The Dark Is Rising Series
by Susan Cooper

Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted April 30, 2024

Over Sea, Under Stone / The Dark Is Rising / Greenwitch / The Grey King / Silver On The Tree

Susan Cooper is the latest recipient of SFWA's Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. She also won a World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement award in 2013. I had not read her before so I went looking, finding The Dark Is Rising series to be her highest rated and most beloved books. The image to the right is from an omnibus published in 1996 by the Science Fiction Book Club, nearly twenty years after the fifth and final book came out. I found it on eBay for a very reasonable price. I've only made minimal searches involving it so as to avoid spoilers, but according to one Wikipedia page the first book was originally conceived as a standalone. The collective name for the series comes from the second book. Each have been published in many editions over the years, both individually and collected. This page at ISFDb lists well over fifty for the first book, including collections. I am not sure if there were edits or revisions between editions. My library has print copies of all five, along with audio copies, but no e-books, but that will differ depending on which service your library uses. The images below are for the currently available paperbacks, where The Dark is Rising Sequence is prominent on each, with individual titles above that in smaller font. I will provide purchase links for each, but they are also available as a set in a slipcase cover. That can be purchased from either Bookshop or Amazon. A purchase through our links may earn us a commission. Even though I haven't searched for much information, I have seen comments from others on social media. The consensus opinion is the later books are quite different than the first one, and better. I hope that is correct..

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I cannot say very much of a positive nature about this first book, other than I would probably have liked it at age 10. I suspect the high praise I've seen could be the readers' first reactions when much younger. At the start it reminded me a bit of the Hardy Boys mysteries I read eons ago, although the prose style is better. Characterizations, however, are very similar, but that may improve in later books. It is set in Cornwall, England, in the village of Trewissick (fictional, but probably modeled on Mevagissey). The three young protagonists use slang and colloquialisms I assume were common at the time of the writing (1965), or maybe from the author's childhood instead, so way out of date for current readers. I'm sure it was classified as a children's book. The oldest Drew sibling, Simon, is fifteen at the most, Jane is eleven months younger, with maybe a couple of more years between her and Barnabas (Barney). They are on summer holiday in Trewessick, where their Great-Uncle Merriam (aka Merry, aka Gumerry) Lyon, has rented a cottage for the whole family. He is a history professor also on holiday, but also doing some research on the town and surrounding areas. The children are intelligent, all readers, but most especially Barney. His main obsession is with King Arthur. That interest ties into Merry's research. Barney is also the one who finds a very old manuscript/map in the attic, which seems to be of interest to many people all of a sudden.

I may have liked this at 10, but I would hope I would not have missed the very big plot hole. They have just found the map by accident, but they are lucky enough for it to be the right time. The instructions Merry was able to translate leads them to believe a clue is near large standing stones on the headland above the harbour. Diagrams are believed to be the sun and moon, and guess what? It just happens to be the day the sun would align with the largest of the stones, and that night the shadow from the full moon points the direction to the next clue. Too many convenient ways to get the adults out of the way so the kids can be the center of the adventure. They are resourceful, and while slow on the uptake at times, they eventually interpret the clues correctly, and work well as a team, even if they argue a lot. They are siblings after all. As I said above, this may have been intended as a standalone story at first. It is possible a few lines were added at the end to tie it into the second book, and if my guess is correct, those are the only indications this will be mostly fantasy going forward, but I won't say any more about that until next month. Hopefully there will be improvement, since I had planned to read all five books.

 

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