The Land of the Silver Apples

THE CHILDREN <br> <br> FROM <i>THE SEA OF TROLLS</i> <br> <br> BRAVE THEIR WORST <br> <br> NIGHTMARES -- UNDERGROUND. <br> <br> Jack is amazed to have caused an earthquake. He is thirteen, after all, and only a bard-in-training. But his sister, Lucy, has been stolen by the Lady of the Lake; stolen a second time in her young life, as he learns to his terror. Caught between belief in the old gods and Christianity (790 AD, Britain) , Jack calls upon his ash wood staff to subdue a passel of unruly monks, and, for his daring, ends up in a knucker hole. It is unforgettable -- for the boy and for readers -- as are the magical reappearance of the berserker Thorgil from a burial by moss; new characters Pega, a slave girl from Jack's village, and the eager-to-marry-her Bugaboo (a hobgoblin king) ; kelpies; yarthkins; and elves (not the enchanted sprites one would expect but the fallen angels of legend) . Rarely does a sequel enlarge so brilliantly the world of the first story. Look for the conclusion in <i>The Islands of the Blessed</i> in 2009.