Seaward

Rating:
Summary: fun but predictable
Review: As a Dark is Rising fan, I had to read Seaward. I found that it fits the typical fantasy motif of the journey, but that the journey is the only plot that there is in the novel.

The book tells the story of Cally and West who, both having recently lost parents, stumble into a fantasy world where they meet up and brave the journey to the sea where they believe they will find their parents. Along the way, they must face the challenges imposed on them by the Lady Tarnis who wants to imprison them in her land, as well as the natural hardships of the land (desert, mountains, rivers, snow). As they travel they learn how to trust others, know themselves, and possibly fall in love. While the journey is long and enlightening, the end comes abruptly and is resolved quickly. While I was satisfied with the ending, it was a hollow satisfaction.

I liked the characters that I met in the book, but I wish that they had been developed more. While I understand that the depth level was created for younger readers, I wanted the emotions and psychological musings to be developed further. Since there was not much of a plot, the effects of the journey on the characters was the main element of the book and I just think more could have been done with it.

While the book does have its problems, it is still a really fun book. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy stories about journeys.

Rating:
Summary: fun but predictable
Review: As a Dark is Rising fan, I had to read Seaward. I found that it fits the typical fantasy motif of the journey, but that the journey is the only plot that there is in the novel.

The book tells the story of Cally and West who, both having recently lost parents, stumble into a fantasy world where they meet up and brave the journey to the sea where they believe they will find their parents. Along the way, they must face the challenges imposed on them by the Lady Tarnis who wants to imprison them in her land, as well as the natural hardships of the land (desert, mountains, rivers, snow). As they travel they learn how to trust others, know themselves, and possibly fall in love. While the journey is long and enlightening, the end comes abruptly and is resolved quickly. While I was satisfied with the ending, it was a hollow satisfaction.

I liked the characters that I met in the book, but I wish that they had been developed more. While I understand that the depth level was created for younger readers, I wanted the emotions and psychological musings to be developed further. Since there was not much of a plot, the effects of the journey on the characters was the main element of the book and I just think more could have been done with it.

While the book does have its problems, it is still a really fun book. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy stories about journeys.

Rating:
Summary: This is my favourite
Review: I am twenty-three years old, and I have loved this book since I was in my very early teens.

Susan Cooper is a classic children's author, and her Dark is Rising sequence regularly gets praised as her best, or at least most popular work.

This book, although very different from her previous and following works, blows even the best of that whole series away.

It is the journey of West and Cally, two teens both suffering from grief, through a strange country, where life and death are living beings. All they know is that they must travel to the sea; neither is entirely certain why. This journey allows both teens to come to terms with their own pain, and their different losses.

The landscape is strange and dreamlike; it is known from her comments in essays that Susan Cooper literally uses dreams to inspire scenes in her stories, and this story more than any other seems to me filled with that drifting feeling. The two main characters are well dsrawn, and some of the supporting cast are very memorable. It also makes excellent use of the selkies, a piece of old folklore of which I am particularly fond.

Best of all, Susan Cooper does NOT do here the thing which made Silver on the Tree such a huge disappointment to me; she does not cheat at the end.

(Warning for those who haven't read the book; spoiler ahead)

Where in Silver on the Tree, the characters risk life and limb in the ultimate battle, only to be made to forget all that they have accomplished through the whole Dark is Rising series (thus making the series itself pointless), in Seaward, the characters are made to forget - for a while only , with a promise that they will remember again when they need to. This ending satisfies, where the similar clossing to Silver on the Tree only disappoints.

(spoiler done)

There are some stories which stay in one's mind for one's lifetime. I knew the moment I was done this story that this would be one of those books. It was my favourite when I was younger, and now that I have met more grief of my own, it has become a much deeper part of me. I only wish it were a little better known behind her more popular works.

Rating:
Summary: Rediscovered Favourite
Review: I first read this book in 7th grade, after reading Dark is Rising. It was instantly my favourite. Years have passed. I am now in college, and I lost the book somewhere in early high school. A couple of weeks ago I was somehow reminded of the story, but couldn't remember the title. I spent hours combing through stacks of young adult fiction to find the cover I remember so well! I am so pleased that I have found Seaward again! I am now happily reunited with my favourite fantasy! I wholeheartedly recommend Seaward to everyone who dreams of true love, myths and romance, and mansized mosquito men! Brilliantly crafted.

Rating:
Summary: Seaward
Review: I have recently re-read this book for the fifth time. I first read it in 1995, after reading, and loving, 'The Dark Is Rising' sequence and 'Dawn of Fear'. My expectations of 'Seaward' were that it would be similar to the first of these - a kind of epilogue to 'The Dark Is Rising'. It wasn't, I couldn't understand the book, and disliked it. A couple of years later I heard someone remark that it was a book about life and death. Having recently lost my grandmother I decided to re-read 'Seaward'. My impressions of the book the second time around were very different from the first. I have re-read the book several times since then and have found, each time, that it has something fresh to say. It does speak about life and death - or perhaps ways of living and dying would be a more accurate description. It also speaks powerfully about friendship, of many different kinds of love, of hanging in there and not giving up too easily when the going gets tough and, like the others of Susan Cooper's books that I have read, of good, evil and the often deceptive or at least confusing faces each of these wears. It is a book for all seasons.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book, an excellent read.
Review: I just read Seaward for Children Literature, and was throughly impressed by it. I love the sense of mystery that surrounded the book so that I was never quite sure what was going on. West and Calli's journey had mystical quality to it, so that I was never sure what the purpose of their journey was, or what would happen once they reached the sea. Susan Cooper's style reminded me a little of C.S.Lewis's work. She created a fully developed world all to itself, and steeped it in Celtic mythology and symbolism. It is a story about life and the hardships that one faces as one takes the journey of life. This book has become one of my all time favorites, and am truely glad that I read it.

Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: I like the setting of the story, like the way Cally is brought into umm...I cant remember if the world has a name, I dont think it does.
I like the characters, not just Cally and West but everyone, especially the Lady Taranis, she seems kinda sexy in that dark way, hehe : P, my only problem is with Cally and West ( and other than this I like them ), what bothers me about them is that they dont seem really worried about the fact that they've just been dropped into this strange, new world. I mean if it were me I'd be freaking out.Perhaps I'd be running around in circles screaming my head off...but maybe its just me.

Otherwise the book was one of the best I've ever read.

So if your ever just sitting around flippin the channels or taking a trip or anything I think you really ought to try this book.

Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: I like the setting of the story, like the way Cally is brought into umm...I cant remember if the world has a name, I dont think it does.
I like the characters, not just Cally and West but everyone, especially the Lady Taranis, she seems kinda sexy in that dark way, hehe : P, my only problem is with Cally and West ( and other than this I like them ), what bothers me about them is that they dont seem really worried about the fact that they've just been dropped into this strange, new world. I mean if it were me I'd be freaking out.Perhaps I'd be running around in circles screaming my head off...but maybe its just me.

Otherwise the book was one of the best I've ever read.

So if your ever just sitting around flippin the channels or taking a trip or anything I think you really ought to try this book.

Rating:
Summary: absolutely wonderful
Review: I read this as a child, and it was one of three books that affected me the most out of all my excessive reading. (One of the others was Diane Duane's Deep Wizardry). It changed me with its beauty and poignancy.

Rating:
Summary: I was never the same afterward.
Review: I read this as a child, and it was one of three books that affected me the most out of all my excessive reading. (One of the others was Diane Duane's Deep Wizardry). It changed me with its beauty and poignancy.