Moon of Gomrath: A compelling magical fantasy adventure, the sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

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But it does, and it's a good ending and all the twists and turns are nicely resolved and the threads tied into a pretty bow. Nice. Alan's own grandfather, Joseph Garner, "could read, but didn't and so was virtually unlettered", but instead taught his grandson the various folk tales about The Edge, [4] Alan later remarking that, as a result, he was "aware of [the Edge's] magic" when as a child he would often play there with his friends. [7] The story of the king and the wizard living under the hill played an important part in the young Alan's life, becoming "deeply embedded in my psyche" and influencing his novels, in particular The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. [4] When I was a young boy, I knew of a book called The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and I coveted it but never read it.

However, her exposure to other levels of existence has sensitised her to the powers with which she and her brother have been coming to associate and the story takes a new dramatic turn. On walking home across the Edge on dusk, they are inspired to build a fire to keep warm, Susan almost manically so. This fire includes rowan and pine which unintendedly act as a wendfire, which on this night of the year has the power to call ancient spirits from their mounds. Colin and Susan release the Wild Hunt, which return several times during the course of the novel. Alan Garner". Science Fiction Awards Database (sfadb.com). Mark R. Kelly and the Locus Science Fiction Foundation. Retrieved 29 July 2013. In the fiftieth anniversary edition of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, published by HarperCollins in 2010, several notable British fantasy novelists praised Garner and his work. Susan Cooper related that "The power and range of Alan Garner's astounding talent has grown with every book he's written", whilst David Almond called him one of Britain's "greatest writers" whose works "really matter". [20] Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, went further when he remarked that: Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful... Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that's the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration. [40] Reimer, Mavis (1989). "The Family as Mythic Reservoir in Alan Garner's Stone Book Quartet". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 14 (3): 132–135. doi: 10.1353/chq.0.0786. S2CID 143190112.

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The book's introduction concerns the origin of the weirdstone. Following the defeat of Nastrond steps had been taken to prepare for his eventual return. This involved bringing together a small band of warriors of pure heart, each with a horse, and gathering them inside the old dwarf caves of Fundindelve, deep inside the hill of Alderley which were sealed by powerful white magic which would both defend Fundindelve from evil as the ages passed and prevent the warriors and their horses from ageing. When the time was ripe and the world once more in mortal peril it was prophesied that this small band of warriors would ride out from the hill, trusting in their purity of heart to defeat Nastrond forever. Fundindelve had a guardian, the ancient wizard Cadellin Silverbrow, and the heart of the white magic was sealed inside a jewel, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen, also known as Firefrost. Also a Bilingual Bonus and a case, perhaps, of Readers Are Geniuses. In The Moon of Gomrath, the dwarf Uthecar reflects on the name "Colin" and says it is that of a great hero. He even calls Colin the "Grey Dog". Colin, of course, is a modern form of the Irish hero's name Cu Chulain, the Hound of Ulster, the original Grey Dog. In this saga of wild magic, Alan Garner achieves really powerful effects of beauty and terror that hold a reader well beyond the close.’ Listener. It's hard to tell, but I'm guessing that these events take place sometime in the late 1950s; the date is immaterial but helps to get a handle on the narrative. Air pollution has driven a group of travellers from North Wales to Alderley Edge in Cheshire. No ordinary travellers these: they are lios-alfar, what we humans would call elves, and they are resting in the caves underneath the Edge before going on to the Northlands, where they hope to defeat whatever is destroying their kin there. They are let into the heart of the Edge by Cadellin, the wizard who befriended Colin and Susan in The Weirdstone and who still guards the sleeping knights under the hill.

Robert Garner and his other relatives had all been craftsmen, and, according to Garner, each successive generation had tried to "improve on, or do something different from, the previous generation". [6] Garner's grandfather, Joseph Garner, "could read, but didn't and so was virtually unlettered". Instead, he taught his grandson the folk tales he knew about The Edge. [3] Garner later remarked that as a result, he was "aware of [the Edge's] magic" as a child, and he and his friends often played there. [7] The story of the king and the wizard living under the hill played an important part in his life, becoming, he explained, "deeply embedded in my psyche" and heavily influencing his later novels. [3]

The Svart-Alfar, although the name actually means 'dark elves' (but the Norse version from whom they take their name are more like goblins). They went with Albanac down the paths of Fundindelve. Tunnel entered cave, and cave gave way to tunnel caves, and tunnels, each different and the same: there seemed to be no end. The novel met with critical praise and led to a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath, published in 1963. Growing to dislike the main characters, Garner decided not to write the envisioned third part of the trilogy. For the 1963 reprint Garner also made several changes to the original text and by the late 1960s he came to reject The Weirdstone of Brisingamen as "a fairly bad book". [2] Although it fell out of critical approval it was adapted in the late 1970s as a musical that was staged in Manchester and Essex. In 2010 HarperCollins brought out a special 50th anniversary issue of the book, containing a new preface by Garner and praise from various other figures involved in children's literature, while 2011 saw BBC Radio 4 produce a radio adaptation. In August 2012 Boneland, the third volume in Garner's trilogy, was finally released. The story roars along at a good pace, but unfortunately the main plot and many sub-plots are left unresolved. It is a common frustration on message boards that there was not a third book in the ‘Alderley’ series, but unfortunately after forty seven years of waiting, it does not seem likely to be forthcoming, which is a real shame.

Although Garner's early work is often labelled as "children's literature", Garner himself rejects such a description, informing one interviewer that "I certainly have never written for children" but that instead, he has always written purely for himself. [3] Neil Philip, in his critical study of Garner's work (1981), commented that up until that point "Everything Alan Garner has published has been published for children", [32] although he went on to relate that "It may be that Garner's is a case" where the division between children's and adults' literature is "meaningless" and that his fiction is instead "enjoyed by a type of person, no matter what their age." [33] He said "An adult point of view would not give me the ability to be as fresh in my vision as a child's point of view, because the child is still discovering the universe and many adults are not." [34]Quite simply, there is too much happening in the story and no clear plot – the story just rushes along and the reader is left unsure as to where it is going, or if it actually gets there in the end. Years and years and a little while later, the sun fell from the sky and I was to resort to listening to audio books whilst walking to and from work - it avoided the unpleasantness of walking into lampposts in the dark whilst trying to read paper books. When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day. The novel Boneland was published in 2012, nominally completing a trilogy begun some 50 years earlier with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. The Moon of Gomrath is not only powerful but full of wild, whirling adventure...the reader is drawn right into the midst of it all’. Guardian

In the 2011 BBC Radio 4 adaptation Robert Powell played the narrator; he has known Garner since he was a schoolboy at Manchester Grammar School. Struan Rodger, who played the dwarf Durathror, was in a radio production of another Garner story, Elidor, when he was thirteen years old. [29] This adaptation was broadcast again in November 2012. When Colin and Susan unwittingly rouse the Old Magic from its slumber, the uncontrollable ferocity of the Wild Hunt is unleashed upon the world once more. Soon they are inextricably caught up in the struggle between the wizard, Cadellin Silverbrow – and the evil Morrigan. Susan told her story. She spoke hesitantly, as though trying to describe something to herself as much as to anyone else.Garner faced several life-threatening childhood illnesses, which left him bed ridden for much of the time. [8] He attended a local village school, where he found that, despite being praised for his intelligence, he was punished for speaking in his native Cheshire dialect; [2] for instance, when he was six his primary school teacher washed his mouth out with soapy water. [9] Garner then won a place at Manchester Grammar School, where he received his secondary education; entry was means-tested, resulting in his school fees being waived. [8] Rather than focusing his interest on creative writing, it was here that he excelled at sprinting. [10] He used to go jogging along the highway, and later claimed that in doing so he was sometimes accompanied by the mathematician Alan Turing, who shared his fascination for the Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. [11] Garner was then conscripted into national service, serving for a time with the Royal Artillery while posted to Woolwich in Southeast London. [12] From 1976 to 1978, Garner published a series of four novellas, which have come to be collectively known as The Stone Book quartet: The Stone Book, Granny Reardun, The Aimer Gate, and Tom Fobble's Day. [24] Each focused on a day in the life of a child in the Garner family, each from a different generation. [23]