Archive for the Category »What I Read «
Narnia . . . where horses talk and hermits like company, where evil men turn into donkeys, where boys go into battle . . . and where the adventure begins.
During the Golden Age of Narnia, when Peter is High King, a boy named Shasta discovers he is not the son of Arsheesh, the Calormene fisherman, and decides to run far away to the North – to Narnia. When he is mistaken for another runaway, Shasta is led to discover who he really is and even finds his real father.
This is my favorite book in the series so far. I loved the imagery and the story that’s being told here and the will that this this weak little boy (because that’s what he really is) does have. I can picture almost an Egyptian-like feel to the world that Shasta’s in, and I really don’t think that’s unintentional.
As someone that’s as nonreligious as they come, even I picked up on the Moses in the reeds homage this story paid. I knew going in that CS Lewis had some heavy Christian themes in his Narnia series. I guess it goes right along with write what you know, right? At least he did something different with it. He was given an image to color and it looked like one that everyone else had. He just used different crayons.
I would have liked to have seen some more of Bree, though. He seemed to have a pretty big conflict towards the end of the story, with his dignity and walking back into his land a relative stranger. The story certainly hops around enough that that could have been a possibility to have in there instead of just a passing mention of what he did with his life at the very end. That part just seemed to be left hanging and, really, it was the only part that left me a little unfulfilled.
I liked the integration of the original children (well, the LWW children, anyway) into this very different tale. Being someone that’s pretty unfamiliar with The Chronicles of Narnia, I like how they’re used as sort of fishing wire to string the stories together, even at the very end of The Magician’s Nephew (although that would be only if you were even remotely familiar with LWW).
Overall, an excellent book and I can’t wait to keep plowing through the series.
Narnia . . . the land beyond the wardrobe, the secret country known only to Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy . . . the place where the adventure begins.
Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor’s mysterious old house. At first, no one believes her when she tells of her adventures in the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund and then Peter and Susan discover the Magic and meet Aslan, the Great Lion, for themselves. In the blink of an eye, their lives are changed forever.
You know, I can’t help but question whether a book like this would be published today. There’s a lot of telling, not so much showing, a lot of action is skimmed over and it’s very obviously a religious allegory (not that that would make it ineligible for publication). I couldn’t help but think that as I read it but at the same time I couldn’t help but think just how magical the story actually is.
Compare the circumstances to other works now and you don’t have all that much that is original but then, back in 1950, this was the epitome of original. There was nothing else like this story except for facetious fairy tales that carried very little depth. This was the basis for portals and other worlds and magical creatures that authors today either consciously or subconsciously pull from for their own stories. So no, it’s not original today but it is the very reason it’s not original today, because it was so original and magical then that it was bound to spurn derivatives.
The dream world Aenir is not a safe place. One wrong step can lead to danger, entrapment…or death. Tal and Milla must fight their way through this shifting landscape. They are searching for the Codex, a magical object that will decide the fate of their worlds. Many creatures stand in their way–from the cloud-flesh Storm Shepherds to a swarm of venomous Waspwyrms to a horrifying figure named Hazror. Tal and Milla cannot leave Aenir without the Codex. But finding it might endanger them more than they’ve ever dreamed… (www.bn.com)
This book is by far the best out of the three that I read. The writing shifted away from focusing on the world and pushing the world and started focusing on plot and action and ‘are they could to make it out alive?’ About halfway through the book I remember thinking, ‘now we’re getting somewhere.’
So long as Tal doesn’t think because he definitely is a little on the pansy side, not to mention that superiority complex comes back into play every now and then. I don’t like reading about that because without Milla, Tal would be vulture food and he really hasn’t seen that yet. However I’ll give him points for pushing himself more than he ever has, especially with Bazror and the Codex, where he was essentially carrying a door with a dislocated shoulder out from under a mountain that was falling on them. I’d probably do the same thing without crying as much as he was but good for him for reaching beyond his comfort zone, at least physically.
I’m having issues finding a synopsis for just this book instead of the entire series and the book I have is a three-in-one so that’s not all that helpful either. So I’ll try and sum this one up for you.
Tal has bound himself to Milla, and vise versa, in order to get himself back to the castle. In exchange for his safe return, he must get Milla a sunstone in order for her to take it back to the Icecarls. Getting back into the castle, since Tal hasn’t heard of anyone actually doing it, proves much more difficult than climbing up a mountain. He’s pushed to the physical and mental limits that even he didn’t know he had, not to mention he starts to question his own standing in life. When Tal and Milla are captured by henchmen of Sushin, Tal’s mortal enemy for unknown reasons, he has to figure a way out of the mess he’s in and help Milla because it is his fault, after all, that she ended up trapped in his world and incarcerated in the Hall of Nightmares.
I have to say, this one is much better than the first, not only in writing style but in exposition as well. I think it had a lot to do with it shifting back and forth between Tal being someplace foreign and Milla being someplace foreign so there’s a lot more explanation going on which helps to develop the story in my head a little better. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments of ‘what is that?’ because it just gives you a name without a basis for comparison, but it’s quelled a lot.
Tal has lived his whole life in darkness. He has never left his home, a mysterious castle of seven towers. He does not see the threat that will tear apart his family and his world.
But Tal cannot stay safe forever. When danger strikes, he must desperately climb the Red Tower to steal a Sunstone. He reaches the top…
…and then he falls into a strange and unknown world of warriors, iceships, and hidden magic. There Tal makes an enemy who will save his life—and holds the key to his future. (bn.com)
I. Am. So. Lost. I’ve never read a book and come out this disoriented before. Holy crap. Right from the beginning you’re shoved into this world with weird names being thrown at you, many without any kind of explanation so you’re left to try and figure out just what this something’s supposed to look like but you have no idea because it could rightly be anything. That . . . was a huge turn off for me. Immediately I’m supposed to know what all of this stuff is, what’s going in, why it’s so important to get into Aenir. And I don’t. I’m just told that’s how it is. Therein lies the major flaw.
