[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Dark Is Rising

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

> But what *is* the right order? This book club we belong to is
> offering The Dark Is Rising and one other--I think Greywitch--as if
> those were the first two, but that doesn't seem to be the order they
> were written in......and some people seemed to think it's best to
> read them *out* of order, with "Dark" going first??

In chronological order, they run like this:

OVER SEA, UNDER STONE
THE DARK IS RISING
GREENWITCH
THE GREY KING
SILVER ON THE TREE

However, I personally found OVER SEA, UNDER STONE to be disappointingly
mundane and even rather boring the first time I read it (ah, the ignorance
of youth) -- it didn't read to me like a fantasy novel at all.  If I hadn't
had a friend breathing down my neck and practically *forcing* me to read THE
DARK IS RISING, I'd never have realized how great the series really was.

After I'd read through the rest of the books, I went back and re-read OVER
SEA, UNDER STONE with a new appreciation, and decided that I did like it
after all, now that I understood the background and had some reason to care
about what was going on.  But if I were doing the whole thing over again, I
would read THE DARK IS RISING first, and save myself the trouble.
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj