Raven

Jeremy Burnham & Trevor Ray
Corgi Carousel

A young tearaway on probation from a young offenders' institution, is sent to stay with a wheelchair-bound archaeologist who is trying to save some ancient underground caves from being used as a nuclear waste dumping ground.. Legend has it that the caves were once occupied by King Arthur, and when Raven joins the archaeologist's campaign, he begins to believe he is the reincarnation of Arthur, and the future of the caves depends on him.

From the guys behind the 'Children of the Stones' TV series and book, 'Raven' was another slice of rural horror drenched in megalithic lore and, in this case, Arthurian legend.

Raven is a young man with a chequered past on release from Borstal and roped into helping the crotchety old Professor Young protect an archaeologically significant cave system from becoming a dumping ground for nuclear waste.

The story is kind of a muddle with the Arthurian elements being particularly underdeveloped and feeling at best a little tacked on in order to make the whole protection of the land angle work. And work it does but it needed more room to introduce and develop the various aspects such as just who the other members of the round table (or in this case stone circle) are and what exactly did happen with the professor and the bird.

As this is the accompanying novel to the TV series (which I've not seen) I'm going to assume many of these issues were carried over from budgetary constraints relating to the filmed version but then surely the novelisation would have provided an opportunity to address and repair but evidently not.

If it sounds like I'm giving this a bit of a pasting then please know that I did enjoy it.  It's an entertaining little thing but a flawed one that has left me quite keen to track down the series so I can compare the two.

Buy it here - Raven

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Children of the Stones (novelisation)

Children of the Stones 1st edition

Jeremy Burnham & Trevor Ray
Carousel Books

Adam Brake, an astrophysicist, and his son Matthew try to unravel the mystery behind the peculiar behaviour of the inhabitants of the little English village of Milbury while investigating the ancient stone circle surrounding it.

A lot of the time I buy or read books based on the cover art.  I'll often hang back on a book I'm really interested in until I can find the specific edition with my preferred cover image and so it's taken me several years but I've finally hunted down a 1st edition copy of the novelisation of this classic 70s kids TV show.

Trevor Ray

Matthew Brake and his astrophysicist father Adam have arrived in the small village of Milbury in order to research the 53 standing stones that surround the village.  Once there they find themselves confronted by villagers who are friendly but creepy with their solicitous behaviour and their 'Happy day' salutations and overseeing them all, Rafael Hendrick, lord(ish) of the manor and all round shifty sort.

Jeremy Burnham

Father and son soon start to realise that it's not just the locals who are strange but also the stones themselves as psychic phenomena builds along with the tension before the book culminates with a finale as enigmatic in print as it is on film.

Obviously a novelisation is always going to retain a great deal of it's source material but this is a particularly slavish, though well written, one.  The small illustrations heading each chapter even retain the likenesses of the core cast.  This doesn't mean it isn't an enjoyable enough read though but it is one that is lacking in any sort of tension for anyone with a knowledge of the series.

Buy it here - Children of the Stones