Elidor

Rating:
Summary: "Elidor" pleases
Review: "Elidor" is best described as a solid little fantasy story -- it's just not spectacular. While suspenseful and intriguing, it doesn't really have a good sense of the epic or the atmospheric. But author Alan Garner definitely gets points for his subtle use of Celtic mythology and managing to create a believable unicorn.

Four kids exploring a wrecked church accidently venture into another world, the mysterious realm of Elidor. There, young Roland encounters a mysterious wounded man who sends him into a castle, claiming that he can save all of Elidor. After Roland frees his siblings from a spell, the man gives them a stone, a spear, a sword, and a cauldron, and they are sent back to their own world to guard these items from evil forces.

But problems arise when the kids go home and hide the items: The power that they emanate is so intense that it disrupts electricity and radio signals, causing problems all over their town. They bury the objects -- but that's only a temporary measure. The strange situation grows stranger when armed warriors appear near the buried objects, and an Ouija board displays the name "Findhorn" and a picture of a unicorn...

One of the wonderful things about Garner's Alderly duology is that when strange people and things were encountered by our heroes, it made our world seem like almost a parallel universe. It made everything seem magic. That quality is somewhat lacking in "Elidor"; the opening chapters have a promising glimpse of Elidor, but unfortunately this is never exploited. The evil force is another problem; unlike in the Alderly books, the evil is never given a face or an identity, and so it seems a little difficult to really get upset about.

Despite this, the opening and final chapters show Garner's lyrical style, and all of it displays his keen sense of plot development. The descriptions of the electrical disruptions are almost surreal, and his descriptions of Elidor are outstanding. So is his usage of Celtic mythology, though to a lesser extent than his other children's books; the dialogue ranges from chirpy British-schoolchild conversation to the formal language of the Elidor inhabitants. And don't be afraid of the portrayal of the unicorn -- Garner shies away from all the cliches.

It's not really a lightweight read, but "Elidor" is a beautifully written little tale that will thrill fantasy readers. Quite nice.

Rating:
Summary: Marvelously enchanting
Review: Alan Garner is an extremely underrated fantasy author. Elidor is a perfect example of the magic he can weave. The plot is simple enough - the four Watson children must save the world of Elidor, one step removed from our own. To do this, they are given four magical Treasures that guard Elidor from harm. But doing this may be more trouble than they think...

Garner is a lyrical writer. Such sentences as "The blade was like ice, and the hilt all jewels and fire" would be impressive in even an adult's book. The books have lots of adventure in them for the younger set, and fine prose for adults. I recommend this to all readers, even those that don't like fantasy.

Rating:
Summary: A good book, but not great
Review: Four siblings, Nicholas, David, Roland, and Helen find themselves on Thursday Street. There everything is being torn down for presumably a housing project. A football kicked through an old church window causes Roland to go into the church. He can't find any of his siblings and an old fiddler is making weird noises on his instrument. The fiddler causes a door to be opened into the dying land of Eldior. Roland goes into a hill and there gets back his siblings and the Treasures that keep what little light there is left in Elidor. Each sibling gets one and then is quickly transported back to the our reality. There they must protect evil from getting the Treasures, which is harder than it seems. And the only way to end the evil is the song of Findhorn which no one knows what it is.

The book is interesting, the plot good. I enjoyed the book, but it isn't one of my favorites. Everything came together in a nice package at the end, yet there was sorrow along the way. I'd recomend this book, even if it isn't the best.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book foor a pre-teen
Review: I read this book 18 years ago, when I was 10 years old. It was one of the best books I ever read - as good as Mark Twain's 'Tom Sawyer' or Jules Verne's 'Mistery Island'. But in a way, it was better. The atmosphere of Elidor was magical, dim lit, eerie - something I found only in Marion Zimmer Bradley's 'The Mists of Avalon' or in Stephen King's work. This is definitely a great fantasy book.

Rating:
Summary: This man is a master of children's fantasy fiction
Review: Manchester in the 1960s. It seems like a pretty grim place to live; a world of rain, soot, demolition sites, British Rail. This was before the British woke up and decided it was OK to want to eat good food and generally enjoy life. The kids in the book are from a hyper-conventional family, where any sort of dishonest behaviour is out, and family nights in front of the TV are definitely in. But they get thrown into another world, which used to be a fairytale country, but has fallen from its state of grace. (A sort of post-war disillusionment world.) What makes this book one of the best of its kind ever written is the reality and grittiness of the problems the kids face in guarding the treasures which have been foisted upon them, and its absolute faith in the idea that magic is part of the stuff of everyday life; that the most precious things are to be found in the least likely places.

Rating:
Summary: worth second (and third) looks
Review: Ok, I admit taht when I first read ELIDOR as probably an 11 year old I liked it the least of Garner's books to date. It was "ok" but the idea of a magical fantasy being set in the urban wasteland of post-war Manchester just didn't click. Maybe it is a comment on the last quarter century, maybe it is just a matter of growing up, but going back the book all these years later I found myself absolutely enthralled. Garner makes the transition from everyday life to the realm of Welsh mythology & back seamlessly and flawlessly. His characters are remarkably "real" -even those with "bit parts" like the parents of the protagonists. The language is lyrical, and there are scenes that will haunt you for years. My one complaint is that it is more a "novella" than a novel -at this re-reading I would gladly have kept going for another 200 pages, but what we get is great.

Rating:
Summary: worth second (and third) looks
Review: Ok, I admit taht when I first read ELIDOR as probably an 11 year old I liked it the least of Garner's books to date. It was "ok" but the idea of a magical fantasy being set in the urban wasteland of post-war Manchester just didn't click. Maybe it is a comment on the last quarter century, maybe it is just a matter of growing up, but going back the book all these years later I found myself absolutely enthralled. Garner makes the transition from everyday life to the realm of Welsh mythology & back seamlessly and flawlessly. His characters are remarkably "real" -even those with "bit parts" like the parents of the protagonists. The language is lyrical, and there are scenes that will haunt you for years. My one complaint is that it is more a "novella" than a novel -at this re-reading I would gladly have kept going for another 200 pages, but what we get is great.

Rating:
Summary: Pass the time waiting for the next Harry Potter
Review: Okay, Garner lacks the modern sensibility of Rowlings, but this is great stuff. A bit darker than Narnia, easier to grasp than Middle Earth, this is thrilling stuff-- I can still remember tha chills I got during the climactic scenes of this book long ago. A great read from a terribly under-appreciated author...

Rating:
Summary: A FANTASY NOVEL THAT'S LIKE AN OREO COOKIE
Review: Surely you know what an Oreo cookie looks like: White filling sandwiched between two round chocolate discs. And for the vast majority of us, the best part is the middle. That was how I felt after reading this book. The beginning, I thought, was rather slow and hard to grasp. I felt that C.S. Lewis' book the Magician's Nephew had a much more interesting beginning.

But then I got to the middle of this book.

I found myself liking the characters (Roland, David, Nicholas, and Helen)much more. I especially like the fact that, even though they face danger, they still have the time to bicker amongst themselves. For me, that made this novel a little more realistic. The dialogue is also really well done (especially the Chapter entitled Paddy) and a few of the ending lines for Chapters are good enough to make you want to start the next Chapter right away (e.g. Chapter 15, Planchette).

However, I felt a little let down towards the end of this novel. As I mentioned earlier, some of the ending lines for Chapters are good, so I was surprised to see that the last line in the book wasn't very effective on me. As you probably know, there are several more books in this series. After reading this, I really can't see what the sequels will cover, since--apparently--everything has been accomplished in the first one.

Overall, this is a more-than-decent fantasy and probably excellent if you're younger.

Rating:
Summary: A very good fantasy story.
Review: The four Watson children stumble through a doorway into another world known as Elidor. In Elidor they become the keepers of the four treasures and are sent back to earth to protect these treasures. The treasures are one of two things needed to save Elidor, the other being to the song of Lindhom. The story rushes along and many an aspiring character developments go unexplained. Ending was a big disappointment to me. This is a very good fantasy book that should interest students in grades 5th through the 8th who enjoy a trip into fantasy land.