Tides of the Dark Crystal

This is the third book in this series. A group of Gelfling, including one in the body of a spider, are out to try to warn the other Gelfing about the true nature of the Skeksis and get some kind of resistance movement going. They meet other clans, talk to various leaders, try to survive a terrible storm, try to bring a tree back to life, fight a Skeksis and try to use their abilities to warn all Gelfling everywhere of just what is going on.

The story is done well and the scenes are interesting. This is well before the time of Jen and Kira and shows that the Gelfling had the ability to use boats to go to other places and that there is a large desert area on the planet, neither of which were hinted at in the movie.

The main problem I have with this series is that we already know how it turns out even from the first paragraph of the first book. These Gelfling lose. Jen and Kira are the only surviving Gelfling at the time of the movie and the Skeksis are still around. This means that, no matter how brave the Gelfling in this series of books were, their efforts failed.

There was also no mention of any attempt to develop any kinds of weapons that could be effective against the Skeksis enemy. The Gelfling seem to have a rather limited technology but surely such a threat as the one in the series should have spurred at least some of them to think along offensive lines.

Main index page

Dark Crystal main index page