I've been openly critical of Susan Cooper's structuring of The Dark Is Rising series of books.
Sequential battles to win amulets to complete a belt of power doesn't work for me.
However the rest of those books are still quite good enough to more than make up that shortcoming.
And here is the author speaking at Oxford University in 2017.
#SusanCooper #FantasyLiterature #TheDarkIsRising
"fight battles to get more strength levels"
I'm very over this approach - so many hours playing Diablo computer game?
Strangely the earliest example I've found is a British mytho-fantasy book series called The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper that first appeared in 1965.
Otherwise excellent, the repeated, inevitable victory by the books' main characters becomes increasingly irksome.
A nice bit of Welsh scenery to cleanse your Monday timeline; views from Craig-yr-Aderyn (Birds Rock) along the Dysynni valley.
"Through the door of the birds
Where the breeze breaks..."
Work finished, Satie's Gymnopedies playing, and a crucial evening in Will Stanton's awakening in The Dark Is Rising to read.
And... relax
Blog: Flavours of Christmas
What media evokes the flavours of the season for you?
Call outs to Susan Cooper's #TheDarkisRising, John Masefield’s #TheBoxofDelights and Mark Helprin's #WintersTale
https://delta-pavonis.blogspot.com/2024/12/flavours-of-christmas.html
I really enjoyed #TheDarkIsReading on twitter a few years ago. Is anyone else starting #TheDarkIsRising ? I'll be reading the first chapter and listening to the BBC Radio version with my 9 year old - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/w13xtvp7
The Dark Is Rising sequence: appalling movie, passable radio series, but *almost everyone* picks the wrong story to begin at. Over Sea Under Stone sets up Merriman Lyon enough that xe does not need so much exposition. Radio did it.
The Grey King should be easy to adapt, but no-one has ever got that far. They don't need a whole fictional land with giants and a magic lion; just Wales in bad weather.
"Through the door of the birds where the breeze breaks..."
Following in the footsteps of Will Stanton and Bran Davies, high up above the Dysynni valley on Craig yr Aderyn (Birds' Rock), looking towards Cader Idris and the mountain fastnesses of Y Brenin Llwyd. A place that I have known since I was at primary school, but have never been to before except in my imagination.
"The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond.... All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere."
- Susan Cooper, "The Dark Is Rising"
#BookWormSat #BookChatWeekly #GothicSpring #31DaysofHaunting #literature #fantasy #SusanCooper #TheDarkIsRising
I am SO very ready for someone to give THE DARK IS RISING Sequence by Susan Cooper the "Jackson's LotR" treatment. It is a travesty that we haven't been given a high quality TDIR movie series.
The 2007 debacle in no way qualifies.
skua
thesweetcheat
cybergoths
Edward Andrews-Hodgson
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Court Cantrell prefers not to