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The Dark Is Rising Sequence, Book Two: The Dark Is Rising
by Susan Cooper (Goodreads Author), Alex Jennings
by Susan Cooper (Goodreads Author), Alex Jennings
It's Christmas time, and it's also Will Stanton's eleventh birthday. His birthday present is discovering that he is an Old One, some sort of immortal magical being embroiled in the age-old battle between the Light and the Dark. His duty now as the Sign-Seeker is to seek the Signs! Signs of POWER! Here, have a rhyming prophecy for good measure.
Basically half the book is exposition, and I know that this book probably inspired a lot of later fantasy, but holy Jesus Christ, the worldbuilding seems so haphazard and vague. Will has poorly defined magical powers and engages in poorly defined time travel and learns about poorly defined Concepts That Only Can Be Spoken of in Capital Letters (even though it was an audiobook, I could hear the capital letters). So here are various reasons I could never get into this book no matter how hard I tried. Will is boring. After the lively and interesting Drew siblings from the last book, Will is just...incredibly dull. He has his moments, but mostly I did not care about him at all. Maybe one of his seven million brothers and sisters would have been a better protagonist. Will just accepts that he has this destiny and then sleepwalks through fulfilling it. He's the Sign-Seeker, but he doesn't actually seek the Signs. He just gets them randomly! They just come to him because they're supposed to! HOW IS THIS NARRATIVELY SATISFYING IN ANY WAY. The entire book is essentially this: the Dark attack Will, Will puts on a feeble attempt to protect himself and then another Old One saves him, maybe some Sign falls into his lap, lather, rinse, repeat. The Dark just keep attacking over and over. It's like, oh, has it been two minutes? Time for the Dark to attack again. Boy, this book is full of surprises. And, of course, who or what the Light and the Dark are never clearly explained. It's just a generic fight between good and evil.
The most interesting aspect of the book is the Walker, but I wasn't even entirely clear on his story because I couldn't understand what was going on half the time, there was so much vague mumbo-jumbo about Light and Dark and Old Ones and why does no one have tentacles.
Maybe now that the exposition is over, things will actually happen in this series? What if the protagonist actually did something instead of things just happening to him?
Basically half the book is exposition, and I know that this book probably inspired a lot of later fantasy, but holy Jesus Christ, the worldbuilding seems so haphazard and vague. Will has poorly defined magical powers and engages in poorly defined time travel and learns about poorly defined Concepts That Only Can Be Spoken of in Capital Letters (even though it was an audiobook, I could hear the capital letters). So here are various reasons I could never get into this book no matter how hard I tried. Will is boring. After the lively and interesting Drew siblings from the last book, Will is just...incredibly dull. He has his moments, but mostly I did not care about him at all. Maybe one of his seven million brothers and sisters would have been a better protagonist. Will just accepts that he has this destiny and then sleepwalks through fulfilling it. He's the Sign-Seeker, but he doesn't actually seek the Signs. He just gets them randomly! They just come to him because they're supposed to! HOW IS THIS NARRATIVELY SATISFYING IN ANY WAY. The entire book is essentially this: the Dark attack Will, Will puts on a feeble attempt to protect himself and then another Old One saves him, maybe some Sign falls into his lap, lather, rinse, repeat. The Dark just keep attacking over and over. It's like, oh, has it been two minutes? Time for the Dark to attack again. Boy, this book is full of surprises. And, of course, who or what the Light and the Dark are never clearly explained. It's just a generic fight between good and evil.
The most interesting aspect of the book is the Walker, but I wasn't even entirely clear on his story because I couldn't understand what was going on half the time, there was so much vague mumbo-jumbo about Light and Dark and Old Ones and why does no one have tentacles.
Maybe now that the exposition is over, things will actually happen in this series? What if the protagonist actually did something instead of things just happening to him?
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Sylvie
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May 26, 2012 07:45am
I read the series not that long ago and my basic reaction was that I probably would have loved them as a kid, but they just weren't very engaging as an adult.
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