"The Magician's Nephew" by C. S. Lewis

Behold, it's the Creation story of the world of Narnia.

I was always oddly fascinated by Charn and the Deplorable Word. Jadis herself is just okay as a character (I'm kind of used to her existence thanks to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), but I always get the sense that there's so much more going on with Charn that we just don't see.

The big bad of The Silver Chair is described by some owls as being "some of the same crew" as the White Witch. It's never really elaborated as to what that means, but with the reveal of the White Witch as former Deplorable-Word-using empress of Charn with no living relatives, that doesn't make much sense; the Deplorable Word killed everyone except Jadis in her entire universe, so how could the Lady of the Green Kirtle be the same kind of thing?

One theory is that she's just Jadis reincarnated, but I don't hold to that theory, because I don't think Lewis would trivialize the White Witch's defeat in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by bringing her back, only for her to be defeated again without Aslan's direct help. My theory is that she's either A) a former apprentice of the White Witch, explaining the "crew" remark because they would have worked together for a time, or B) the same sort of thing as Jadis (i.e. a powerful evil sorceress from another dimension), just not from Charn.

This book is the best argument against reading Narnia in the chronological order, because it's not a very start-of-series kind of book. Honestly, until you've read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe through at least The Horse and His Boy, it doesn't make much sense. I didn't, and it actually put me off the rest of Narnia for a while when I first tried the series years ago.

[EDIT: I forgot to mention that I really liked how this explains why there's a random lamppost in the middle of a forest in Narnia for Lucy to encounter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.]

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy violence. It would be pretty hard to make this into a videogame that holds onto your attention for any length of time; the main characters are there as observers for much of the story.

4 stars.

(Endnote: I missed another day in my posting schedule. Oh, the horror.)