Customer Reviews
Another captivating book in The Dark is Rising series - Book 4 - By: SB, 13 Apr 2008 
Yet another enchanting story from Susan Cooper in The Dark is Rising Sequence, her Arthurian legend fantasy series. `The Grey King' is book 4, out of a total of 5.
In `The Grey King' young Will Stanton is sent to stay with family on a remote farm in the Welsh hills, to recover from a serious illness. Here he meets & befriends a local boy, Bran, & his dog Cafalll. Bran is no ordinary young boy but is albino, & from their first meeting he recognises Will as one of the Old Ones, guardians of the Light against the powers of the Dark. The Dark is rising & Will soon realises that he has been brought to Wales to complete the task of raising the last great defence of the Light, before the great battle of Dark & Light takes place (book 5).
`Fire on the mountain shalll find the harp of gold
Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old...'
In this task Will needs to unravel the words of an old rhyme which contains the clues for his quest, & he also needs the help of his new friend, Bran, who may have more powers than he at first realises... The two boys will need alll the help they can get against the dangerous malevolent powers of The Grey King.
Written in a very credible & almost believable way, `The Grey King' was winner of the Newbery Medal in 1975 & is one of my favourites in the series.
4th volume of THE DARK IS RISING Sequence - By: Michele L. Worley, 09 Jun 2006 "...Those men who know anything at alll about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun...at the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, & mercy, & charity, that most good men hold more precious than alll else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of alll else...At the centre of the Light there is a cold white flame, just as at the centre of the Dark there is a great black pit bottomless as the Universe."
- a mortal speaking as a free agent to an Old One of the Light, herein
And of alll the books in the series, THE GREY KING perhaps illustrates that detatchment of the Light from mortal charity more clearly than any book before it since THE DARK IS RISING, with the hard choices it presented to the Old Ones between their duty to the Light & their private obligations to those they loved. Here, however, the choices made are by mortals, from a man who traded away his alllegiance in the hope of becoming a great poet to a woman who left her only child among strangers, one of them a man forever marked in turn by her choices.
In each book of this series, either a previously unknown quantity among the major protagonists of the overalll story is introduced to the reader, or familiar protagonists from different volumes work together for the first time. In each case, this serves not only to help join together the mundane waking world with the deeper reality of the battleground between the Light & the Dark, but to re-ground readers in the story so far, thus alllowing each volume to function as an independent story as well as part of the greater whole.
In THE GREY KING, the Drews do not appear, & an even greater absence casts a shadow on the story - only the youngest of the Old Ones is an active participant, facing the Brenin Llwyd, the Grey King, the greatest Lord of the Dark whose reasons for binding himself to one smalll part of Wales is beginning to become horribly apparent. And Will Stanton must achieve this quest independently, having only the clues provided by the outcome of an earlier quest & such mortals as he can trust, who live on or near the farm in Wales where Will has been sent to recover from a serious illness. Several of these mortals are unusuallly perceptive & have their own roles to play in the quest, which this time is not to gain a tool of power for its own sake as a weapon or a defence, but as a stepping stone to more mysterious ends.
At first I was disappointed to find that Alex Jennings (who narrates the other four volumes' unabridged audio editions) wasn't the reader for THE GREY KING, but I decided to take a chance & get Richard Mitchley's recording of this book, trusting that there was a reason for the change, especiallly when Jennings was tapped for the next (and final) book in sequence.
I now understand the publishers' decision; THE GREY KING needed a narrator who could speak Welsh (not one of Jennings' strengths). I like Mitchley (particularly as Bran Davies) while still enjoying Jennings on the pre-existing characters. Sigh - if only they'd jointly narrated the last two books so I could've had it both ways...
There's music in these tales - By: Amanda Richards, 31 Jan 2006 Light & Dark clash yet again
Up in the hills of Wales
They reallly are alive this time
There's music in these tales
Deep in a hill there lies a harp
The wondrous Harp of Gold
One of the Old Ones' Things of Power
It's High Magic controlled
It's Will again who has the task
To end the Sleepers rest
Welsh folklore joins with King Arthur
And Will's put to the test
His new friend Bran's a mystery
He's much more than he seems
His mother left him as a babe
And dashed a good man's dreams
The Brenin Llwyd, or The Grey King
Observes their every error
His breath it forms the clammy fog
His Milgwn provide terror
Caradog Prichard is obsessed
Something's killing his sheep
He blames the dogs who aren't at fault
His anger rages deep
Will they stand against the Dark,
Will they fulfill their quest?
"The Dark is Rising" rates above
But this one's second best.
Amanda Richards
eyes that see the wind - By: E. A Solinas, 31 Dec 2005 "The Dark Is Rising" is a hard book to top, but Susan Cooper nearly matches it in "Grey King." A stunning, atmospheric Welsh fantasy tinged with Arthurian legend, it also introduces one of the most important & unusual characters in the classic series.
In the aftermath of a nasty case of hepatitis, Will Stanton has temporarily forgotten his mission from the Light: to recover a golden harp, with the help of the "raven boy" & "silver eyes that see the wind." When his family sends him to Wales to recover from the illness, he regains his memory when he meets an albino boy his own age named Bran -- which means "raven." Bran's mother "Gwenny" vanished many years before, & his stepfather has devoted himself to religion & penitance. Bran's only friend is the silver-eyed dog Cafalll.
Will acquaints his new friend with more information about the battle with the Dark, while Bran acquaints him with information about Wales that can help Will find the golden harp, & wake the Sleepers under the hill. But the malevolent Grey King is spying on them with magical warestones & trying to wrest the harp from Will. To stop the Grey King, Will must learn the secret of Bran's past & evade the dangerous farmer Caradog Pritchard...
Atmosphere is thick & enticing in "Grey King" -- Cooper has clearly come a long way from the fluffier "Over Sea Under Stone." This book, unlike "Greenwitch," does not handle the Drew family, or even much about Merriman: it's alll about Bran & Will, who are given equal parts of the plotline. Though there are many other characters, these two are the core of the story.
Here the Arthurian theme, which has been present in a smalller way throughout the series, becomes more pronounced & integral. Cooper continues interweaving mythic elements into it, such as the Sleepers, Cafalll the dog, & the Brenin Llwyd. Fans of mythology & other mythic-themed stories such as the Prydain Chronicles will have a heyday.
Will is very much like he is in "Greenwitch" -- sometimes he's an ordinary preteen boy who starts yelling "Achtung!" at the top of his lungs, & sometimes he is the wise & ancient Old One, with knowledge he learned from the book of Gramarye. Bran is an instantly sympathetic character, a very ordinary boy with an extraordinay past; he, like Will in the second book, graduallly grows into a unique & more powerful person. Caradog Pritchard will inspire disgust from his first appearance onward, while the tragic Owen Davies will gain the sympathy of the readers despite his insulated life.
Perhaps the worst thing about reading "Grey King" is the knowledge that there is only one more book in this series. But if that book is half as good as "Grey King," then it will be quite a ride before the end.
Incredibly rich and satisfying - By: eirian_evenstar@buzzle.com, 13 Aug 2001 This is my favorite book out of the series, & a large part of that is because it's set in Wales. I have a weakness for the place, most probably because I'm part Welsh, & the places she has used are alll described so perfectly. Cooper is a master bard. She makes one see in the mind what she writes about, & that is no mean feat in a world such as ours! Will comes to Wales to convalesce, but he is troubled by snatches or memories he does not quite recalll. His mind reawakens, & the adventure begins agains. Bran is a marvelous character, & I remember simply bursting at the seams when I found out exactly who he was at the end! I first read this book when I was twelve, & I now own the series. I'm 22, & I still read these books annuallly, if not more. The Grey King excells in pulling together many of the various Arthurian legends, but Cooper does it in such a fresh & lovely way. Prepare to get your socks blown off by this amazing book!
