Stolen from my dad's bookshelf on impulse. It looks like the sort of thing he would have read to me, but I have no memory of it. I read The Weirdstone of Brisingamen last year. I found this one less appealing, though it captures some of the sinister atmosphere of chivalric romance (Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes etc.) pretty well, combining it with an equally sinister rendition of postwar Manchester's bombed-out zones. It is also a clear riposte to the prissiness of Narnia, which is always a welcome thing. It must lie behind Pratchett's Johnny and the Bomb, which however is light-hearted and kind, whereas this is grim and, in my opinion, moderately nasty in the punishment it inflicts on its protagonist and the sourness of its address to the reader.