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[schmerica]

"As the Border Magic protects the Secret Country against invasion from without," said Ruth, "so the Nightmare Grass protects High Castle from treachery within the Secret Country. It's planted in all the possible sneaking-up places--"

"Why wasn't there any outside the postern, then?" said Ted.

"There probably was," said Patrick. "You could hardly expect it to work on horses."

"--and it makes you see whatever you're most afraid of."

"I wasn't afraid of it until I did see," said Laura; "what I'm most afraid of is telephones." Perhaps she had seen what Princess Laura was most afraid of. Laura had been afraid of it herself, but she preferred that sort of fear, marrow-chilling though it had been, to the stomach-sinking dread of picking up the telephone and calling to find out when the library closed, or whether Roxanne though it was her mother's turn to take everybody to the Girl Scout meeting.

--from The Secret Country by Pamela Dean

****

I finished The Secret Country on Wednesday. I did enjoy it, but I'm not sure exactly what I think about it yet -- I think it'll taking reading the two other books before I can figure that out, as it's definitely not a complete story. Anyway, I'm now currently about two-thirds of the way through Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters.

Hmm, I wonder how much reading I can get done this weekend (freedom! drifting away so quickly!).

People who are making the effort to battle lj long enough to try and leave comments on any of the ds_undercover stories make me feel all happy. Yay for you people.

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

I *loved* Crocodile on the Sandbank. Amelia Peabody is the best heroine ever.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think I'll have to read more of them, as soon as I manage to figure the order of the books, which is kind of confusing me.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

http://www.ameliapeabody.com/bookshelf.htm

They're in reverse order on that page, from most recently published to least, so you have to scroll down to get to the first one, and go from there.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks!

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

A word of warning. Though some may disagree with me, I think the books get somewhat weaker with time. The first five or six are terrific. With subsequent books, she's a little less reliable. They're still good reads, but in my opinion, not as consistently good.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

A word of warning. THough some people may disagree with me, I think the books get weaker over time. The first five or six in the series are consistently terrific. Subsequent books are still good reads, but less consistently good.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the Secret Country series. I've probably read it a dozen times. I went hunting all over ebay and the web to get copies of all three books because they were out of print, and then they went and got reissued. D'oh!

Did you know that pameladean is on LJ? :)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I had been meaning to read them for a while, since I got through Tam Lin, but then it was much easier now that they're reissued. And I think I did know that, actually, from some of melymbrosia's links, perhaps.