***** - Excellent
**** - Good
*** - Okay
** - Bad
* - Terrible
+ - Half-star
The Chronicles of Narnia
(Books 1 - 7)
C. S. Lewis
HarperCollins Publishers
Fiction, YA Fantasy
****
DESCRIPTION: The world of Narnia is the domain of the great Lion Aslan, where Men and Talking Beasts live among wonders such as satyrs and dryads and unicorns... and
terrors such as dragons and sea serpents and foul giants. The Chronicles tell Narnia's story, from its creation to its destruction.
This was originally published as seven books:
The Magician's Nephew - Young Digory and his friend Polly are pulled into their devious Uncle Andrew's experiments that take them into other worlds, where they
witness Narnia's creation and accidentally unleash a great evil upon Aslan's new world.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy discover a passage to Narnia through an old wardrobe. The land suffers in the grip of a
magical winter, and the coming of the four humans may fulfill a prophecy to save Narnia from the immortal White Witch.
The Horse and his Boy - A boy in the savage desert country of Calormen discovers that he is not, as he long thought, the son of a poor, cruel Calormene fisherman,
but an orphan from the green northern lands. The warhorse Bree, a Talking Horse from Narnia who was captured as a foal and has been hiding his nature for years, enlists his aid
to escape bondage.
Prince Caspian - Foreigners with no love of the land have conquered Narnia and driven the Talking Beasts and other wonders into hiding. Young Prince Caspian,
enraptured by forbidden tales of the time before the invasion, defies his family and seeks to restore Old Narnia to its former glory... with some help from Peter, Susan, Edmund,
and Lucy, summoned by a magic horn and Aslan's will.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - After establishing peace in Narnia, the young King Caspian fulfills a coronation oath and sets sail to seek seven nobles who long
ago vanished into the uncharted eastern seas. Edmund, Lucy, and their disagreeable cousin Eustace, pulled into Narnia by a painting, accompany him on a voyage to unknown lands
and untold dangers, to the very end of the world itself.
The Silver Chair - Eustace and a schoolmate, Jill, are fleeing bullies when they find themselves called to Aslan's service. The prince of Narnia has been missing
for ten years, lured away by a ghostly vision. The English children, along with Puddleglum the web-footed Marsh-Wiggle, must find the prince before the old king's health
fails.
The Last Battle - A selfish Ape schemes to deceive the populace with a false Aslan, and is in turn used by the Calormenes and their bloodthirsty god Tash to bring
about the fall of Narnia and the end of the world.
REVIEW: My plan to accumulate the series via Half Price Books wasn't working out to my satisfaction, so I broke down and bought this all-inclusive volume. Each
individual book reads fast - I read most of them in a matter of hours, and rarely needed more than a day to finish one. The series is fairly imaginative, though, like many
Christian-themed fantasies, it's awfully easy to pick out friend from foe at first glance, with a distinct trend towards fair-featured Heroes and dark Villains. I still find
god-characters like Aslan a bit of a cop-out, conveniently omnipotent as they are - appearing and disappearing at random, they create whole worlds to judge, but only reveal
themselves on select occasions to a chosen population whom all others must evidently defer to. The series isn't too predictable, though, save the usual givens in Christian-
based fantasy (anyone acting in Aslan's name is Good, anyone else is generally Evil or merely Prideful or Foolish - in which case they are usually magnanimously converted by a
well-timed visit from the Lion - and the main characters are guaranteed safe passage through the book), and it has some great imagery and memorable characters.
You might also enjoy:
Demons Don't Dream (Piers Anthony, Fiction - A computer game brings two players into the magical land of Xanth)
The Everworld series (K. A. Applegate, YA Fiction - Four Chicago teens are pulled into a world where magic and elder gods rule)
The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum, YA Fiction - A tornado drops a Kansas girl and her dog into a magic land)
The Wiz Biz books (Rich Cook, Fiction - A Silicon Valley programmer finds himself in a world of magic and wizards)
The Dark is Rising sequence (Susan Cooper, YA Fiction - Children find themselves involved in the great conflict between Good and Evil)
The Dragon and the George (George R. Dickson, Fiction - A man searches for his missing wife, and finds himself in a medieval world of magic and wizards, trapped in a dragon's body)
Pawn of Prophecy (David Eddings, Fiction - A farmboy may prove pivotal in the battle between good and evil gods)
Fly By Night (Frances Hardinge, YA Fiction - A girl in a divided kingdom must save the land from an insane ruler and conspirators' machinations)
The Guild of the Cowry Catchers: Embers (Abigail Hilton, Fiction - A realm of half-human beings suffers under a corrupt religion idolizing wyverns)
Librarian: Little Boy Lost (Eric Hobbs, YA Fiction - A bookish boy discovers secrets and dangers in a mysterious library)
The Gunslinger (Stephen King, Fiction - In a world on the brink of Apocalypse, one man searches for salvation)
The Glasswright's Apprentice (Mindy L. Klasky, Fiction - In a caste-oriented society where 1000 gods rule supreme, a girl finds herself at the heart of an assasination plot)
The Lives of Christopher Chant (Diana Wynne Jones, YA Fiction - A boy can travel to other worlds in his dreams)
Eccentric Circles (Rebecca Lickiss, Fiction - A woman discovers a doorway to a fairy world in her inherited cottage)
Pendragon: The Merchant of Death (D. J. MacHale, YA Fiction - A boy's odd uncle leads him through a wormhole to a world where an evil force of chaos threatens the works of the all-powerful entity Halla)
Un Lun Dun (China Miéville, YA Fiction - A girl and her best friend find their way to the surreal "abcity" mirror of London, where an evil entity lurks)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - Official Illustrated Movie Companion (Perry Moore, Nonfiction - Concept art and production photos for the popular Disney/Walden Media movie)
The Keys to the Kingdom: Mister Monday (Garth Nix, YA Fiction - A teen boy is given the keys to God's own house, where chaos reigns)
The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica (James A. Owen, YA Fiction - A mysterious atlas brings three London men to a land that has inspired myth and story since time began)
The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman, YA? Fiction - A girl finds herself pitted against the church in a quest to unravel a peculiar mystery)
The Dragon Box (Katie W. Stewart, YA Fiction - A game pulls a boy into an imperiled magical land)
The High House (James Stoddard, Fiction - A massive, surreal house encompasses the whole of Creation)
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (J. R. R. Tolkien, Fiction - Evil threatens the world of Men in Middle Earth)
The 100 Cupboards trilogy (N. D. Wilson, YA Fiction - A boy finds magical cupboard doorways to other worlds behind the plaster of his new bedroom walls)
The Castle in the Attic (Elizabeth Winthrop, YA Fiction - A virtuous boy helps a cursed knight reclaim his medieval kingdom)
The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Widescreen Edition)
(2005 movie DVD)
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
(2009 movie DVD)
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