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Comment by djur | Hacker News Reader

I can't imagine how jarring the transition between _The Magician's Nephew_ and _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ must be if you read them in that order for the first time. They're tonally very different -- Nephew feels more like Lewis' earlier science fiction novels, while Wardrobe has a fairy-tale quality. Nephew feels more "adult" (not necessarily in a good way).

Similarly, the transition between _The Silver Chair_ (a great book) and _The Last Battle_ (an awful book) might seem shocking without the two intervening books (one which is both good and awful, and the other of which is decent but uneven).

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> I can't imagine how jarring the transition between _The Magician's Nephew_ and _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_

> Nephew feels more like Lewis' earlier science fiction novels, while Wardrobe has a fairy-tale quality

Will vouch for this. I started Narnia in my early teens. I knew Wardrobe to be a classic but the edition the bookstore carried had Nephew labeled as the first book. Honestly? I felt kinda short-changed at what I got. Nephew set-up this expectation of being a myth-heavy story, something in between Harry Potter and LOTR/Earthsea in terms of world-building. Jackson's LOTR was at peak popularity at the time too so I really lapped Nephew up.

Honestly though, I loved every book in the series. I can understand why people might have issues with Caspian---maybe the weakest book in the whole Chronicle IMO---and looking back now the Christian imagery might be heavy-handed at times. But as children's/early teens' fantasy series, the stories and the world are entertaining. Which, as a teenager, was all I really needed of the books. Maybe Lewis' only fault is that he peaked too early with Wardrobe, setting up expectations for the rest of the series.

I don't know why people dislike THE LAST BATTLE. Too Christian I guess.

Nah, Dawn Treader is extremely Christian and it's my second favorite. I just don't think it tells a very engaging story. It's a static narrative that spends most of its time in the same few places. A lot of the major events happen somewhere else and you learn about them secondhand. The Calormenes are just as embarrassing as they ever were. The main antagonist is an ape. It just doesn't hold a candle to the previous grand adventures. Frankly, if a lot more of the book was like the overtly Christian apocalyptic stuff near the end I'd prefer it.

I think Lewis was trying a little too hard in The Last Battle to produce the perfect allegory, and couldn't come up with a compelling story to wrap it with. He was working under much higher expectations than when he first started the series, and getting the "apocalyptic stuff" wrong would have been a surefire way to make a lot of Christians angry.

It certainly doesn't help that, by this point, the reader expects an epic battle of Tolkienesque proportions. Instead we are given a talk show adaptation of the Book of Revelations.

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