A review by saroz162
Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

3.0

In this, the third book of the Dark is Rising cycle, Susan Cooper merges the world of that eponymous novel and her earlier children's mystery, Over Sea, Under Stone. To a large degree, in fact, it feels as if that's the main motivation for the book. At times, it's a bit of an uncomfortable collaboration; Greenwitch has the lighter, younger reader-friendly narrative voice of Stone, with the mysticism and occasional high speech of Dark. The result comes off, at times, like a Scooby Doo mystery with occasional scenes written by Alan Garner. That's not to say it's a bad book - not at all. There's some wonderful imagery here, and the Greenwitch herself is a powerful and mysterious visual symbol. It doesn't have the startling otherworldliness of The Dark is Rising, though, and what it adds to the mythos of Cooper's reality feels as if it's designed for this book only, to be quickly disposed of once its purpose is served, instead of furthering and widening the scope of the fight between the Light and the Dark. (It's a little telling that, at the midst of a conflict between Will, his friends, and the an agent of the Dark, the new and powerful forces Cooper introduces are totally ambivalent to the ongoing struggle outside their own primal interests.) The whole work is simply more superficial than its predecessor, with a story that's only about half as long. An educated guess would suggest that Cooper is setting her pieces in place for much deeper and more complicated adventures in the final two books of the cycle. As such, Greenwitch is probably a necessary step in reconciling two earlier works of very, very different tones, but it's definitely a "middle book" and doesn't stand especially well as a standalone read.