The Land of the Silver Apples

Jack, the Bard’s apprentice, sets off on a rescue quest when his sister Lucy is kidnapped by Elves. His companions are an unreliable slave/rightful-heir-to-the-throne and a recently freed girl-slave who worships the ground Jack walks on. They meet many magical creatures, re-discover some old friends, and have lots of exciting adventures along the way. I thought this was an excellent sequel to Sea of Trolls. It expanded the mythology of the land while developing the characters already introduced in the first book. I really appreciated the way Farmer handled the three religions that were represented by her characters in this 790AD Britain-based world. She showed the power and beauty of the Pagans as well as the Christians and subtly show more made the point that they all got their believers where they needed to go—but she did this without forcing the point or lecturing, which is the sign of excellent story-telling! My only quibble about this book is that most of the major plot threads were completed by page 400, leaving 100 pages for the final (and least pressing) plot thread. This is why the book got 4 instead of 5 stars. show less

After his adventures in The Sea of Trolls, Jack has been settling in to his considerably more boring life back at home. But this lack of adventure won't last for long. When the need-fire ceremony goes terribly wrong, and Lucy is once again in danger, Jack and young slave girl Pega set off through the Hollowlands to Elfland in order to save her. On the way, Jack must survive encounters with knuckers, Picts, heartless elves, yarthkins, hobgoblins and kelpies.

Like in the first novel, The Land of the Silver Apples contains a whole bestiary of mythology, and it is introduced in the best way possible with adventures and memorable encounters. I loved the introduction of Arthurian themes with Nimue and the story of Lancelot (I'm a sucker for show more anything Arthurian). And Jack's struggle with conflicting ideologies (the Bard's pagan wisdom, the Northmen's bloody fatalism, and Father Aiden's gentle Christianity) proves truly interesting without ever turning preachy one way or another.

It was good to meet Thorgil again, and even better to have Lucy off the reader's hands for most of the novel. Hang in there through the beginning where she is (I hadn't thought it possible, but there it is) even more nasty and self-centered than she was before. There is, however, an explanation for her behavior lurking in this book that certainly made me feel better. In addition to old favorites (Thorgil, Dragontongue) there is a host of new characters to enjoy (Pega, the Nemesis) and some to be both amused and annoyed by (Brutus, Ethne).

The high points are many: the adventure, Pega's practicality, not everything can be solved by magic, and Jack is NOT the best at everything he sets out to be. And although there isn't quite as much adventure as I remember in the first book, there is still plenty to go around. I just wish the final storm of Din Guardi had been a little more climactic.

Also posted at my blog show less

An adventure story set somewhere in Great Britain during the "Dark Ages", after the Romans had left but the monasteries and government had not yet centralized their power. Hobgoblins, elves, and scary beings to appease, along with the Old Gods of power. Wise women and bards are the knowledge carriers, along with a few good monks.
Although I hadn't read the previous book, there were enough unobtrusive references to past adventure to let me know I could find more story if I wanted.
Some pagan traditions are included, and Saxon chants, to counterbalance the christianity. The adventure begins when Jack's sister, Lucy, insists on wearing a metal necklace during the New fire ceremony. This causes a shift in the earth's balance, a bad humor show more takes hold of the family, until the bard learns that Lucy is really a changeling. Jack, Lucy, and their father set off to restore balance & find the exchanged child while the mother stays home to tend bees, garden, & sheep. show less

Summary: After Jack returned from his adventures with the Northmen in The Sea of Trolls, life seemed to go back to normal... for a while. But ordinary village life isn't particularly satisfying for a young apprentice bard who has faced down trolls and dragons. Jack's little sister Lucy is behaving even worse than usual, but when she is kidnapped, Jack - along with a freed slave named Pega - must journey to Elfland and face creatures and dangers he's never dreamed of if he wants to restore his family.

Review: While I really enjoy the world that Nancy Farmer has created in these books, I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did The Sea of Trolls. It was still a fun adventure and historical fantasy, still well-written, still uses mythology in show more interesting ways, and still doesn't talk down to its intended audience or oversimplify complex issues. I particularly like how willing Farmer is to even-handedly deal with religious pluralism - pagan, Norse, Christian - without getting preachy. However, I felt like there was just *too much* going on in this book to make it a winner - it started to sprawl, and it got a little hard to track all of the pieces at the same time, and remember why I was supposed to care about each. Maybe with one fewer magical creature, one fewer adventure, one fewer plot thread, one fewer pairing with hints of romance, one fewer goal to the quest, and about five or ten fewer tertiary characters, it would have been much tighter and flowed much better. It was still a fun and enjoyable listen, and kids in the target demographic (maybe 10-14?) may have less of a problem with all of the disparate pieces than I did, but I feel like it needed some trimming to pare it down to just the really great parts. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Worth reading if you want to spend more time with Farmer's characters and in her world, but it's more scattered and thus not quite as good as the first book. show less

Something goes dreadfully wrong at the ceremony to kindle the need-fire. And that leads to a pilgrimage to St. Filian's Well by the Bard, Jack, the newly emancipated slave Pegga, and Jack’s father and sister Lucy. But at St. Filian's Jack unwittingly sets off an earthquake and Lucy runs off with an elf, so what started as a pilgrimage turns into an underground rescue mission to Elfland.

As she did with Norse mythology in The Sea of Trolls, Farmer now mines Celtic and Germanic mythology and folklore in its sequel. Her mixture of characters, Pagan and Christian, Saxon and Viking, human and non-human, provide humorous counterpoint to each other on the way to and from Elfland as they battle monsters and spells with the aid of (mostly) show more friendly hobgoblins and in spite of the beautiful but callous elves. show less

The Land of Silver Apples by Nancy Farmer is the second volume in her Sea of Trolls Trilogy. I was totally enchanted by the first book, but this one didn’t quite cast the same spell upon me. I found it overly long and it wasn’t able to hold my interest. I also missed those rough and tumble Viking characters. I also found the Nordic mythology much more interesting than the Celtic myths that were explored in this book.

In this outing Jack’s spoiled and unlikeable younger sister is spirited away by elves and Jack, after his magic goes astray and he accidently causes an earthquake, is sent to both recover his sister and find the water that drained away during the quake. His companions are a slave called Brutus, a disfigured girl called show more Pega, and Thorgil, the shield maiden. Along the way they fall in with hobgoblins, whose king decides he has fallen in love with Pega, and meet both a priest and a half-elven princess that play an important role in the story.

The story of Jack’s sister has been resolved and I am glad to see the end of the unlikeable Lucy as a main character. The last book will probably deal with both Torgil and Pega, and hopefully see Jack become the bard that he is training to be. show less

Young bard Jack is back, with Thorgil the shield-maiden, and new companions including Pega, a freed slave. This time there's elves, hobgoblins, scary monks and okay monks, Picts, and kelpies. For reals, people! If you like your YA fantasy full of earth-loving anti-slavery young people who eshew traditional gender roles and are critical of Christian religion without being dismissive of actual Christian thought, maybe you'll like this as much as I did.