Hi again, and happy late Halloween! I went to a pretty cool party. We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, I love that movie. And I love the... dirty... costumes girls wear on Halloween even more.

I actually played a video game yesterday! :O Some more Metal Gear Solid 3. I love that game, I think it pwns the first two. Much improved controls. I MUST play 4...

By popular demand, people want me to review Narnia, so here ya go. If you check my last blog, you can still vote on book series for me to review outside of these, which I might review regardless (I'm really liking The Eye of the World already, and the Abhorsen Trilogy was fantastic). I'll also doDan Brown, more Stephen King, Pendragon (forgot to mention those in the last one), Shannara, Sword of Truth, or The Lost Years of Merlin, if anyone's interested. But anyway, here's a double review on the first two books in the series (chronologically), The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe! If people outside of Tolkien still read these. You rock dude.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: 10
Grand Theft Auto IV: 10
LittleBigPlanet: 9.5
BioShock: 9.5
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 9.5
inFamous: 9.0
Killzone 2: 9.0
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: 9.0
Dead Space: 9.0
Resident Evil 5: 8.5
Valkyria Chronicles: 8.5

Resistance: Fall of Man: 8.5
Resistance 2: 9.0
Batman: Arkham Asylum: 9.0

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling: 9.0
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling: 9.0
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling: 10
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling: 9.5
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: 8.5
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: 9.0
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien: 10
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien: 10
Eragon by Christopher Paolini: 8.5
Eldest by Christopher Paolini: 9.0
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini: 9.0
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King: 8.0
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King: 9.5
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands by Stephen King: 9.5
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman: 9.0
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman: 9.5
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman: 10
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: 8.5
Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer: 8.0
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer: 9.0
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket: 7.0
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket: 7.5
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket: 7.5
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket: 7.0
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket: 8.0
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket: 8.5
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud: 9.0
The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud: 8.5 (changed my mind )

This is a double review of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. That second one has quite the name, eh? To begin, I'll clear up the confusion about the order of these books.

Lewis originally started writing Narnia with a bunch of stories that all happen close together. Therefore, he started with Lion, Witch, Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair, all of which occur just a year or two apart per book (or even less). He then decided to write some other stories that weren't part of this nice, straight line, The Horse and His Boy and The Magician's Nephew. The seventh and last book he wrote though, The Last Battle, follows that original sequential order and occurs after The Silver Chair.

At first, the books were published by saying book one was Lion, Witch, Wardrobe, etc., meaning they were in publishing order. However, at the request of Lewis himself, the publishers then switched to saying book one was The Magician's Nephew,which meansthey started publishing them with the numbers in chronological order. This, Lewis thought, was the order the books should be read in. It now goes The Magician's Nephew (happens years and years before the others), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (the main character, who was a boy,from Magician's Nephew is now an old guy), The Horse and His Boy (occurs during Lion, Witch, Wardrobe), Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle. I'll be reviewing them in chronological order, so here are the first two.

The Magician's Nephew (book six publishing order, book one chronological order) is the story of a boy named Digory and a girl named Polly. These two are very curious children that happen upon Digory's uncle, Andrew,making magic rings. Uncle Andrew explains that he got a magic box from a woman on her death bed, which apparently came from the lost city of Atlantis. He turned these into the rings, which he wants to test the effects of on a human, so they can tell him if they work correctly. There are yellow rings he believes will take them out of this world, while green ones will take them back.

Digory and Polly are tricked into using these, and find a wood between all of the worlds in the universe. There are pools here which allow them to journey to any they like. They decide to explore, and thus, the adventure starts kicking into gear. It ends up showing a lot of connections between this one and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, with the creation of Narnia by the recurring character Aslan (a badass lion), and the evil character from Lion, Witch, Wardrobe showing up. As ever, I'll try not to ruin too much of the story for you, but suffice it to say that Lewis wanted this one to explain some of the mysteries that were never explained in Lion, Witch, Wardrobe.

If you've read (or plan on reading) Lion, Witch, Wardrobe, you'll find that he does a great job of this. Theoverallstory, after all, is excellent. He meshesthis one togetherwith all the others by essentially making it a prologue. It's impressive that he makes this one just forty, fifty years before the next book in Earth time, and yet Narnia time moves a lot faster, so it's thousands of years earlier there, and he manages to keep track of this without any plot holes.He does this throughout the series, too, not just here.In just seven short books (around 200 pages each) we see the entire history of Narnia unravel, even thoughthere are many recurring charactersbecausemost happen close together inEarth time.

Plot aside, Lewis's writing is... interesting. It's excellent, to be sure, but it's odd reading it today. He's writing a children's story directed at British children from the 1950's, so to me, it doesn't really fit an age group perfectly now. Many would tell me here that it's directed at all ages, and that's fine, but I feel like by the time I read these, I was too old for them.It feelslike ifI'd read them when I was younger though, I wouldn't have understood a lot of the British-isms without an adult figuring it out for me, so I think I have trouble fully appreciating them.

Anyway, back to the story. When I say Narnia's story is great, I mean as a whole. Magician's Nephew's story is very good, but not fantastic. Lewis was definitely a Catholic, so it's basically the book of Genesis, Narnia **** if you know your Bible. The book of Genesis is a pretty good book, so whywould I say this, you ask? Thebiggest problem is that it takes half the book before they actually get to Narnia and see its creation. Going to the land of Charn, the home of the evil Queen Jadis, is interesting, as is her attempt to take control of Earth (epic fail), but most of it is a bit dry up until Aslan pulls a God and makes Narnia (he portrays Jesus in other parts of the series). Perhaps my favorite part of the book, actually, was all of the connections to Lion, Witch, Wardrobe. There are some major things, like how Digory (later called the Professor) knows about Narnia, and there are little things, like how Jadis came to be known as the White Witch, but all are really interesting revelations.

I liked Magician's Nephew. It was very good, and it got me to keep reading the series, but I didn't quite get what all the fuss was about when I read it.

When I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe next, I understood why they made it the first movie. For one thing, as said, it happens right next to the other books in the series, so it would make more sense to moviegoers, who often pay less attention to story (let's be honest here). For another, it was the first story, and one of the most well-known because of that, so people would recognize it. Lastly, it has the biggest Biblical reference in the series, I think, or at least the most noticeable one. Oh yeah, and it's way, way better.

This book revolves around Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, the Pevensie children, who will later reappear in the next few books. They takea journey through a wardrobe, which leads them to discover what has happened to Narnia ever since Digory and Polly saw its creation. The White Witch has taken over everything and Aslan has mysteriously disappeared, so they are expected to fulfill a prophecy as soon as they get there that two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve (human boys and girls) will save the Narnians, who are all talking animals and mythical creatures. They go about a journey to save them all, although they definitely hope Aslan will show up, because they're in over their heads. It's only in fantasy stories that children can save the world, but Lewis is at least a little realistic.Edmund also betrays them to the White Witch, and despite this, they want to go save him. Therefore, we get scenes about redemption and family that are very powerful for a children's story. These drive along a much faster-paced, more fun story, although the first two trips to Narnia by Lucy and Edmund could probably have taken less time. Lewis seems to love talking about Lucy, who doesn't interest me as much as, say, Peter, since he's the most badass of the kids, but it's not that big a deal.

There's also the Biblical reference of Aslan sacrificing himself, Jesus ****to save someone who doesn't deserve it (Edmund in this case, all humanity in the Bible's case). Even if you're not Christian and/or haven't heard this story, this sequence will stick with you and resonates as one of the best scenes in the series. I was absolutely entranced at this point.

My biggest complaints are that the book is too short, and that Lewis focuses on the parts that aren't as interesting to me. I guess it's just me, but I prefer hearing about battles to Lucy getting tea and sardines from Tumnus the faun. The big battle from the movie is only a few pages, although Lewis doesn't dwell on the opening quite as much as the movie did. It really would've been great to see how the different races have unique fighting ****, as in the movie, but the plot is good enough that it's not too noticeable.

Overall, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a fantastic story, even if some of the less-interesting parts are focused on. This one is what really pushed me to keep reading the stories, and, even though I'm a bit old for Narnia, this one showed me why the books are celebrated so much.

The Magician's Nephew: 7.5 out of 10: Good

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: 9.0 out of 10: Superb