Reviews for On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness: Adventure, Peril, Lost Jewels, and the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree

The average rating for On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness: Adventure, Peril, Lost Jewels, and the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-02 00:00:00 Ming D Tam This is a war story. A compelling, intriguing, sometimes quirky but deeply moral war story. This is the kind of story that helps us believe that we could stand and be counted if called upon to do so. This is a story that feeds the imagination and stretches the soul and it is a beautiful testimony to the power of family. It is a very good story to have in our moral imaginations. Getting into the early pages is more than a bit disorienting. Like Middle Earth, we have humans and other creatures cohabiting in a war torn land. Unlike Middle Earth, the names are goofy and seem like a long series of smart jokes. It was enormously helpful for me to know that Mr. Peterson intended this to be the "vastness of Lord of the Rings" with the "whimsey of the Princess Bride". I tend to prefer more serious character sketches but once I allowed myself to get into the style, I found that it actually works really well. "Oh, yes, the people of Skree were quite free, as long as they were in their homes by midnight. And as long as they bore no weapons, and they didn't complain when their fellow Skreeans were occasionally taken away across the sea, never to be seen again. But other than the cruel Fangs and the constant threat of death and torture, there wasn't much to fear in Skree." It is clear from the introduction that we have an oppressed people who are living a shadow of real life. We know right away that this is a story about good versus evil and that the characters we are about to fall in love with are suffering. The first portion of the book uses humor and quirkiness to reveal this tension. Like any good epic, this home setting is peppered with questions about identity, purpose and intention. The characters are sketched with the promise that they will be filled in as we go - but that they themselves still have much to learn about their history and how that will reveal their future. It is a very good setup and the layers are pulled back slowly. The quirkiness dissipates when the hero struggle begins to emerge. We still have weird names and strange creatures with goofy tendencies, but those become servants of the text instead of the focus once the children are in jail. What I found particularly rewarding about this text is that is does not hold back on the need for people to behave in heroic ways even when it may cost them everything. There aren't many cheap saves or easy outs. This is a dark and dangerous culture war and it requires character, love, faith and hope to survive. The family context is gorgeous. It is so authentic. All of the normal family battles are present but they are met with love and loyalty and faith. Faith in each other and in The Maker and His providence. An excellent first book in a series that I can't wait to unpack. I would rate the intensity of this book as being on par with the early Harry Potter books or The Hobbit. More intense and mildly violent than Narnia or The Green Ember but just as moral, wholesome and heroic. In fact, there are a number of things in the text which remind me of the HP books. There is no witchcraft or wizardry but there are mythical creatures who are otherworldly and there are some questions about one character who was human and is now somehow altered. Classic fantasy type of stuff. Like The Green Ember, a new book with an old soul.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-02-23 00:00:00 Ashley Fischer [I just can't do it. I have read this aloud as bedtime stories to my three sons, and we got to page 66, and I can't go on. I really wanted to like this book, as it came highly recommended from a family member. I love discovering new children's fantasy series to add to our list of favorites, but as I plodded through On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, I found myself dreading returning to it each night to read a few more short chapters. A few things stand out as especially bothersome about this book. The first is Andrew Peterson's constant need to show off his cleverness. To us, it came across as very forced and not funny. While we love authors who can execute great wordplay'Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Norton Juster, L. Frank Baum, and others'something about Peterson's writing struck us as annoying. The title is but one example: "dark sea of darkness." Or the villain of the story: Gnag the Nameless. The second element that hindered our enjoyment of the book was the strange mélange of names in the fictional world of the story. Some things are called just what they are in the real world, but for unknown reasons other things have their names slightly altered: totatoes, for example, or greenions. In addition, names of people and places seem to have no internal logic, nor does the author give any help in the pronunciations. One of the main characters is named Leeli. We have no idea if it's LEE - ligh, LEE - lee, LAY - lee, or some other variant. That makes reading aloud kind of frustrating. Naming in Peterson's world doesn't seem to be based on a set of linguistic rules within the created world (a la Tolkien). Third, the story feels like it's going to be a typical fantasy quest epic, but also like it's not going anywhere at all, at least not very quickly. The cultural and literary references are familiar, of course (Peterson clearly loves a lot of the same books we do), but is there anything new here, or is it just a rearrangement of all the usual elements? I don't like it when a book or movie relies on bathroom humor for quick laughs. This story opens with a character falling face-first into a pile of horse manure, which we are told is called "nuggets." Then we find out that the family dog is called Nugget. This isn't my kind of humor; it keeps me from investing in the storytelling. Well, we kept up with the reading as long as we could, and obviously the story has to get better as the series progresses. For now, though, I'm content to set it aside and move on to something else. As we've talked about On the Dark Sea of Darkness, we've wondered what it is that distinguishes the truly great children's fantasy literature from the mediocre or awful (and I'm not sure where this series fits on that spectrum, since we didn't finish even the first book; I admit that that's an unfair basis for a review, and if you read this, you should take it with a grain of salt). It's hard to pinpoint exactly what makes such a book wonderful. We never get tired of reading Alice in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together. Their authors also create funny words, play around with language, present absurd worlds. Why then did we find Peterson's writing rather tiring? I don't know, but we'll continue to ponder the mysteries of literature. (hide spoiler)]