The cover of our 1977 paperback edition has rather a strange and somewhat disturbing image showing - apparently - a sword embedded in someone’s forehead. So perhaps that’s why I never picked this book up. Thankfully it’s nothing to do with the story. Instead, we meet again the five children who were involved in the previous books: the siblings Simon, Jane and Barney, the ‘Old One’ Will, and his friend from another time, the white-skinned Bran.
They are all aware that the dark forces of evil are set to rise and that they are the only ones who can stop it. This book is a series of adventures, some of them quite tense, as they follow lines of a prophecy, take note of various instructions, and succeed (inevitably, as this is a young teenage book) in their destiny.
Although there’s a lot of action in this book, there’s also a lot of description, something I had to slow down to read. I usually skim descriptive passages in books, but these were so important to the plot that I couldn’t do so. But it made it feel rather heavy-going. There’s some conversation, but not a great deal of characterisation. We ‘know’ the children, of course, from previous books; this would not really stand alone as there are so many references to previous events in the sequence.
I didn’t actually find this book particularly engaging, though I was determined to finish it. And there’s quite a poignant scene towards the end of the book, when an ordinary man, drawn into the events through no choice of his own, has to make an extremely difficult decision. But even that doesn’t take many pages. And overall it just felt like one fast-moving event after another, something that would probably be better portrayed in a film - and it’s rare that I say that!
All the threads from previous books are drawn together in this book, which has slightly more of an Arthurian flavour than the others. It also has a stronger idea of good vs evil, and of ‘high magic’ which is neither good nor bad. Then, in the end, everything is put back on mankind, acknowledging that there is the potential for good or for evil in us all.
I suppose the series as a whole is quite thought-provoking, and it’s well-written. It would probably appeal to older children or young teenagers who like fast action books and don’t mind a bit of fantasy (and time-travel) intruding into reality. But this final one is not really my kind of book, and I doubt if I’ll read it again.
The other four books in the series, which should really be read in order, are:
Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment