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Jun 29, 2011

Qt rated it:

This installment in the "Wrinkle in Time" quartet contains, as the others do, a wonderful and unusual mixture of ideas. It has spirituality and religion, fantasy, time and space travel, and philosophy, and nearly every page seems to celebrate life. While all the books in the quartet are very good, I think I liked this one and "Wrinkle in Time" the best. "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" was suspenseful, well-written, and beautifully done.

13 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2007

Keith rated it:

Though L'Engle's storytelling improves after the dull previous outing of "A Wind in the Door", "Swiftly" fails in other more serious ways.

The biggest problem is her somewhat silly reliance on hereditary family names from generation to generation--names that endure for hundreds of years and somehow continue to intersect.

Madoc, Madog, Maddux, and Mad Dog; Gwydder, Gedder, and Gwen; Zyllie, Zyllah, Zylle; two Branwens and a Charles and a Chuck round out t More...

6 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 15, 2008

Michael rated it:

This one is pretty weak. The name thing is especially stupid. It takes literally 150 pages (out of 278) for them to figure out "with a startled flash of comprehension" that there's - gosh! - a connection between various people named Madoc, Madog, Maddok, Maddox, Mad Dog, Branwen, Brandon, Bran, Zyll, Zylle, Zillo, Zillah, Zillie, Beezie (B.Z.), Branzillo. And then it's on p.195 that we get "Certainly the name Zillie must have some connection with Madoc's Zyll, and Ritchie Llawcae' More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2008

Morgan rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2007

D rated it:

L'Engle's Time Quartet diminishes in cohesion with each installment. Whether from the author's own under-writing or her publishing house's imprudent hands-off editing after the wild success of A Wrinkle in Time, this book is a disappointment. L'Engle has shown herself capable of visionary writing, and the Wallace family is undeniably charming, so why such a half-baked result?

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Charles rated it:

Just stick with A Wrinkle in Time.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 05, 2011

Dmdutcher rated it:

Wow. Out of all of the Time Trilogy novels, I had the fondest memories of this. I guess as a child I skipped over a lot of it.

We enter the Murray family, but about 9 years or so from the events of a Wind in the Door. Meg has married Calvin off-screen and is pregnant. Sandy and Denys are bankers, and Charles Williams is 15. I admit I wasn't crazy about that, seeing as Meg was the soul of the first two books, and I really wanted to see her interact with Calvin more. But I can understan More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2008

Christopher rated it:

I hate to admit it, but getting through this book has been a bit of a chore. I'm not altogether certain if I want to finish this chapter of the "Wrinkle in Time" series, though I'm sure I'll press on because I bought the entire series and I want to get through it at least once. What is interesting about this book is that it introduces us to an adult (and very pregnant) Meg, and a teenaged Charles Wallace, who is the center of this book. After getting to know these two characters so wel More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2009

Kerri rated it:

Charles Wallace, unicorns, telepathy and time travel. For me, there is very little not to like in this book. L'Engle again explores connections through space and time, and how the actions of just one person can alter history as we know it. One of the books I can read again and again and always enjoy.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Sarah rated it:

Charles Wallace saves the universe from the forces of evil. Dear Lord, I hated this book. I'm going with two stars because I do try to reserve a one-star rating for truly unreadable books. This wasn't necessarily bad; I just hated it. I hated the wooden dialogue. I hated the vaguely racist patina over the Native American portrayal. I hated the fact that everyone had the same flipping name. I hated that the author circumvented background exposition with awkward over-explaining conversations (or e More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Kathryn rated it:

This was certainly the most confusing book of the Time Quartet. I'm glad I was able to read it in one sitting or I would have gotten lost. This book uses an element that I've always found fascinating, time travel, but mixes it in with Madeleine L'Engle's usual intricate style.

The novel begins on Thanksgiving day about nine years after the last book. The president calls Mr. Murry to warn him that the dictator of the South American country Vespugia is threatening nuclear war and the end More...

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Jul 29, 2011

Phoebe rated it:

I can't really claim that this will be a "review," not really. Reviews require a certain degree of (admittedly sometimes false) objectivity, and I suspect that I'm physically incapable of being objective in regards to A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the third book in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet and my favorite book ever. I've read it at least a dozen times in the past decade and a half. I own multiple copies (all with the same cover, with Charles Wallace in bell bottomed jeans with feat More...

17 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2011

Adrienne added it

On Thanksgiving Day, The Murray Family gets a phone call from the President warning them that nuclear war is eminent. In a tiny South American country called Vespugia, vicious dictator nicknamed Mad Dog Branzillo sits poised with his finger on the button. Meg's mother in-law, the reclusive Mrs. O'Keefe, charges Meg's 15 year old brother, old soul Charles Wallace, with an ancient rune of protection and with the task of averting the end of the world. Charles Wallace must journey through time and s More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Angela added it

This may be my favorite of the quintet so far. The possibility and hope of this story (these many stories, really) intertwined through creation, history, humanity, individuals, and time are still making my heart race and my mind swirl a little.

I love the way that Reality is made clearer in L'Engle stories...that what we see is not all that is. As I read, I felt newly awakened to the reality of how small I am. How fleeting are all things visible and present. And yet even as I was dwarfed by More...

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Mar 14, 2011

Kelsey rated it:

I really can't put into words what this book is about. All I can say is that it is the most amazing book I've ever read. This is one of the few books that any age can read. I read this the first time when I was about 10, and I I've read it about six times now. I love it more and more each time I read. Though I didn't fully understand it the first time I read it, I knew there was something special about it, so I went back and read it again. It's one of the few books that get better with ea More...

1 comment like

Oct 30, 2010

Regina rated it:

This is the third in the sequel to "A Wrinkle in Time" This one jumps 9 years. Meg is married to Calvin O'Keefe and expecting her first child. The Murry family come together for Thanksgiving. Mrs. O'Keefe, (Calvin's mother) also attends. During the meal, the US President calls Mr Murry to inform him that the dictator of Vespugia in South America, Maddog Branzillo, is threatening nuclear war. Mrs, O'Keefe recites an ancient rune and charges Charles Wallace with a quest to discover what More...

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Oct 26, 2010

heather rated it:

ok. so rereading the first 2 books in this series (as an adult) was painful. the charm that i remembered didn't come through. i was ready to be disappointed by this, my favorite as a kid. although there are things about this that i found overly hokey, i still really enjoyed the book. and it surprised me. what i remembered about the story was time travel (fun!), unicorns (ok, i like dragons better, but unicorns are alright), and Meg in the attic (yep). um, this book is about the fusion of Wales, More...

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Apr 26, 2009

Alm rated it:

Much better than the previous books in the series, A Swiftly Tilting Planet actually makes sense. There are no cosmic forces/theories that are supposedly in operation but completely unexplained to the reader. But I think my understanding of the time travel-related principles comes from experience garnered in other Sci-Fi and fantasy universes rather than from any coherent explanation on L'Engle's part! (In particular, Star Trek long ago taught me to understand temporal paradoxes and the concept More...

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Jul 25, 2009

Ariel rated it:

I re-read all of these in a row: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and this conclusion. What a difference in quality. But this isn't the typical "gold, silver, brass" progression of a trilogy. It's more like 'gold, silver, mud.'

A Swiftly Tilting Planet is terribly dated and even racist. There's a bad guy in Patagonia who wants to use The Bomb and Charles Wallace can only fix the problem by traveling back in time and space to make sure the right father begets the guy w More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2009

Inknose rated it:

I can't judge this book because I read it at too young an age, I think. It's strange, because I read plenty of "grown-up" literature when I was little, some of it violent, complicated stuff... but I was just so traumatized by this book. There's this trippy part with a monkey walking around on the bloody stumps its cut-off legs or something!? As a young girl that was a bit much for me, especially on top of having to suddenly imagine the characters I had come to know as children as adult More...

1 comment like

Jun 10, 2008

Patrick rated it:

As a kid, I friggin' loved this whole series. Now I know why: "...in 2004, the poet Cynthia Zarin wrote that A Wrinkle in Time can be read as 'science fiction, a warm tale of family life, a response to the cold war, a book about a search for a father, a feminist tract, a religious fable, a coming-of-age novel, a work of Satanism.'" But especially the last one, obviously. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/oct/...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 16, 2010

John rated it:

Another fun book in this series from L'Engle. What I most liked about the book was its underlying idea, that the small events of life, even in the lives of people not known far and wide, matter in the grand scheme of things. The choices people make today will echo down through the ages in the lives of their children, their children's children, and so on.

There's a deeply rooted sense of history that one must possess to conceive of the world in that way, a sense that the world is far b More...

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Apr 13, 2010

Ali rated it:

This was technically my third time through this book, but it still felt like a new reading. Characteristic of L'Engle novels: as a kid, they left a strong impression on my mind (and heart), but the details never really clicked in a way where I was following the plot and knew exactly what was going on. As a teenager, on my second encounter with this particular book, I remember loving it for the universal truths I gleaned from it, for Gaudior and for the time-travel aspect (I'm still a sucker for More...

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Mar 11, 2010

Yumn♣(as in Yumna) rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Feb 15, 2011

Mari rated it:

The return of a proper tesseract! I really loved the interwoven stories in this one; of time, of space, of unicorns and Charles Wallace, of kything, and of course the sadness of brothers at war. The movement from one story to the other was so well-woven, and I loved L'Engle's playing with time and the Might-Have-Beens in A Swiftly Tilting Planet. It was something I had been waiting for, which was slightly lacking in the second book (A Wind in the Door focused more on space and matter and Echthro More...

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Mar 28, 2007

Heather rated it:

This book is probably (aside from Pride and Prejudice) the one I have re-read the most. It's a fantastic ride. I love the charaters (the same ones from A Wrinkle in Time) and the way the way the various stories weave together to one shattering conclusion. Parts of it still make me cry, even though I know what's going to happen. If you've got a smart kid in your life, give them this book.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 07, 2009

Jacqueline rated it:

I originally read this book as a teen. I had read the first two books of the time series as school assignments in sixth grade, and when I saw this third book at the bookstore a few years later, I bought it. At the time I read it, it was my favorite of the three. I liked the way secondary stories were intertwined into the main story. I liked the "save the world" theme. I loved the drama and suspense. Because I owned the book, I read it over and over, and the plot was complex enoug More...

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Sep 07, 2009

Tyas rated it:

There has been news about Welsh-speaking Indians living in the Americas when what we can call modern-day Europeans arrived there. Madeleine L'Engle developed a story from this, connecting the myth of the past with present day's threat of a nuclear war, and the lives of many other people inbetween.

The main characters of the third book are still Meg and his smartly-named little-brother Charles Wallace. Meg's now married to Calvin and is expecting her baby, while Charles Wallace is a More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 26, 2011

Jenna rated it:

As a matter of fact, I have read this book once before. Being quite young, I had a difficult time getting into the story. It’s easy now to see why I might have had trouble as a child; Charles Wallace basically becomes a whole lot of different people throughout the tale, which means getting used to one new character perspective after another. Meanwhile, Meg scarcely moves from her bed, and Gaudior gets a little metaphysical with some of his comments.

This time, though, I had no trouble a More...

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Feb 06, 2011

Colleen rated it:

I think this is the best of the series even though it has much less focus on the key elements I adore in the rest of the series -- the Murray family dynamics, the Power of Heart... but in aging up protagonist Charles Wallace by nearly a decade, you get a much 'older' reading book. The imminent threat of nuclear holocaust helps, too. I probably also love this book the best because of the time travel. Each of the Time books has its own interesting sci-fi-ish wrinkles -- tessering, kything -- but t More...

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