Wed 11 May 2005
Sci Fi Wire reports that one of my favorite childhood series is making the jump to cinema. I highly recommend the books even for adults. Let’s hope the movie(s) aspire to be more than just Harry Potter knockoffs.
a mad writer’s blogoratory
May 11th, 2005 at 10:51 am
so they’re starting with the dark is rising rather than over sea, under stone? what a strange way to do the series. I also loved this series, but I seem to have lost all of the books aside from the dark is rising.
May 11th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
Interestingly enough, I read the series starting with TDIR first, and didn’t discover OSUS until later. It’s sort of a prequel, anyway. The theme of the series is only hinted at — although they do introduce Merriman, who is IMHO one of the cooler characters in all of fantasy. Or a really cool spin on an old fantasy character, if you prefer.
May 12th, 2005 at 9:25 am
i’ve always felt that he was a take off of gandalf. but that doesn’t make him less cool. though the part about him being merlin doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, as merlin was supposed to age backwards.
May 12th, 2005 at 11:06 am
Merriman was definitely inspired by Gandalf, who was inspired by Merlin, so it works either way.
As far as his aging goes, Cooper used the bits of Arthurian legend that worked for her. I’ll have to reread the series, but I know there are other examples.
June 23rd, 2005 at 9:59 am
i liked Cooper’s take on Arthur pretty well. just re-read these in the last couple months.