Someone could get famous if they could explain why certain books become cultural touchstones while others of equal or greater quality disappear into the mists of time. Once that's figured out, perhaps they could determine how to give Alan Garner's lovely The Weirdstone of Brisingamen the prominence it deserves.

This is the story of Susan and Colin, siblings who are sent to live with their mother's former nurse in rural England, near The Edge--a mysterious hill in Cheshire that is pocked with abandoned mines and spoken of in whispers of strange beasts and legendary gates.

The children wander in the woods of The Edge until they are attacked by hundreds of gobliny svart-alfar and rescued by the wizard Cadellin. Cadellin takes them to an cavern filled with a slumbering army and tells them a strange story of long-ago battles between Good and Evil, and the coming of another battle, foretold and unstoppable, and perhaps unwinnable. Hundreds of years before, in trying to fulfill his role as a guardian of the army, Cadellin made a mistake. He lost the Weirdstone, Firefrost, a jewel of great magical power, and has never heard of it again. That loss could render the hidden army unable to defeat the rising powers of darkness and could doom the world. This his his battle alone, though; the children have no role to play. Or do they?

The children are fairly flat as characters, but that is really all that is needed. They always behave in believable ways, though they aren't necessarily unique or bursting with personality. None of these characters are, from the menacing svart-alfar to the Gandalfesque Cadellin to the stolid dwarfs the children later encounter. (The possible exception is the old nurse, Bess, and her husband Gowther.) But they don't have to be. This story is so seminal, and so beautifully told, that bigger characters might only get in the way.

This book filled me with a sense of homecoming, as if I knew the story all along and merely needed to be reminded. That isn't to say it's boring; it's brisk and sharp and portentous. Everything is both familiar and strange, feeling as if they are drawn from grand stories that I simply don't know. Somehow, Garner makes me feel that I am reading a small, new part of a big, old tale.

If you need to be shocked and startled, this isn't the book for you, though there is a scene set in an abandoned mine that had me gasping with unfamiliar and intense claustrophobia. The only real surprise here is the relative obscurity of the author. He's an award-winner, but I've found few readers who recognize his name.

I would recommend this most urgently to fans of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books. Alexander creates better characters, but Garner is the superior wordsmith, and both authors leave you with a sense that there is so much more to the story than they could ever explain. And there is a sequel, which I love even more, though the Epinions scale only goes to five stars.

Writer Garth Nix claims these books inspired him to become a fantasy author. And I think if you read them you'll understand why. So, go read them! I'll wait here.

Recommended: Yes