Weirdstone Trilogy

Series · 3 books · 1960-2012

By Alan Garner

Books in series

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

1960

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?

The Moon of Gomrath

1963

The Moon of Gomrath is the name of the one night of the year when the Old Magic is at its most powerful. Had Colin and Susan known this, they would have never obeyed the strange compulsion that drove them to light a fire on the Beacon. But now it is too late—the horsemen called the Wild Hunt are awake and on the ride, and no one is safe.Colin is captured, Susan falls under the sway of the hideous Brollachan, and all along Alderley Edge the forces of evil rally for the conflict to come. For there will be a battle, the likes of which cannot be imagined by mortals. The outcome—and all the hopes of the world—will depend on three unlikely Susan, Colin, and their ally, the wizard Cadellin.

Boneland

2012

A major novel from one of the country’s greatest writers, and the crowning achievement of an astonishing career, BONELAND is also the long-awaited conclusion to the story of Colin and Susan – a story that began over fifty years ago in THE WEIRDSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN… A woman was reading a book to a child on her knee. “‘So the little boy went into the wood, and he met a witch. And the witch said, “You come home with me and I’ll give you a good dinner.”’ Now you wouldn’t go home with a witch, would you?” Colin stood. “Young man. Do not go into the witch’s house. Do not. And whatever you do, do not go upstairs. You must not go upstairs. Do not go! You are not to go!” Professor Colin Whisterfield spends his days at Jodrell Bank, using the radio telescope to look for his lost sister in the Pleiades. At night, he is on Alderley Edge, watching. At the same time, and in another time, the Watcher cuts the rock and blows bulls on the stone with his blood, and dances, to keep the sky above the earth and the stars flying. Colin can’t remember; and he remembers too much. Before the age of thirteen is a blank. After that he recalls everything: where he was, what he was doing, in every minute of every hour of every day. Everything he has read and seen. And then, finally, a new force enters his life, a therapist who might be able to unlock what happened to him when he was twelve, what happened to his sister. But Colin will have to remember quickly, to find his sister. And the Watcher will have to find the Woman. Otherwise the skies will fall, and there will be only winter, wanderers and moon…

Author

Alan Garner

Author · 26 books

Alan Garner OBE (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist who is best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. His work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect. Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner completed a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), but left the third book of the trilogy he had envisioned. Instead he produced a string of further fantasy novels, Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973). Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan\_Garner Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.