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    The Grey King: The Dark is Rising Sequence #4
    Unavailable
    The Grey King: The Dark is Rising Sequence #4
    Unavailable
    The Grey King: The Dark is Rising Sequence #4
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Grey King: The Dark is Rising Sequence #4

    Written by Susan Cooper

    Narrated by Richard Mitchley

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Will is the last-born of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to saving the world from the forces of evil. And now it is Will's task to wake--with the golden harp--the six who must be roused from their long slumber in the Welsh hills to prepare for the last battle between the Dark and the Light.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 8, 2007
    ISBN9780739359778
    Unavailable
    The Grey King: The Dark is Rising Sequence #4
    Author

    Susan Cooper

    Susan Cooper is one of our foremost fantasy authors; her classic five-book fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising has sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books’ accolades include the Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honor, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and five shortlists for the Carnegie Medal. She combines fantasy with history in Victory (a Washington Post Top Ten Books for Children pick), King of Shadows, Ghost Hawk, and her magical The Boggart and the Monster, second in a trilogy, which won the Scottish Arts Council’s Children’s Book Award. Susan Cooper lives on a saltmarsh island in Massachusetts, and you can visit her online at TheLostLand.com.

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    Reviews for The Grey King

    4/5

    1,168 ratings53 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Knowing they need a sixth person to complete the Circle, Will Stanton finds himself in Wales in furtherance of the quest.
    • 4/5
      Knowing they need a sixth person to complete the Circle, Will Stanton finds himself in Wales in furtherance of the quest.
    • 4/5
      This narrator did a wonderful job!
    • 4/5
      I've enjoyed this one the most of the Dark is Rising Series so far.
    • 4/5
      A continuation of the Welsh fantasy adventure with the 6 young people associated with the saga. A darker vibe in this book. The characters associated with the dark seemed a bit contrived.
    • 4/5
      Overall, I have mixed feelings about The Dark Is Rising sequence and this novel in particular, but it has one moment that for me is perfect, when the heroes have to win a magical harp by answering riddles based on the old Welsh Triads, and for one of them part of the answer is Arthur, who is in fact asking the question.
    • 3/5
      Hmm. I didn't like this one as much as the previous ones. The big bad villain just gave up at the end. The big bad is obsessed with hurting dogs. I hope the last book will be as good as the earlier ones were.
    • 3/5
      I have to admit, I zoned out a few times while the kids and I were listening to this. Some of it was just a little too...funny for me. Not ha-ha funny, either. Sorry to be vague, but I can't be more specific without giving away the ending. I really liked listening to the narrator's Welsh (and imagining that my parents had named me "Angharad" like they'd considered doing), but I'm going to try reading it myself rather than listening to the audiobook and see if I like it any better.
    • 2/5
      The only good thing about this book was Bran’s Heritage. Finished on Dec 21 2019
    • 5/5
      The Grey King is the fourth book in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. It is also my favorite book of the series. Perhaps this is because the book features welsh and Arthurian myth so heavily, or perhaps it is just because I read this book for the first time when I was the target age for the book, or, as I believe, just because the book is simply that good. The book focuses once again on Will Stanton, but this time he is ill and sent to stay with his uncle in Wales to recuperate. Once there, he meets up with an albino loner named Bran who he befriends.The book is essentially a second coming of age story for Will Stanton, and he is aided by bran along the way. They must unravel a series of mysteries, mostly by figuring out what some cryptic poetry means, and prepare for a coming confrontation between the Light and the Dark. Many of the disparate threads started in the first three books begin to be tied together in this book, and the true nature of many of the things the characters have done (and the true nature of some characters) is made clear. The novel is more grown up in tone than the earlier books in the series – Stanton is older, there is more danger, and the villains are creepier. Still, it is a young adult book, albeit a very well-written young adult book.The book won the Newbery award in 1975, and the reasons for that seem abundantly clear when one reads it. I loved this book when I read it when I was eleven (even though I had not read any of the others in the series), and I loved it again when I reread it as an adult (as part of the series).
    • 5/5
      The book that made me fall in love with Wales.
    • 3/5
      Not sure why this one took the Newbery when [book:The Dark Is Rising] didn't.
    • 4/5
      Will is sent to Wales to recuperate after an illness, but he may actually be there to befriend Bran, who will turn out the be the Pendragon son of King Arthur and together they must awaken the Sleepers. Another great installment in a very exciting series. I especially liked how much Welsh mythology is used to form the plot and how well Bran is described so that the reader is kept guessing at who he really is. The audiobook reader is great as well and keeps the tension of the story alive.
    • 5/5
      Having Finished this book makes up a part of the fabric of my very being. It is strange since today I barely remember even what this book is about, but when I was a lonely eleven-year-old who had two friends in the world and a couple of hundred who were made of paper this book is part of what made me want to stay alive.

      It also made me fall in love with Arthurian myths and legends, taught me how To read carefully, and made me fall in love with Wales. Years later, when I took my first literature courses at university I still remembered how excited I'd been about taking out a stack of different versions of the Arthurian legends from the library, Finisheding them and comparing hem to the one I'd Finished in this book. I was trying to determine which one Susan Cooper had used. It was part of the what drove me and keeps driving me to return to Wales.
    • 5/5
      After "The Dark is Rising", "The Grey King" is my next favorite...
    • 4/5
      There's a part of each of these books that stays with me, and in The Grey King, it's Bran and Cafall that I've never forgotten through the years. A boy and his dog.... What greater combination could there be? Some rival it, but only because they too have the same feeling of "Alone in this world, I have you by my side."

      Ah, but this was a turn for things, this book! There was not as much magic, and more relationships, more lore, more learning, I feel. The story was set in Wales, which is unusual for one, but wonderful for another. The culture came through as it did in all the books, gently and with renown, pushing the story forward, rather than distracting us with potential denseness like in some tales. And in this book, we take a turn for the different. We only have Will here, and it starts off on a slightly startling end, and leaves a lot of loose ends at its closing--much more than the other three books previously.

      But Will isn't alone for very long as we run into the strangest and most immediately intimate character yet--in my opinion. His name is Bran, and he's unlike anyone you've met so far. There's a lot to him, and he has the seeds for great potential, and a lot of character development. You can't help but want to see how he'll grow, based on everything you can see he's grown up around, his origins, and then what happens throughout the course of the book. He's a character made to stir the waters, and to me... he's got a place very close to my heart. Him, and Cafall... his wonderful dog.

      Maybe I'm sentimental, and maybe this strangely swift story seems a little haphazard, like it always does when Will's on his own without the Drew kids there to balance out his abruptness and goal-oriented mindset. But nonetheless, this book calls to me, because for all that Bran is not normal, he's the humanizing part of this book, very much.

      Overall, it's a normal continuation. The next, and last book in the series, is Silver on the Tree. For those of you reading along, I'll see you there.
    • 5/5
      This might be the best book of the series so far. It's at least equally well written but I think the prose seemed even better with this one. Perhaps I'm just getting much more into the style but I don't think that's it. The story has definitely become more intense and suspenseful in this book and I can feel it building and building toward the main conflict of the series.
    • 2/5
      This might be the first Newbery winner that I felt was just 'ok'. Newbery winners go beyond plot. They feature heroes that make difficult choices and have complex lives. This story is part of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising and I have to admit that I have only read one or two of the earlier books. So maybe I missed something in the earlier parts of this series. But in this story, the good characters do good deeds and make good choices and fight evil. But I didn't think they suffered huge angst over what they should do, or had incredibly deep characters. And, the plot was a bit predictable. Maybe I'm missing something, but when a book's cover has that medal on it, I expect a story that will stay with me for a long time. This one, didn't do it for me.
    • 4/5
      After an illness, Will is sent to his mother's good friend in Wales to recuperate. Will is the last of the Old Ones, those who stand for the Light in the fight against the Dark, which is rising in the world. He has a quest, but he's forgotten what he needed to remember and is in the realm of the Grey King who is seeking to destroy him.This is the fourth in "The Dark is Rising Sequence," but it can be read as a standalone. I'm sure these books were groundbreaking for children's/teen fantasy in their time, and I daresay I would like them better had I first encountered them as a child. As it is, I am bothered when Will conveniently knows something by virtue of who he is. The good characters are multifaceted and believable, but in this one in particular I just couldn't believe in Caradog Prichard. He was always prone to malice in a way that struck me as over-the-top and not exactly unbelievable, but definitely having little cause. The audio production was well done, overall; Richard Mitchley did a good job interpreting various characters and put a lot of feeling behind their words. A small quibble (that may have been my car stereo and not the production itself) was that the narration was much quieter than the people talking, so I had to have the volume up loud enough to hear him talking most of the time, but when characters were yelling, it was really loud. I liked The Dark is Rising and Greenwitch better.
    • 3/5
      Faked death after killing wife's lover
    • 4/5
      I'll give this one 4**** – better than the first three books of the series, which so far I think tends to be a bit overrated. This is the first book in which I see any real conflict within a character (Bran) or any real difficulty in coming to terms within a relationship (Bran and Owen, Bran and Will).
    • 4/5
      Will and Bran meeting on the hillside has never stopped being magical.

      And yet, I can see that if I read this book the first time at the same age I read The Queen's Thief stories, I would have tossed it aside with as much disappointment.
    • 5/5
      So much that's merely hinted at earlier in the series becomes goose-bump inducingly explicit here. The prose is meticulous, flawless, breathtaking. The characters have so many layers that I suspect I'll never read the same book twice. I can't imagine anyone with a childhood steeped in Arthurian legend not being enthralled with this book. I certainly was.
    • 5/5
      Normally, The Grey King would be my favourite of the five books that make up this sequence. Something about the setting in Wales, and Bran's loneliness and arrogance, and of course the tie-in with Arthuriana, and the way that it begins to bring in some more moral ambiguity when John Rowlands questions the coldness at the heart of the Light. Somehow, I didn't love it as much as usual this time -- possibly because I'd just spent a lot of time debating the merits of Greenwitch with various people, and thus missed some of the stellar things about that book (more involvement of female characters, more mysteries like the various hauntings of Cornwall, contact with the Wild Magic) when reading this one, which is more straightforward in some ways. If you've read the series before, then there's little mystery about who Bran is and what role he has to play.Still, it's a lovely book, with Susan Cooper's usual understanding of people and lyrical way of describing things so that the sound of the words is an important part of the experience for me. The relationship between Owen and Bran, with that lovely section so near the end; the levels you can see, particularly depicting Owen and in the character of John; the touches of mystery there are like the issue of the Grey King himself -- all of it is as wonderful as ever on what must be at least my tenth reread, and probably more than that.And, of course, there's Cafall -- the courage and loyalty, and the heartbreak. That whole section brings a horrid lump to my throat every single time.
    • 5/5
      Will Stanton is sent to convalesce in Wales, where he meets a strange boy, Bran, and together they discover the reality of the Grey King; an exciting narrative, a mixture of tragedy, doom and hope.
    • 4/5
      If I wasn't bored to Dearborn oft authorial legend already this would have gotten a 5
    • 5/5
      I completely adore this series and, just as with the previous three books, listening to them is like I've never read them before. I was especially excited for this book because I'd been waiting for Bran to show up. While I remember bits and pieces of the previous books, it is Bran who remained the strongest in my memory (Will a close second) and I didn't know why. But I do now. It's the way Cooper introduces us to his character, it's his back story, it's all secrets he has and doesn't have. But it's also his relationship with Will (one that I adore, because up until now, Will has had friends we've never met, he's had siblings and he's had the Drews, but they never knew his secrets). Bran and Will are around the same age, but what makes Bran special is that he and will can talk. Will doesn't have to pretend to be a kid or an old one, he can just be himself and that is one of the things I love best about Bran. I also love the way we (and Bran) discover who Bran really is -- I love Will's realization but I especially love the way Bran owns it. I've always loved these books (along with a few others of Cooper's) and while I'm so excited to read the final book, I'm already sad that the series has to come to an end. It's truly been a pleasure to listen to these books.
    • 4/5
      One of the things that stood out for me was the dramatic ending to this installment in the series. Unlike some of the other novels of "The Dark is Rising" this one feels more grown-up and less about children having an adventure. Part of this is the more mature themes - death, serious illness, love and loss. I think this is the more interesting part of this series. The actual magical adventures seem almost predestined to be successful. The part in question is the character of the people involved.
    • 5/5
      This is the fourth book (out of five) in The Dark is Rising series and so far, one of my favorites. Will Stanton is young boy on the outside, but he’s also one of the “Old Ones,” who are in the midst of fighting a continuous battle against the dark forces that try to corrupt the world. In my opinion, the later books do not work well as stand alones. You really need to read the earlier ones to understand who the Old Ones are and grasped the overall story, so start at the beginning. In this book Will gets sick and his family sends him off to Wales for a little R&R with some extended family. Once there he makes friends with Bran, a kind albino boy, and his faithful dog Cafall. Bran is a wonderful addition to the stories mythology and I love watching his story unfold. I was also glad to see Merriman make an appearance as well. I will admit that I’m sure I would have loved this series even more if I’d read it when I was younger. A mystery, good vs. evil, a bit of fantasy, it would have been right up my alley. That’s not to say I still don’t love it, it’s just different when you can read a series with a certain innocence. Your mind isn’t already saturated with hundreds of books and each new addition is startlingly new and wonderful. As it has been with the other books in this series, the best part of the plot comes as things are wrapped up in the end. There’s always a little twist or new bit of the story revealed and I particularly loved this one. I won’t give anything away, but I am really looking forward to reading the final book in the series.  
    • 4/5
      My favorite book in the Dark is Rising series and the first one I read before I knew it was apart of a series. Love the description of Bran's eyes. I almost named my son Bran, but didn't want people to get confused with the cereal!