THE CHILDREN
FROM THE SEA OF TROLLS
BRAVE THEIR WORST
NIGHTMARES -- UNDERGROUND.
Jack is amazed to have caused an earthquake. He is thirteen, after all,
and only a bard-in-training. But his sister, Lucy, has been stolen by
the Lady of the Lake; stolen a second time in her young life, as he
learns to his terror. Caught between belief in the old gods and
Christianity (790 AD, Britain), Jack calls upon his ash wood staff to
subdue a passel of unruly monks, and, for his daring, ends up in a
knucker hole. It is unforgettable -- for the boy and for readers -- as
are the magical reappearance of the berserker Thorgil from a burial by
moss; new characters Pega, a slave girl from Jack's village, and the
eager-to-marry-her Bugaboo (a hobgoblin king); kelpies; yarthkins; and
elves (not the enchanted sprites one would expect but the fallen angels
of legend). Rarely does a sequel enlarge so brilliantly the world of the
first story. Look for the conclusion in The Islands of the Blessed in
2009.