I've been eye-balling this book on my shelf, wondering if I actually want to read it, and since I've been having a hard time reading anything lately, I naturally thought it was the perfect time to try this. At the very least, I thought, it would be really easy to put the book down if I didn't like it, given my current mood. Except that this was so short and nostalgic, I ended up reading it in a single afternoon. Garner and Don Webb adapted Elidor as a BBC children's television series shown in 1995, comprising six half-hour episodes, starring Damian Zuk as Roland and Suzanne Shaw as Helen. [56] [57] They went with Albanac down the paths of Fundindelve. Tunnel entered cave, and cave gave way to tunnel caves, and tunnels, each different and the same: there seemed to be no end. Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy.

Pullman, Philip; Gaiman, Neil; Cooper, Susan; Nix, Garth; Almond, David; Faber, Michael (2010). "Praise for Garner". The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (50th Anniversaryed.). London: HarperCollins Children's Books. pp.1–2. You can also see how these stories start to get conflated. Perhaps the sleeping knights were a separate story from King Arthur, originally. The summoning of each rider is accompanied by a long description of each one, including armour, weapons and horses. There is also a description of the ride between each barrow, before the next rider is summoned, which became slightly tedious after the first couple of times. Published in 1963, this was the sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner and directly continues the story.Where it's weaker than "Weirdstone" is that it all feels more contrived. Some of the dangers and solutions that face Colin and Susan - especially early on - are the result of unfortunately combining events. For example the Elves ask for something Susan has at the same time as something else happens, and Susan ends up in danger from event two only because she's given the thing in question to the Elves. In "Weirdstone" the coincidences felt like the hand of fate guiding things - in "Moon" it's less so - though by the end you wonder, because it does all wrap up well. It's cetainly not a deal breaker. Garden of Evil: the rampant, fast-growing rhododendron infestation at Errwood Hall, an imported foreign flower that has few predators, is steadily strangling all plant life other than itself, and among which nothing else can grow. Colin and Susan both get entangled in its spiny, thorny, runners. A. I don't plan. Images appear, unbidden, which suggest areas of research. The research develops its own pattern, and when there's no more research to be done I "soak and wait", as Arthur Koestler expressed it. Then, subjectively, the story starts of its own accord, and I write as it unfolds. But it's probably complete in my unconscious, as a result of the soaking and the waiting, before I can be aware of what's happening. This could explain why I get the last sentence or paragraph of the book before I know what the story is. The history of creativity is littered with examples of the artist, or scientist, or mathematician "seeing" the answer and then having to spend years in discovering the question. From 1976 to 1978, Garner published a series of four novellas, which have come to be collectively known as The Stone Book quartet: The Stone Book, Granny Reardun, The Aimer Gate, and Tom Fobble's Day. [24] Each focused on a day in the life of a child in the Garner family, each from a different generation. [23]

When I was a young boy, I knew of a book called The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and I coveted it but never read it. Once again, it details the involvement of two children, Colin and Susan, with the world of myth and magic. This time the focus is on the potential of the older, wilder forms of magic and myth cycle to create both creative and destructive forces on the world. She was saved, and is protected, only by the Mark of Fohla – her blessing and her curse. For it guards her against the evil that would crush her, and it leads her ever further from the ways of human life. The more she wears it, the more need there is to do so. And it is too late now to take it off.Pitts, Mike; Garner, Alan (2014). "Colouring the Imagination with Facts". British Archaeology. Council for British Archaeology (139): 14–15. Whilst writing in his spare time Garner attempted to gain employment as a teacher, but soon gave that up, believing that "I couldn't write and teach; the energies were too similar." Instead, he worked off and on as a general labourer for four years, remaining unemployed for much of that time. [3] Garner twinkles ferociously as he recites the lines. But he forced himself to find a more suitable ending, finished The Moon of Gomrath by the age of 27, and vowed – despite entreaties from a publisher – not to cash in on his now-established name and turn the hugely popular novels into a series. The book has received high praise from numerous other fantasy writers. [26] Young adult fantasy writer Garth Nix indicated its impact on his own writing, saying "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is one of the most important books in children’s fantasy. It has been an enormous inspiration to me and countless other writers, and is as enjoyable and fascinating now as it was when I first read it, wide-eyed and mesmerised at the age of ten." Quite simply, there is too much happening in the story and no clear plot – the story just rushes along and the reader is left unsure as to where it is going, or if it actually gets there in the end.