[In The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, Garner] made use of much of the material of earlier attempts at creating contemporary sagas and it seemed likely at first that he was planning a sustained series. These stories of the knights bound in sleep until they can be wakened to fight the forces of evil have moments of strength, but are marred by uncertainty in their organisation, roughness in the writing and a general sense of unsureness of touch…. [They] are clearly prentice work and the author abandoned this vein when he moved on to stronger work. He is at his best with the natural surroundings of the stories, which are set at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, and at his worst with the children, who are not fully realised and do not come alive.
The same defect is apparent in Elidor, an otherwise far better book. Four children in one of the poorer districts of Manchester explore a ruined church and suddenly find themselves not transported to, but living a parallel life in the terrifying land of Elidor. The two worlds overlap and the disturbing, at times frightening, fusion of this other world and the everyday world makes this a highly original book…. (pp. 143-44)
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