What's the Pendragon cycle?

The Pendragon Cycle is a book series by Stephen R. Lawhead. It contains five books, Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, and Grail. This is my first time reading the series, so I don't know if it's good yet.

I know nothing about Eragon, but I do believe that it is a book series.

--- flambeau

Will have to check both out; I'm always on the hunt for a new fantasy series! (that's wholesome, not like Twilight or HP ).

Lu

Hmm, Star Wars, something else I haven't read. From what I know of Star Wars, it is not very similar to C.S. Lewis's space trilogy. I think Star Wars is more oriented on action than the trilogy.

Eragon is a book written by Christopher Paolini when he was a teen. It got turned into a movie a couple of years ago but didn't do good enough to greenlight a sequel, apparently. Eragon is the first book in Paolini's "Inheritance Cycle". The second and third books, respectively, are Eldest and Brisingr. Paolini is working on the fourth book.

I rather enjoyed Eragon, but it bears very noticeable similarities to The Lord of the Rings, and apparently also a lot to Star Wars, and people may like or dislike that fact.

Edit: I read the second and third books in Stephen R. Lawhead's Dragon King trilogy. I should check out the Pendragon cycle.

Lu, I would not put Eragon and its sequel Eldest in the 'wholesome' category, more the 'reader tread carefully' category. Just so you know. (I can't speak to the quality of Brisinger since I have yet to read it.) Popular opinion is not impressed with Eragon the movie as an adaptation of the book (or even as a stand alone, I think) but I liked it. It had a lovely sense of overwrought importance that suits it perfectly.

However, if you like dragons, you might like Donita K. Paul's The Vanishing Sculptor and her Dragonkeeper books. R. J. Anderson's Fairy Rebels series is a good read as well, and you might also enjoy N. D. Wilson's 100 Cupboards series.

flam, would it be worth reading Tuck if I haven't/don't read Scarlet?

flam, would it be worth reading Tuck if I haven't/don't read Scarlet?

I would definitely say yes. Tuck was a great ending to the series, had a great story, and introduced one of my favorite characters. You would easily be able to follow the plot without reading the middle book. However, all that's to say that I would encourage a reading of Scarlet as well. Despite one scene that I frown at the book is really quite good, and I am quite a big fan of Will.

--- flambeau

I'm just about finished with Inkdeath - maybe 200 or so pages left to go. The Inkheart Trilogy is a long read! But I've really been enjoying them. Generally, I like long books more than I like short ones.

And I picked up The Search for WondLa at the bookstore for when I've finished with those. It looked interesting - imaginary creatures, a sci-fi feel, and illustrations! Definitely sounds like my kind of book, though since I haven't read it yet, I can't say for sure.

Lu, I'd agree with what Mel said concerning The Inheritance Cycle...although I've read them and I like them, it's not my favorite fantasy series. I did read Brisingr, and I noted it had significantly more violence than the first two, so if you don't have the stomach for that sort of thing, it might not be the book for you. I'm not trying to discourage you from reading them - I'm just saying.

But yes, Donita K. Paul's books are also very good. So are Bryan Davis's books - he's written the Dragons in Our Midst series and Dragons of Starlight series, among other things. (He's my favorite author. )

Thanks guys, I'll do some research.

Lu

I've been watching the discussions in here, hoping madly that someone would start talking about a book that I'd read, but no luck. So I guess it's up to me.
I am reading Felix Holt, the Radical. Dennie was trying to convince me to tell her my opinion of George Eliots writing style, when I was 20 pages through my first book by her, so I wasn't able to help her. But I like the book so far, odd though it may be. She certainly is unique, and though the first part of the book is boring, when you get into it, it's great. She skips around from different people too much, though.

She skips around from different people too much, though.

*thinks that sounds rather like herself*

So anyone here read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry ?

Lu

You'd be surprised. Some people really do enjoy Orwell's 1984. Crazy, I know!

I thought Eragon and Eldest were horribly-cliched and badly-written and they most certainly aren't wholesome. Paoloni's worldview is especially messed up, as is his logic (vegetarians wearing leather?). HP is significantly more wholesome.

Lucy of Narnia, I said "I've never read Star Wars"? Did I really say that? Wow. Awkward. I haven't read the original trilogy in novel form but I've read plenty of the books by other authors.

I'm currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Worldview. It's a philosophy book containing a series of essays concerning different themes and ideas within the Narnia books. Very interesting but some of the essays go a bit over my head with their academic language.

Here are the chapter titles:

Part One - Farewell to Shadowlands: Believing, Doubting and Knowing
1. Aslan's Voice: C.S. Lewis and the Magic of Sound
2. Virtue Epistomology: Why Uncle Andrew Couldn't Hear the Animals Speak
3. Trusting Lucy: Believing the Incredible
4. Breaking the Spell of Skepticism: Puddleglum versus the Green Witch
5. At Any Rate There's No Humbug Here: Truth and Perspective

Part Two - The Tao in Narnia: Morality and the Good Life
6. Worth Dying For: Narnian Lessons on Heroism and Altruism
7. Work, Vocation, and the Good Life
8. The Tao of Narnia
9. Extreme Makeover: Moral Development and the Encounter with Aslan
10. Is It Good to Be Bad? Immoralism in Narnia
11. Narnia and the Moral Imagination
12. Beasts, Heroes and Monsters: Configuring the Moral Imaginary
13. No Longer a Friend: Gender in Narnia

Part Three - Further Up and Further In: Exploring the Deeper Nature of Reality
14. Plato in Narnia
15. Different Worlds, Different Bodies: Personal Identity in Narnia
16. Why Eustace Almost Deserved His Name: Lewis's Critique of Modern Secularism
17. Time Keeps on Ticking, Or Does It? The Significance of Time in The Chronicles of Narnia

Part Four - The Deepest Magic: Religion and the Transcendent
18. Aslan the Terrible: Painful Encounters with Absolute Goodness
19. Worthy of a Better God: Religious Diversity and Salvation in The Chronicles of Narnia
20. The Atonement in Narnia
21. The Green Witch and the Great Debate: Freeing Narnia from the Spell of the Lewis-Anscombe Legend
22. Some Dogs Go to Heaven: Lewis on Animal Salvation

What do you mean? Because by wholesome I mean no cussing, witchcraft, etc. I can handle navigating some atheism, etc.

The witchcraft in The Inheritance books is more worrying than in HP. HP has very little real world witchcraft (and the stuff that is the same or similar is forbidden and seen as terribly evil). Please don't knock something without knowing what it's really about. I would argue that Atheism is the new witchcraft. It slips under so many Christian's radars because they see it as 'not THAT bad' (not seriously inappropriate like Witchcraft, Sex, Violence, Language, Alchohol etc). Subtle evil is much more dangerous than blatantly obvious evil.

But, isn't HP about Harry and Ron and Hermoine being wizards and going to wizard school?? I'd call that witchcraft!

I don't know if that was you or someone else who said it. Sorry, I knew I should have double-checked first... (about Star Wars)

Lu

Yes, but there's a huge difference between summoning demons or help from demons, or contacting the spirit world and what Harry and his friends do. Their type of magic is more akin to fairytale and stage magic.

Can you give me an example?