Kevin's Watch

It's present-buying time for the nephews, and we always get them a book or two to go along with the monster-truck/transformer garbage. I had a memory of a series of books I read as a kid, but I can't remember titles or author. Does anyone recognize the following description?

It's a post-apocalypse world. Society has rebuilt to a more or less medieval level, and there were still some remnants of freeways around (and I remember them wondering why they cut the roads through the hills instead of just going over them).
The hero of the book is a boy (as usual) who goes on some quest/adventures away from home. At some point or another he leads an army against a walled city and breaks a taboo by burning the enemy's crops.
At another point he fights some sort of acidic blob, and has to stab down through its jello to reach its brain. When he tells the people back home that he killed a ???? in a far-off land, they mockingly ask if that's what they call rabbits over there.
He also fights a sword-duel with the advantage of a high-tech (?) unbreakable sword, and breaks his opponent's weapon.

Ring any bells?

nuk wrote:
Ring any bells?

No, but Quasimodo does



Sorry, couldn't resist.

nuk wrote:Ring any bells?

Like Tatoo on Fantasy Island?

Hey, nuk, let us know if you find out. Sounds good!

Is that John Christopher's "Sword of the Spirits" trilogy?

I just read the wikipedia entry for the Sword of the Spirits trilogy. Some of it sounds very familiar, and other parts not at all. My guess is that it probably is the right series. I forgot to mention that I read them in the '70s, so these books fit that criterion too. I'll have to find a copy to page through to verify it.

Thanks!

That's them. John Christopher, isn't it? I remember them clearly. Great reads.

--A

They sound good, ill look into them.

Try the Lewis Barneveld series by John Bellairs!

The first 3 are great...

A House With a Clock in its Walls (illus. by Edward Gorey, no less!)

A Figure in the Shadows

The Letter the Witch and the Ring

They aee more Harry Potter-esque (though much different) than they are oure fantasy... worth a read!

ALSO.... tgere is another thread up right now about THESE books...

Lloyd Alexander's : The Chronicles of Prydain, inspired by Welsh mythology and the Mabinogion. The books include:

The Chronicles of Prydain
The Book of Three (1964)
The Black Cauldron (1965) - Winner of the 1966 Newbery Honor
The Castle of Llyr (1966)
Taran Wanderer (1967)
The High King (1968) - Winner of the 1969 Newbery Medal
The Foundling and Other Tales from Prydain (1970)

The covers on these books were fantastic too!

Yeah, I loved Lloyd Alexander's books too. We've already given the nephews one of those.

There's a thread on the Prydain series somewhere in the Sci Fi Fantasy forum, I seem to recall.

Sword of the Spirits is correct!

You should really check out John Christopher's Tripods series, too!

The White Mountains
The City of Gold and Lead
The Pool of Fire

Wonderful, wonderful reads! I loved them when I was growing up.

Lady Revel wrote:Sword of the Spirits is correct!

You should really check out John Christopher's Tripods series, too!

The White Mountains
The City of Gold and Lead
The Pool of Fire

Wonderful, wonderful reads! I loved them when I was growing up.

Are they the ones were there is a sort of slave race or something, and there's something about tattoos of three dots???

And on the subject of half-remembered series', what was the one where the hero was the last member of a race of intergalactic mercenaries that always fought on the side of 'right' - the first book has him doing an initiation rite on his home world with lots of wild animals, then iirc he suffers some huge trauma and some secretive organisation gives him superstrong bones or something, then sends him off on various secret missions????

The First Three Dragonlances Books, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight," "Dragons of Winter Night," and "Dragons of Spring Dawning" were aimed at young teenagers, I believe.

Emotional Leper wrote:The First Three Dragonlances Books, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight," "Dragons of Winter Night," and "Dragons of Spring Dawning" were aimed at young teenagers, I believe.

What did you call the ewok-type-things in those? They annoyed the sh*t out of me...

Stonemaybe wrote:

Emotional Leper wrote:The First Three Dragonlances Books, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight," "Dragons of Winter Night," and "Dragons of Spring Dawning" were aimed at young teenagers, I believe.

What did you call the ewok-type-things in those? They annoyed the sh*t out of me...

Uh, what Ewok type things?

I don't recall anything that looks even remotely like an ewok in the entire Dragonlance Universe.

Stonemaybe - are you thinking of the kender? They were short, like ewoks...

Mortice Root wrote:Stonemaybe - are you thinking of the kender? They were short, like ewoks...

They were halflings, though, your normal D&D Halflings, but immune to fear and without the ability to understand the concept of personal property.

EL wrote

They were halflings, though, your normal D&D Halflings, but immune to fear and without the ability to understand the concept of personal property.

Yup, which did make them kind of annoying, like the ewoks. Of course, the gnomes in dragonlance were short and annoying as well, so maybe that was it.