Product Description

A tale of Alderley When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, they are saved by the Wizard. He takes them into the caves of Fundindelve, where he watches over the enchanted sleep of one hundred and forty knights. But the heart of the magic that binds them -- Firefrost, also known as the Weirdstone of Brisingamen -- has been lost. The Wizard has been searching for the stone for more than 100 years, but the forces of evil are closing in, determined to possess and destroy its special power. Colin and Susan realise at last that they are the key to the Weirdstone's return. But how can two children defeat the Morrigan and her deadly brood?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5064 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
Reviewers hailed Alan Garner as a great new writer in 1960: "Excellent and overflowing with largesse and imagination is this first novel by Alan Garner!a piece of marvellously sustained invention. This is a fine, new-mint book with echoes in it from the best of the old." Times Literary Supplement "The suspense is superb. Mr Garner has written on eof hose grand tales that may well be read a hundred years hence as eagerly as it is read now." Scotsman. "Absolutely first class. Well written, well told, it mixes legend, fact and fairy tale." Manchester Evening News

About the Author
Alan Garner was born in Cheshire on 17th October 1934, and his childhood was spent in Alderley Edge, where his family has lived for more than four hundred years. He was awarded the OBE in 2001, for his services to literature.

Customer Reviews

Ideal with a Wienholts Pie
I had the books read to me as a child and rediscovered them in my teens. Garners books are so much better than Potter and unlike Tolkien they actually bring the story into your own world. And despite the at times over flowery prose its so well wriiten that you cant put the books down. And with the audio books, I was able to keep a carful of nephews and nieces quiet all the way from Stockport to Bedfordshire and back a week later. Alderley Edge is a real place and very much part of my own life, I could identify with the characters and to this day I regularly visit Alderley Village buy lunch (try the steak pies) at Wienholts and wander around the edge looking for the places from the book. All we need now is the TV/Movie. My one gripe is that the ending of the second book (Moon of Gomrath) Cries out for a third part, even leaves lots of hints, yet it never came.

A gripping adventure story
This is the book that first got me hooked on reading. Our teacher read the first couple of chapters to a class of spellbound 9 year olds, then shut the book up and told us to read it ourselves if we wanted to find out what happens. We all did.

Whilst Weirdstone is far from Garner's best work, it is a gripping adventure story and a real page-turner. There are also hints, in certain passages, of Garner's developed style (he went on to produce two of the best ever works of 20th century fiction - Red Shift and the Stone Book Quartet.)

I've been waiting 8 years to read Weirdstone to my own children and I am pleased to say that they are enjoying it as much as I did all those years ago.

Two brief comments on its suitability for the Harry Potter generation. Firstly, in the opinion of my children, it is a much much scarier book than the Potter stories. Secondly, Garner includes some local dialect in the book which may be difficult for younger readers.

Fact, Fantasy and Legend, brilliant.
Combinng elements of fantasy, a factual landscape and an ancient lengend (that does exist, not a mere creation of Garners), the author writes with great fluency and creates fantastic characters. The secret about Cadellin and Grimnir at the end of the book nearly gave me a heart attack sheer drama. If it can do this to a 18 year old just imagine how exciting this book will be for young children! Well worth a read whether you are 7 or 70, fully recommended