Title The Secret Country Author Pamela Dean Cover Art --- Publisher Firebird - 2003 First Printing Ace - 1985
	Title The Hidden Land Author Pamela Dean Cover Art --- Publisher Firebird - 2003 First Printing Ace - 1986
	Title The Whim of the Dragon Author Pamela Dean Cover Art --- Publisher Firebird - 2003 First Printing Ace - 1989
	Category Alternate world fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Ted, Ruth, Laura, Ellen, Patrick, Fence, Randolph, Claudia, Andrew Main Elements Wizards, unicorns, dragons Website ---

The Secret Country

The Hidden Land

The Whim of the Dragon

Dean wrote that she wanted to write something similar to Narnia, but have it be something that she would enjoy as much re-reading as an adult as when she first read it as a child. To avoid that feeling where as a kid you thought something was amazing but as an adult you find it kind of underwhelming.

One of the first things she did was make it complicated. A group of kids in our world, whenever they get together, play act scenes from their "Secret Country", acting out different roles and building an entire universe with its magical rules, its creatures and characters. But one day, Ted and Laura find a sword under a hedge which brings them to their world. They find that their cousins have also discovered a means of reaching this land as well. Some think it's wonderful that their world is real, Patrick thinks it's a mass hallucination or dream. Either way, they are found by Benjamin, one of the High Castle's caretakers and are taken to back to the castle in time for a feast. As the kids meet the various characters and see the various sights, they realize it's the same as their play...and yet not. That's where it gets complicated. The kids don't understand what is going on, nor can they explain the wrongness of things when they don't match up to their expectations, but it is worse for the readers who don't know what the kids know so we are doubly confused as to what is going on. I found at times it perhaps got too complicated, I mean I'm an adult, a young adult could read this book, but certainly not someone for whom Narnia is targetted to. It was a challenging read, and while I didn't mind the challenge, I found in the end, I was still mostly confused about what was going on (apparently the author was told to reduce the length of the third book, maybe some explanations of things ended up on the chopping block, also explained the overly easy wrap up of the plot).

The other thing that made it complicated is that the characters in the Secret Country spout Shakespeare and other familiar poets and writers...however I'm not so familiar with those quotes to (1) figure out what was said was actually a quote or (2) understand the implication of the words. Like if you said one of a two-lined quote, there is a ominous pause since you were expected to know the second line that explained everything, but I didn't so I just scratched my head trying to get some meaning out of the words. As an adult, I'm accepting that's a failing in my literary background. But I'm pretty sure that young adults don't have that huge a difference in their upbringing than I did, and I read a Shakespeare play or two every year in high school, so it wasn't as if I was completely lacking!! But I was in high school over 20 years ago so wasn't like I remember every word the characters spouted. The songs were even worse, the only one I had even heard of was Good King Wenceslas. But the worst part of all this? The kids that range from about 16 to about 8 or so, were all well versed in such things, which I felt even in the 1980's was far from realistic. I mean what 8 year old can quote Shakespeare? Let alone any of the rest of the writers? This frustated me, since I felt I was missing out on half the dialog, and annoyed me since the kids shouldn't be so well versed in it.

There were other weird quirks, but those made sense, given the rules of the world were made up by a bunch of kids. Like whenever someone in the castle needed clothing you'd go up to this one tower and it would have a room full of clothes. You'd just dig through it and pick out something appropriate. I mean nobody has a closet or their own stuff? It was amusing though as the kids, while actually living the world and not just imagining it, would complain about certain aspects like "who decided that Fence's tower would have 281 steps to it?" as they trudged up the stairs.

Dean also had a unique take on the unicorn. Instead of the gentle pure creatures most people imagine, the kids invented unicorns that were riddlers and liked to trick humans and all their gifts had strings attached. In fact they were more like Celtic fairies than unicorns. There was even a "unicorn hunt" every year which involved catching the unicorn, but fortunately not killing it. The unicorns enjoy that event as much as the humans do. The magic system was a bit confusing, but then that seemed to be part of the point and added to the muddle of the plot. Even the wizards of the novel didn't seem quite certain exactly how everything worked.

And things got even more confusing as it went along as people turned out not to be who they seemed (I did figure out who Claudia was abut Apsinthion was more than I was able to guess at). And there was a lot of history of the world that had to be dug through, and a lot of symbolism scattered about. And of course, while the kids were in this world, what happened to the characters that they represented? Were they back in their world? Did they even exist? What would happen if people figured out they were imposters?

In the end I appreciated the attempt at making a much richer and complex tale than say Narnia, but I think it went too far. Especially the third book with the annoying "voices" in people's heads that kept quoting writers for apparently no good reason and left me even more confused, half the time I couldn't figure out if it was a thought of the actual characters of one of their voices.

While this trilogy has a lot of good points, it was too muddled, to neatly (and unclearly) wrapped up, and too much reliance on needing a doctorate in English literature and folksongs to understand what is going on. On the other hand the author did achieve something, if I were to read this trilogy again, I would find new things I missed the first time and maybe by taking a crash course in English lit I might actually understand half of what people were saying.