A boy discovers his magical destiny and sets off on a vital mission to defeat the Dark in the Newbery Honor–winning second installment of Susan Cooper’s epic The Dark Is Rising Sequence, now with a brand-new look!
The day before Will Stanton’s eleventh birthday, he notices strange omens on his family a cryptic gift, a terrifying flock of birds, and a deep, cold fear that emerges from the darkness. When he wakes on his birthday—also Midwinter Day—Will has the life-changing revelation that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals who fight to keep the powers of evil, the Dark, from taking over the world.
Will gets immediately swept away by his new destiny as he sets off in search of six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Light and the Dark. But the Dark has dispatched its own agent in the rider—evil cloaked in black, mounted on a midnight stallion. As evil looms ever closer, Will must find the Signs of wood, bronze, iron, water, fire, and stone before the Dark begins its dreadful rise.
Now we're getting into the meat of the series! This is where Susan began to realise the background of her books, mining heavily from Cornish and Welsh mythology, stitching it together into a new mythology of her own.
I'd remembered a lot of this, but I was surprised at how much I'd twisted it. Early on, a character has a portentous line - "This night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining." - I'd remembered that as Merry, but it's actually a pretty minor character. (How strange that so many Old Ones live in a small Buckinghamshire village!) There's a few other bits like that, where I'd remembered the basics but confused the details.
This is a great wintery story, full of snow and ice and terrible cold. It would be interesting to read it in real time between Midwinter's and Christmas! It stands out as the others are mostly set in summers, but then this one is a bit special.
A foundational book of the series - you'd get away with skipping the first one, but definitely not this - and a fantastic read. Just trust me on this one thing and don't go anywhere near the movie...
The Dark is Rising publishes in this version on the 14th of November, 2023. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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