Fantasy Trilogies

Sometimes nothing beats a good trilogy. Try some of these other great fantasy trilogies.

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Juvenile

• N.E. Bode – The Anybodies
• Kevin Crossley-Holland- Arthur
• Nancy Farmer – Sea of Trolls
• Susan Fletcher – Dragon Chronicles
• Cornelia Funke- Inkheart
• Charlotte Haptie – Karmidee
• Brian Jacques – Castaways of the Flying Dutchman
• Elizabeth Kay – The Divide
• R.L. La Fevers – Lowthars Blade
• Katherine Langrish - Troll
• Tanith Lee – Dragonflight
• Tanith Lee - Unicorns
• Ann McCaffrey – Harper Hall
• Cliff McNish - Silver
• Cliff McNish - Doomspell
• William Mayne – Hob
• Ian Oglivy – Measle Stubbs
• Christopher Paolini – Inheritance
• Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials
• Guillaume Prevost – Book of Time
• Emily Rodda – Deltora Shadowland
• Kate Thompson – Missing Link
• Kate Thompson - Switchers
• Megan Whalen Turner – Thief
• Anne Ursu – Cronus Chronicles
• Jane Yolen – Young Merlin

Young Adult

• Hilari Bell – Farsala
• Holly Black – The Good Neighbors
• Holly Black - Modern Fairy Tales
• Terry Brooks – Genesis of Shannara
• Terry Brooks - Original Shannara
• Terry Brooks - Voyage of Jerle Shannara
• Terry Brooks - High Druid of Shannara
• Michael Cadnum – Book of the Lion
• Kate Constable –Chanter of Tremaris
• Clare Dunkle – Hollow Kingdom
• Catherine Fisher – Oracle Prophecies
• Geoffrey Huntington – Ravenscliff
  
• Justin Larbalestier – Magic or Madness
• Juliet Marillier – Bridei’s Court
• William Nicholson – Noble Warriors
• Garth Nix - Abhorsen
• Tamora Pierce – Beka Cooper
• Tamora Pierce - Daughter of the Lioness
• Sherwood Smith - Wren
• Jane Yolen – Tartan Magic

Bart’s Guide to London

Bartimeaus’s Guide to London, from the author’s website

http://www.bartimaeusbooks.com/bart_guide.html

This month’s book: The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

This long, involved, original and exciting fantasy is the first book of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, and is set in an alternate London, during a time when England is in the power of magicians who hold all government offices. The one dirty little secret that magicians don’t want the commoners to know is that on their own they have no power at all. What little power they do have is gained through the various demons (efrits, djinnis and other spirits) they summon and control with elaborate rituals and protections that force the demons into servitude. Nathaniel is a boy who was sold by his parents at the age of six into apprenticeship to a pompous and stuffy mediocre bureaucrat, Arthur Underwood, who doesn’t see the boy’s exceptional talents. Underwood tutors Nathaniel in magic, but as the pace is so slow and boring, Nathaniel takes the initiative to advance his education behind his master’s back. When he is ten Nathaniel suffers a very public humiliation by an up-and-coming politician Simon Lovelace. He takes revenge by using some of secretly gained knowledge to summon a powerful 5,000-year-old djinn named Bartimaeus. He instructs Bartimaeus to steal an artifact called the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace. Little does Nathaniel know that Lovelace himself stole the Amulet (and killed its original owner) and will stop at nothing to get it back. Lovelace has big plans for all of England that involve the Amulet (think overthrow of the government). As if Nathaniel doesn’t have enough problems, he finds out that Bartimaeus has learned his real name, which makes it possible Bartimaeus to gain his freedom from Nathaniel, and to take his revenge on him.

The story is told in alternating chapters: a third-person narrative about Nathaniel (not a sympathetic character by any means, being whiny and self-absorbed), and first-person by Bartimaeus, who is cynical, wise-cracking, and has an extraordinarily high opinion of himself. Bartimaeus’s chapters are filled with very funny footnotes explaining the finer points of magic, details about different planes of existence, types of demons, and the history of magic and the world. Don’t be tempted to skip the footnotes; they’re my favorite part of the book. Review by Stacy Church

Down the Rabbit Hole

Ok, here’s my list of references to “down the rabbit hole.”

page 85: when Ingrid is trying to break into Cracked-up Katie’s house to steal back her soccer cleats, and she pushes open the basement window, gets facedown on the ground, wriggles back into the opening feetfirst. “She could just let go.  Alice, down the rabbit hole.”

page 97: when Ingrid is running from the police in the woods in the middle of the night, and finds herself on the top of a hill overlooking the Falls, on the opposite bank from Prescott Hall, “Griddie, deep down the rabbit hole.”

page 328: the conversation between Vincent and Ingrid at the special rehearsal, the two of them alone in Prescott Hall,

“I know, but I still think it’s meant to be a fun thing.”

“A fun thing?”

“The whole story of Alice,” said Ingrid.  “Falling down the rabbit hole, having all those adventures.”

“Not all adventures are fun…”

page 357: when Ingrid goes back to Prescott Hall in the middle of the night and decides to climb in through the cat door, “This one was big enough for a real big cat, maybe even big enough for a girl Ingrid’s size.  She tried it—yes, just big enough.  She wriggled through to the other side: down the rabbit hole.”

Hmmm…there are only 4.  I can’t find the 5th one.  If you find it, let me know.

Down the Rabbit Hole

How many different references can you find to going down the rabbit hole?  Does it always mean the same thing?  I found 5, not counting the original reference in the book Alice in Wonderland.  Check back later to compare notes.

About the Author: Peter Abrahams

I was born at a time when the last woolly mammoths still walked the earth. My mother taught me most of what I know about writing. She got a pretty good idea that she'd better make me into a writer—since I'd never succeed at anything else—when my preschool teacher told her the following story:

One rainy day the teacher took my class on a make-believe walk. We were indoors, the walk was real, and the sights were not. For example: "A car's coming class," my teacher said. "Everybody stop." We came to a puddle. "Here's a puddle," my teacher said. Everyone walked it around but me. I plodded straight through. "Petey, what about the puddle?" my teacher asked. "I've got boots on," I said.

There you have the nascent writer: uncooperative, attention-seeking, and tiresome. My mother rolled with it.

I graduated from Williams College with an actual degree and went to work as a spearfisherman in the Bahamas. Later I worked a bit in radio, and found I was better suited to working on my own—and what could be more alone than writing? So far I've written 22 novels. These include 17 crime fiction novels, among them Oblivion; End of Story; Lights Out (Edgar best-novel nominee); The Fan (made into a movie with Robert DeNiro); the New York Times bestselling Echo Falls series for middle-schoolers (beginning with Down the Rabbit Hole, an Agatha winner); the new YA Reality Check (2009); and, under the name Spencer Quinn, Dog On It, an New York Times bestseller and first in the Chet and Bernie mystery series. I'm now at work on a YA for publication in 2010 called Bullet Points.

I'm married with four children, most of them now grown-up, or doing a perfect imitation thereof. I live on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, overlooking a salt marsh. We have a great dog named Audrey. She does everything backwards.

reprinted from HarperCollins.com Photo By Dan Cutrona

Review of Down the Rabbit Hole

It’s hard to know where to start. I read this book, the first in the Echo Falls Mystery series, 3 years ago not long after it came out. I read and enjoyed the sequels, Behind the Curtain and Into the Dark, but it wasn’t until I reread Down the Rabbit Hole that I realized how great the first book is. I’ve already quoted my favorite passages, so you can see for yourself how witty the writing is, but I want to tell you, the plot is really well laid out also. The story follows Ingrid, budding actress, talented soccer-player, and devotee of Sherlock Holmes, in the aftermath of the murder of Echo Falls’ most eccentric resident, Cracked-Up Katie. There are lots of side stories (Why is Ingrid’s football-playing brother, Ty, suddenly so pumped up that he can beat their grandfather at arm wrestling? Will their grandfather stop at nothing to prevent the sale of the family farm? What’s up with the new dark version of Alice in Wonderland that the director who’s replacing the recently-run-over-by-a-piano director, Jill, is making The Prescott Players perform? Can Alice really be menacing?) but they don’t detract from the unfolding of the central mystery. As smart as Ingrid is, she has to make some not-so-smart choices sometimes, but those are believable too.