toward the final stage of his quest.
Although it's been too long and I'm now too much of a grown-up to feel the same wonder and thrill I did reading this in elementary school, the first three books were pleasant but not really that much fun and kind of left me wondering why I loved them so much as a child, while this book shows Susan Cooper's talents as a dramatist and storyteller more....more
These books are horribly dated and probably won't interest adult readers, except for retro-sci-fi amusement. However, I read most of the series as a cThese books are horribly dated and probably won't interest adult readers, except for retro-sci-fi amusement. However, I read most of the series as a child, and I think children would still enjoy them....more
I remember reading this series as a child because I'd liked Christopher's "Tripods" series. Even as a kid, I found this series a bit derivative, but II remember reading this series as a child because I'd liked Christopher's "Tripods" series. Even as a kid, I found this series a bit derivative, but I enjoyed it nonetheless; I suspect I'd find it rather dull if I reread it today. I also remember that the main character surprised me by how non-heroic he was; in fact, he progressively becomes a real bastard even while remaining the protagonist....more
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