The Dark is Rising is being adapted into a podcast/audio drama and I am STOKED!

It’s adapted by Robert McFarlane, creator the magical and haunting Lost Words/Spell Songs (that I am absolutely in love with), and he also worked with Susan Cooper & a few other artists to write songs for it!!! And it will be released on Midwinter’s Eve - how perfect is that? I can’t wait!!!!

“When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back

Three from the circle, three from the track

Wood, bronze, iron, water, fire, stone

Five shall return, and one go alone”

Redrew some old sketches in various notebooks from my sophomore and junior years! My hand might be killing me but I think I’ve improved a lot since 2021-22, and I am beyond proud of the progress I’m making in my drawing ability

Rec: All Magics Great and Small by Shycraft

Title: All Magics Great and Small Author: Shycraft Canon: The Dark Is Rising Sequence Pairing: Will Stanton/Bran Davies Rating: Teen [PG] Word Count: 5,881 Summary: Bran Davies gave up his right to the Magics of the world. Magic did not give up its right to Bran Davies.

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Book Backlog Busting Reading Challenge!

A double update because uh... I honestly forgot that I hadn't updated last weekend until like, Wednesday. And I must start this update with a confession.

I bought a book.

But listen, it's a writing craft book, so it doesn't count, right?? Right!! Listen I'm trying to work on my writing okay I need this.

Anyway because it's been a hot minute I have quite a lot of books to update on.

The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper is now FINISHED (Greenwich, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree). I am pleased to say that the series really does hold up to an adult, apart from the first book which I spoke about last time. And I still cried at the end god damn it. Really recommend these if you want a charming British fantasy series that's not... you know... That One.

The King is Dead by Suzannah Lipscomb. FINISHED. This was even shorter than I thought it was so there wasn't a lot of detail in it by necessity. It was interesting to find out about Yet Another Whiggish Historical Conspiracy Theory (the tudors seem to attract these like nothing else) which I wasn't even actively aware of, but which the author handily disproves. That alone makes it a worthwhile book.

The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club by Christopher de Hamel. FINISHED. I didn't enjoy this book as much as his previous one, mainly because of fewer pretty book pictures, but it was still fascinating to see the history of manuscript making and collecting through the ages. Plus I teared up at a scene at the end when the author imagines all his figures getting to sit down to dinner together to discuss manuscripts. It was strangely wholesome. Books are just the best, okay.

The King's Bedpost by Mary Aston. FINISHED. Another one of those short, highly specific history books, this time about one specific painting. I read a bit of this in undergrad and was fascinated by it because the painting in question had been held up in my A-level class as an example of propaganda from Edward VI's reign, but Aston categorically proves that it cannot be Edwardian, but instead is Elizabethan, which completely changes the meaning of the painting. The book is about exploring what meaning the painting would have had to contemporaries and who it may have been made for. This had the opposite problem of The King Is Dead in that it was a bit too meandering and could have done with sticking closer to the point about the painting, as it became harder to follow the threads of the author's argument after several biographies and examples of use of Old Testament imagery in contemporary woodcuts. It was still a fascinating read nonetheless.

And for my next trick!

I mentioned before that I had some books on the Reformation to explore, and I have started on two of those, Reformation Divided by Eamon Duffy, and All Things Made New by Diarmaid MacCulloch. I'm a big fan of Duffy's work already and have seen MacCulloch lecture so I'm expecting both to be really interesting.

Fiction wise, I am still waiting on the next set of Wheel of Time books to arrive, so I've been entertaining myself recently with this lovely edition of The Wee-Free Men by Terry Pratchett (tragically, it looks like these editions are hard to come by so I won't be able to complete the set if I want the rest of the Tiffany Aching books).

Hopefully the next update will be more timely, but until then...

83 books remaining!

It went down less than expected because I added the writing craft book to the list. Fair is fair.

I’m going to talk about the Dark is Rising, and there will be spoilers.

cws:  Disablism, isolation, growing up queer, undiagnosed trans and neurodivergent. I was recently talking with a new friend of a similar age to me about our shared childhood reading. I had been joking about being some sort of chosen one because I was born at dawn on the winter solstice. He asked if I was also the seventh son of a seventh son. I said sadly no I was not, I was not in fact even a son, I have been called a daughter but never a son, but speaking of seventh sons, had he listened to the BBC production of… He finished my sentence with “…The Dark is Rising?” as if he’d read my mind. For a great many of us elder-millennial and Gen X British people this book was a formative part of our childhoods.  For me, the strange little undiagnosed-autistic changeling child who hid in the library, it, and other books like it were a refuge.  The children in them were thoughtful and brave and I understood their motivations, unlike the real children at school who were incomprehensible erratic yelling beings that never listened to reason. I read the third book of the Dark is Rising sequence first: Greenwitch. I would comb the small local library in the south Manchester suburb I grew up in for anything that looked vaguely fantastical and read it voraciously. Along with Susan Cooper there was Joan Aiken, Ursula Le Guin, Tamora Pierce, Penelope Lively, Diana Wynne Jones and of course Terry Pratchett who once kindly told a fourteen-year old me how to beat level twelve of Tomb Raider II (“don’t kill the monks”, he said “when there are monks fighting mafia you’re obviously supposed to help the monks and kill the mafia”). Often, I ended up reading books from the middle of a series before the beginning because it was what was available to me.   In Greenwitch, the Drew Children who we meet in Over Sea, Under Stone, must recover a lost thing of power from a very typically folk-horror wicker being, a being that is shown as very distinctly female. It is the first book which features both Will Stanton, from the Dark is Rising and the Drew Children. Will Stanton is an Old One, but also a young boy, a being of the power of the Light, old before his time. He is quiet, thoughtful, and always cut off from his peers, and of course, we share our solstice birthday. This loneliness, this I could understand. In Greenwitch all the power of the magic of the Light and Dark is not enough to make the titular being give up her treasure, but the compassion of Jane Drew persuades her to do so. This strange, powerful femininity, the femininity of this creature weaved by women, ancient but also newborn, this I could understand.  This being who was too old and too strange to bow to the binary power of the Light or the Dark, this I could understand.

When you are a neurodivergent child you live outside of the rest of humanity, old before your time, understanding too much but also bewildered by their strange behaviour. When you are a nonbinary child (and it is difficult to explain how intricately these two things are linked in me) you live outside of gender, not understanding why you must obey these strange rules for girls and not obey the rules for boys, never quite relating to one or the other, but forced to perform the one you were assigned. In both Jane and Will I saw a little of myself. So it has been throughout my life, wondering why I did not entirely relate to either male or female characters, why the pagan faiths I looked into insisted on forcing magic and power into this prison of two, never understanding until very late on that there was a hidden magic of queerness and genderfluidity out there, erased and suppressed, but still bubbling beneath the surface. I have often found sanctuary in monsters and immortal beings because they are free of constraint, free of humanity, and free of expectation.   The final two books in the series, along with those of Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner’s the Owl Service and Jenni Nimmo’s Snow Spider trilogy also gave me a lifelong love of Wales and the Welsh language. Growing up not too far from the Welsh border meant we spent a lot of time there on holidays. It still feels a little like coming home to go to Wales, although I am not in any way Welsh to the best of my knowledge.

Listening to the BBC audiodrama brought back those old memories to me. You can hear the ice and snow in the shivery soundscaping, feel the wild strength of rushing water and thundering binaural hooves.  I think I detected in the score reflections of the music of that one version of the Box of Delights, another Christmas favourite of my childhood. Toby Jones’ performance as the Walker engendered the same compassion in me as it did when I first read Will objecting to his treatment. One of the episodes of my horrible clown audiodrama contains a small homage to the scenes of the Wild Hunt.

These are the sounds of my childhood being retold. I recommend the Dark is Rising to you, funky little tumblr goblin children. I bequeath you the blorbos of my youth. May you find the refuge in the things you love, that I did in this book.

merriman lyon really had the whole immortal thing figured out. don't wanna be alone in the ever shifting sands of time that bury everyone around you? adopt some random fucking family and hang out with them for multiple generations!! need a sense of purpose? become a history professor! easiest gig imaginable!! unlimited tenure! the man is keeping himself going for decades possibly centuries off of wacky mentor figure hijinks alone. king. i love him

Is there any particular Watsonian (aka other than plot convenience) reason why Will Stanton is the LAST of the Old Ones?

JOMP BPC || January 25 || Deserved So Much Better: The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper deserved a far better ending!

Well. I forgot how racist Over Sea, Under Stone was.

My problematic trait is there there is always a point in any given story where my entire being decides to categorically ignore the continued existence of canon. Typically it’s the end but not always. For example:

Riordanverese: Trials of whomst? I never knew her.

Avatar the Last Air Bender: Of course there’s more canon after the tea shop, they have a war to win! What...do you mean after the war was won?

Marvel: Why does everyone keep talking about aliens disappearing people? The aliens happened several movies ago... in New York. Let’s talk more about the most recent movie Winter Soldier. 

Merlin: Stop saying Arthur’s dead! It’s not true!

The Dark is Rising Sequence: I like the part where they win and Merriman goes away, having never done anything horrible to young adolescents. 

the restless summer air

Fandom: The Dark is Rising Sequence

Author: forochel @forochel

Rating: General Audiances

Warnings: Strong Language

Word Count:  6,226

Pairings: Will/Bran

Characters: Will Stanton, Bran Davies, Rhys Evans, Jen Evans, David Evans, John Rowlands

Tags: Future Fic, Getting Together, Fix-It

They meet again the summer after college, in that gasp between A levels and the start of uni, when Will finally gives into that call inside of him and takes the train back up to Tywyn.

Rec: Should and Shouldn't by edenbound

Title: Should and Shouldn’t Author: edenbound Canon: The Dark Is Rising Sequence Pairing: Will Stanton/Bran Davies Rating: General [G] Word Count: 3,650 Summary: Bran had to spend Christmas with the Stantons that year.

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Book Backlog Busting Reading Challenge!

I've managed to read a lot this week because of doing very little else and so I have a fair bit to report!

Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time #9). FINISHED. I am in what is supposedly prime slog territory but I honestly don't see it. There's stuff going on throughout this whole book and it keeps up the excitement and intrigue the whole way through. This is in contrast to Jordan's previous books where I have constantly felt like most sub plots could have been condensed to far fewer chapters. I mean it's still Jordan's heavily introspective style, it's not a fast paced book, but the activity is constant. I finished this in 4 days which is by far the fastest yet for any of the books. Loved it.

New Spring by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time prequel). FINISHED. Meanwhile this book is definitely in the grand tradition of Jordan 'taking 12 chapters to say what could have been accomplished in 3'. Don't get me wrong, I loved the worldbuilding in this book, and the opportunity to get Lan POV and younger Moiraine was a sheer joy. But the actual plot here was very, very slim. In the editions I'm reading New Spring is about 2/3 of the length of Winter's Heart but it absolutely does not have 2/3 of the plot content. I hope Jordan doesn't return to this form in the subsequent main series books; it was nice for a prequel as a diversion but I don't think I could cope with it again for a 800+ page novel.

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. FINISHED. This is a typical Bryson book, which is absolutely a compliment. It's full of fun facts, hidden wonders of the British countryside, and Bryson's wry but nonetheless warm humour.

Now as promised I did start The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper and so far I've made it through the first two books. (Also, look at these editions! Aren't they beautiful?)

Over Sea, Under Stone. FINISHED. Honestly I was a little disappointed by this one, it's a perfectly fine example of the children's adventure books of the time period, with slightly more menace, but nothing extraordinary. I was worried the series wouldn't live up to how I had remembered them from childhood, except...

The Dark Is Rising. FINISHED. Now this is why I fell in love with this series. This book instantly transports you with a sense of otherworldliness, making the ancient battle between the Dark and the Light feel real and powerful. Cooper's imagined world really comes to life in this book and I'm excited to continue it. I would strongly recommend starting with this book if you are thinking of reading the series, and then doing Over Sea, Under Stone as a prequel. The first book honestly makes more sense that way anyway.

And now, for my next trick...

Of course I will be continuing with The Dark Is Rising Sequence, which I expect to finish, they are children's books so they're easy reads. I don't expect the next Wheel of Time books will arrive for another two weeks so I will probably pick out some fiction books at random.

As for historical books, I have a bunch of books about the Reformation I've been eyeing up, but I'm not quite ready to get into them just yet, so I'm picking up a relatively short one in the meantime.

The King is Dead by Suzannah Lipscomb. No this is not yet another book I bought just because it looked pretty, why would you say that? This is honestly a time period which, like any child who's been through the British school system, I know quite a lot about already, so I'm not expecting to get a lot out of it, but I'm always willing to be surprised!

Until next time...

88 books remaining!

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper is the second book in The Dark is Rising Sequence. This is middle grade fantasy. This book tells the story of Will Stanton. Will is turning eleven and as the youngest child of nine he is feeling a wee bit lonely and forgotten. Little does Will know how his life is about to change and that his birthday is a focal point in the fight against the Dark. This is a…

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Overall, The Dark is Rising podcast was a success! I didn't love the vocal portrayal of the Old Ones (they were a little too hive-minded for me) or how some things were pretty ham-fisted, but it was made with such obvious love and care and packed an emotional punch. I liked the majority of the performances and that it was set in the correct time period! And the music! A good listen overall!