Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, Well-Written, Excellent Story!
Review: After reading "The Crystal Cave," I immediately read "The Hollow Hills." It is such an amazing story of Merlin's part in raising and bringing to Kinghood young Arthur. Beautifully written and described. Mary Stewart must have spent forever researching everything needed to write this mini-series! Not a detail of the legend is excluded.
Rating: 
Summary: What really was behind the famous legends-
Review: Amazing how Mary Stewart can set her fiction into the heart of 6th centry England.Merlin's life as Arthur's tutor was believeable-and it is also believeable what Arthur suspected about Merlin. This dispenses of the magic and tells the story of King Arthur as it could have happened.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Elegant prose, beautiful characterization, and a compelling story line.
Rating: 
Summary: ahhhh borin as hell
Review: i admit there was a few good parts to the book but most of the book was boring. too detailed and in the first 150 pages...nothing happens!!!! she took forever to set up the story and its too annoyingly detailed. dont read it if you can!!
Rating:
Summary: Spellbound
Review: I enjoyed this book very much. I was given this book to read on a list for summer reading at my highschool and gladly recommend it to everyone. It wasn't too long and was very interesting and easy to read. If you like J.R.R Tolkien then pick up this book!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Arthurian
Review: I have read many books about the Arthurian legend. This book happens to be one of the best. Mary Stewart is a professional at capturing the essense of true English writing. She has proved herself the master of knowledge and unbidden storytelling with interesting characters and prose.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Arthurian
Review: I have read many books about the Arthurian legend. This book happens to be one of the best. Mary Stewart is a professional at capturing the essense of true English writing. She has proved herself the master of knowledge and unbidden storytelling with interesting characters and prose.
Rating:
Summary: Almost unreadable!
Review: I loved Mary's "The Crystal Cave." Maybe I am too stupid to understand the art of words in this book. Maybe I'm not. Either way, I could not finish "The Hollow Hills." Chapter 1 was strait out boring. I dragged myself through it, presevering. It'll get better, I told myself. Boy was I wrong. I survived chapters 2, 3, 4 etc. No, I won't take you step-by-step through all of them. When Merlin got back to his cave, things became so incredibly boring I could not bear to go on. Besides that, this book would focus more on the *Arthur* myth, and Arthur is, to me, the most boring character in Arthurian legend (tragic, isn't it?). Give me Morgan le Fay or Gawain over him any day. Now, for a book on this subject, "The Hollow Hills" is superb. But for a sequel to the breathtaking "Crystal Cave"... Middling. Average. Also... Understand that I've been able to pull through the boring moments in "Mists" and the wordiest historical novels one would ever lay eyes on.Oh well. At least what I read of "The Hollow Hills" was better than "King and Raven".
Rating:
Summary: This book totally stinked!
Review: I personally didn't like this book. It was extrememly hard to read, with confusing words and sentences that make absolutely no sense. In fact, I only read the first four chapters, and I know several others who could hardly read the first two chapters. Maybe if I had attempted to read more, I could've gotten into it, but I highly extremely doubt it. Well, if you are interested in reading this book, maybe you can try it, but if you dont get into it, FORGET ABOUT IT YO!!!! THE WORST THING ABOUT THIS BOOK-ITS 498 PAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excelent book!
Review: I started this book with the expectation that it would be equal to it's mediocre prequel. I soon found, however, that Mary Stewart's book "The Hollow Hills" far outdoes "The Crystal Cave". Though both books follow the legend of Arthur fairly well "The Hollow Hills" has more action and the ending is much more satisfying. "The Hollow Hills" continues right from where "The Crystal Cave" leaves off. The main character is the powerful and wise sorcerer, Merlin. The book follows his struggle raising the young Arthur and helping Arthur rise to the position of High King of all Britain. All throughout this there are spies and bounty hunters hired to kill Arthur before he reaches the age he can claim the crown. This book shows a unique view on the Arthurian legends. Instead of following a knight of the round table or the king himself, as in many of the books about King Arthur, it follows a character who appears in most every legend about the infamous King. This book gives Merlin's perspective on all of the events that made King Arthur's life into legend. The book follows Arthurian legend well. Of course, there can be no story that perfectly follows the legend because there are thousands and thousands of legends pertaining to King Arthur. Even though they cannot be all represented in a single interpretation, "The Hollow Hills" follows as many of them as possible without contradicting itself. I does, however, go against some of the more well known legends such as the origin of Excalibur. Mary Stewart is an incredible writer. She describes everything very well without becoming annoyingly detailed. The world that she creates for this book is beautifully sculpted with her masterfully chosen words. All of her characters come alive when reading the book. Unfortunately, the beautiful setting which Mary Stewart uses for this book is not a very realistic representation of Medieval ages. The threat of starvation and disease that ran rampant in those times isn't very well represented. Though the book starts off a little bit slow, after it catches the reader up with the events from the first book, "The Crystal Cave", it quickly speeds up. Mary Stewart uses suspense to keep her readers interested. The suspense also makes the book hard to put down, which is a good attribute for a book. I picked up this book and read through all 436 pages in less than a week. There are simply no good places to put the book down at. The ending leaves the reader satisfied but still wanting to read more. Mary Stewart leaves it so that there can be a sequel but can be read as an individual book and still be appreciated for its full value. The reader looses very little by not reading the other books but still gains very much by reading the others. "The Hollow Hills" is an excellent book about a very interesting time in history. It's a fast paced book and is full of action and suspense. I would gladly recommend this book to anyone who has the slightest interest in King Arthur. I can't wait to read the other two books in the series.
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