I’m not sure why, but this has been on my mind all night. Sometime in the early- to mid-90s, my aunt, a reader like myself of science fiction and fantasy, bought me a set of five books by a certain Susan Cooper going by the name “The Dark is Rising” series. The first one is “Over Sea, Under Stone” and the second is “The Dark is Rising.” I do not remember the titles of the other three.
The series is an excellent story set in somewhat-modern (20th century, sometime) England. It ties in the story of several different main characters to Arthurian legend. For readers of urban fantasy, I highly recommend this series.
The reason this has been stuck in my mind is due to one of the closing lines of the last book of the series. Arthur’s son & co are told, and I don’t remember the exact wording, something to the effect of “Arthur is no longer somewhere sleeping.” Even at the age I was when I read the series for the first time, I recognized this as a call to responsibility, and I think of this line almost constantly in my daily life. No hero, no god is going to come save us, and heaven and hell be damned, we’re where we are right now, and life is our responsibility. I don’t know how any one who reads it now might find it, but it was an incredibly powerful line the continues to resonate with me today.
The books are each fairly short, and the entire series surely comes in under 1000 pages. Even if you’re well into your adolescence, I think most people here would still find the series to be great material.
That’s about all I have to say.