I looked this book up just to see if it was still available anywhere. I believe I bought it when it was published in 1981, and have probably read it at least once a year since then. Scary without being terrifying, hopeful without being simple - it's an excellent book! One of my all time favorites. I can't wait to read it to my children when they get a little older.

This book although essentially for children is a wonderfully fast moving and magical chase across a landscape dotted with mystical creatures and races from past times, forgotten now in the minds of more sophisticated men. The story is based on the legend of Alderley that an ancient king and his knights sleep under the hill there awaiting the call that will come if ever the powers of darkness should threaten to overtake the land. The Wierstone of Brisingamen is an ancient, magic stone of such power that it keeps king, knights and their milk white steeds in a state of suspended animation, protected forever against the powers of evil who would destroy them and prevent their riding forth one day to do battle.... The stone has been lost and through a series of events it transpires that it belongs to a young girl called Susan who is now back at Alderly with the Wierdstone fastened to her slender wrist. This fact is not lost on the local witch, Selina Place, the Morrigan, a shape shifter out for power and who recognises the stone when she sees it one day. This draws the children into a series of terrifying circumstances as good and bad struggle to be the guardians of the powerful talisman. This tale is well paced and well written. It is full of good and bad characters whose struggle spills over into the world of mortal men and sweeps up the 2 children at the center of the story carrying them along on a tide of events which take them in and out of danger helped by their friend Gowther Mossock.....a somewhat grizzled old farmer who is still innocent enough of the worlds more cynical ways to be able to believe in the old ways, the magic ways..... Cadellin Silverbrow, the magician who had charge of the Wierdstone of Brisingamen and to his shame lost it, strides majestically through the story to a thrilling conclusion and a battle between the forces of good and evil It is a book which I read to my children many times and still enjoy myself today, it almost makes you believe that if you looked hard enough and in the right places that you would see the traces of those inhabitants of a world once familiar to Mankind, now sadly lost to all except those with the childlike ability to suspend disbelief. I thouroughly recommend this book

This short work should be read in conjunction or shortly after reading "Dance of the Infidels : A Portrait of Bud Powell -- by Francis Paudras". "The Glass Enclosure" frequently refers to Francis Paudras, as any biography of Bud Powell must. It contains many pictures of Bud that help to understand him better, including several pictures of his common law wife "Buttercup". The book assumes the reader is familiar with the general history of bebop and figures such as Miles Davis, Diz, Monk, Mingus, Clifford Brown, etc. It was originally published in 1993, so this is a reprint. The book can be read in a couple of days. The research done for the book is good in terms of people who were interviewed. Bud was a genius but a very troubled on. This books explains, sometimes to the point of being painful to read, the details of Bud's mental troubles. It leaves one feeling sad but full of wonder at Bud's extraordinary musical powers and the recorded legacy he leaves for current and future generations. These two books are probably the sum total of all that will ever be known about Bud Powell. Combined with his recordings, especially from the period 1947 to 1953, it is hopefully enough to satisfy the generations as yet unborn who will certainly revere Bud as a great master.

'The Moon of Gomrath' is the wild magical sequel to 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen', set in Alderley Edge in Cheshire of the present day but harking back to the days of Middlearth. Both these stories have a very Tolkienish way about them, it is an interesting exercise to compare and contrast the characters as they are introduced. It is a pity that Garner's books, faring less well than 'The Hobbit', dropped off the literary radar in the 1980's, but with the benefit of Potter power they are now back in style with new artwork on the cover.

Garner's special art is to take a basic swords-and-sorcery story and elevate it into a poetry-and-powers myth with gritty heroes and terrifying villains who hard to defeat and not always easy to spot. This story of Colin and Susan's second adventure is aimed at a slightly older audience than the Weirdstone, has Susan in the lead role, and has more depth and menace along with some sly humour. The Morrigan is back, not yet at the height of her powers, but ready for revenge. The elves are suffering and dying from the pollution caused by Man: they must retreat to cleaner, remoter places. The battles in magic and swordplay are more deadly and more personal and more realistic. The havoc and hard pace of war are felt in the prose, which is breathless and a little wild itself. The wizard Cadellin takes more of a back seat in this adventure but he does explain (in chapter four) why the coming of the 'Age of Reason' and industrialism was more of a coming of the age of Materialism and a retreat from Reason. Hence the great rift between our Man's world of material values, and the worlds of magic and the life of the spiritual values.

Now as every parent knows, children's books have the power of forming the child's mind. (True even in the age of film and video, as books are both more personal and make mind-expanding demands on the imagination. Films just fill up whatever space is in your head, they do not create it. Books are not just good for you, they are more fun.) So with magical adventures being very much back in style now is a good time to get the various authors into some sort of order. So, without going back to the ancient Greeks, where does Alan Garner fit in? We can easily go back a century or so: F. Anstey (Vice Versa), George MacDonald (Princess and Curdie stories), and E. Nesbit (House of Arden, etc), Tolkien (Hobbit, Farmer Giles of Ham), C.S. Lewis (Narnia, the land of youth), Ursula K. LeGuin (Earthsea), and Alan Garner. And, as Rowling's ghost Peeves puts it, 'Wee Potty Potter', brings us up to date.

So there are two main routes to magic. Anstey, MacDonald, Nesbit, Garner, and Rowling write a story that exercises magic in this world, and the two things collide with exciting degrees of chaos and depth. The results are serious or hilarious, or both. Garner manages to interface the two worlds with superior art. But a higher priced ticket will take you to a whole new world. Tolkien, Lewis, and LeGuin create whole worlds of their own and people it with new peoples - a fully magical world. The magic is integrated, truly part of the fabric of that world, not just added to make it fizz. One you are in, you belong there for a while. You return and your own world is now a little more magical. The whole range of literary forms is now possible, even super-possible as we no longer rely on supposed 'realism' to make the effects. They go beyond just making a magical talisman or two (some brilliantly done, others less so), and seeing 'what happens'. They make new countries and skies, new kingdoms and peoples, new languages and rules. Ultimately they are the suns and the others are the moons.

Dear Constantino, ive searched the net about my family name which is also lluch and i found your name so with elizabeth lluch in fact i just wrote her a letter about having the same family name.anyway im from philippines and if incase u wanna send me mail my email ad is alglo@mozcom.com Actually im just curiuos about where u guys are from(elizabeth u and also alex lluch). Rommel

Good as We Can Expect This Long After the Game. Though there have been several books which cover the AIB as a subject or parts of their operations, published since WW II, including one by General MacArthur's Chief of G-2, Charles Willoughby, most of them are sparse on documentation and are of the nature of personal narratives. Some interesting works have been published on some operations including the raids on Singapore and the Coastwatchers in the Solomons, but this is the first one I am aware of published by an academic publisher and written from the Australian viewpoint. The author with the aid of grants has combed all the relevent archives: The US National Archives, the Public Records Office of Great Britain and the Australian forces records.
The AIB was a joint intelligence operation which had widespread antecedents. It was formed in 1942 under Gen. Douglas MacArthur's command from the remnants of many prewar intelligence units, including British operatives who escaped from Singapore, US personnel who escaped from the Phillipines and various others from Australia, New Zealand, and sent out from the States. This is an administrative history, not a collection of derring do stories, but has a large sampling of operational history which should interest the special operations student.
Judging from the price, few were printed for general sale, but more for the practicioner and the serious student of SIGINT, covert, and other operations and their value in modern warfare. Though AIB cooperated with the US Army and Navy SIGINT and operational intelligence units sent there, it was an integrated unit collecting, analyzing and disseminating tactical and operational intelligence primarily to the troop units in the field and the fleet units under MacArthur's SW Pacific Area command.
There is a web site concerning WW II in Australia which details the locations of all the signal intercept stations, analysis unit locations and support units.

Ok, I admit taht when I first read ELIDOR as probably an 11 year old I liked it the least of Garner's books to date. It was "ok" but the idea of a magical fantasy being set in the urban wasteland of post-war Manchester just didn't click. Maybe it is a comment on the last quarter century, maybe it is just a matter of growing up, but going back the book all these years later I found myself absolutely enthralled. Garner makes the transition from everyday life to the realm of Welsh mythology & back seamlessly and flawlessly. His characters are remarkably "real" -even those with "bit parts" like the parents of the protagonists. The language is lyrical, and there are scenes that will haunt you for years. My one complaint is that it is more a "novella" than a novel -at this re-reading I would gladly have kept going for another 200 pages, but what we get is great.

Alan Garner is an extremely underrated fantasy author. Elidor is a perfect example of the magic he can weave. The plot is simple enough - the four Watson children must save the world of Elidor, one step removed from our own. To do this, they are given four magical Treasures that guard Elidor from harm. But doing this may be more trouble than they think...

Garner is a lyrical writer. Such sentences as "The blade was like ice, and the hilt all jewels and fire" would be impressive in even an adult's book. The books have lots of adventure in them for the younger set, and fine prose for adults. I recommend this to all readers, even those that don't like fantasy.

I read this book 18 years ago, when I was 10 years old. It was one of the best books I ever read - as good as Mark Twain's 'Tom Sawyer' or Jules Verne's 'Mistery Island'. But in a way, it was better. The atmosphere of Elidor was magical, dim lit, eerie - something I found only in Marion Zimmer Bradley's 'The Mists of Avalon' or in Stephen King's work. This is definitely a great fantasy book.

This is collection of short stories that offers a wide mix of speculative genres. Fantasy, SF, horror, and just plain weird. The stories run the gambit and most are good. "Jeo Defined" and "Moon Warrior" were excellent stories and well worth purchasing the book. Even just the so-so stories were enjoyable and all the authors are names to keep a look out for. In the end, this is a book of up and coming writers and a few of them will no doubt be big names someday.

I didn't know what to expect from this collection of short stories but I was happily surprised. The stories cover a wide range from fantasy, science fiction, and horror to those hard to classify strange stories. Each one is worth reading. My favorites were the one about a radio personality who was singing the Siren's song and the one about a criminal who is forced to undergo "augmentation" to control him. Some wild stuff for a great read.

_The Owl Service_ is a book that has to be read twice to be understood--and a familiarity with the myth of Blodeuwedd doesn't hurt either. This novel takes place in the selfsame valley where Blodeuwedd, Lleu, and Gronw played out their tragic love-triangle in times long past, and the spirit of the conflict still haunts the valley. Every generation, the situation crops up again, with different people playing the parts, but always ending badly.

One summer, it is three teenagers who enact the old story; a young girl and her stepbrother, visiting from the city, and a local boy. At first read, it isn't clear what Alison, Roger, and Gwyn have to do with the legend of Blodeuwedd, since their situation is different on the surface. If I'd only read the book once, I might give it two and a half stars. But upon re-reading, the resonances became more apparent, and I began to see the points in the story that correspond to events in the legend.

I want to give it three and a half stars, but Amazon won't let me do that, and my grade school teachers drummed it into my head that something-and-a-half rounds up to the next whole number. *wink* So, four stars. I would have liked it better if the characters had been fleshed out more before the legend started controlling their lives; the spirit of the old conflict started turning them into unsympathetic jerks before I had a chance to develop a liking for the people they really were. Still, a decent piece of myth-based fiction.

Definitely NOT a book for most children. I read THE OWL SERVICE many years ago in part because I had enjoyed Garner's earlier books so much. I remember having nightmares afterwards, and steered clear of it subsequently. At the same time, the book stuck with me, and when I saw it in a used book shop a while ago I picked it up and re-read it. Second time through it is captivating, haunting, disturbing, and yes, very very strange. perhaps the perfect book to curl up with on a rainy autumn afternoon and find oneself going somewhere where the real and the possible somehow get turned inside out and we end... I am not sure where. I'd be reluctant to give this to other than a very mature child, but if you have one, he or she may well be entranced. I know I am.

The Owl Service is an amazing book. It can be read on a series of levels as it explores everyday life, social injustice as well as offering an insight into Welsh mythology. To top it all, it is a phenominally good read and very hard to put down. Garner, as always, researches his background material well and those familiar with his work will know he always relates his novels to some aspect of British folklore. This book still creates the same mental imagery for me that it did 15 years ago when I studied it at college. It deserves every one if its 5 stars.