Well spank my ass and call me Charlie; I really enjoyed this Chronicle of Narnia. There was character variety, character development, and a wonderful absence of the black-and-white, wrong-and-right storytelling methods I've come to associate with C. S. Lewis. Set at sea and on several small islands, this book really felt like an adventure, which is what a fantasy book should feel like, in my humble opinion. I would dare to compare it to the Odyssey, as well as to both boat-themed Zelda games. Aslan, rather than serving his usual role as the in-your-face moral police, is much less of a presence this time around, despite appearing several times. Characters struggle with greed, vanity, and jealousy, and for the first time I can remember in a Narnia book, mature themes like self-sacrifice and civic duty are brought up. One character, a talking mouse, was probably my least favorite in Prince Caspian. Yet he fits perfectly into this high seas adventure tale, and his story concludes very appropriately. So does Prince Caspian's. In a way, you could call the tale a coming-of-age one for his character. Also, only two of the four Pevensie children return this time around, which really makes for addition by subtraction, as they were all essentially the same character. The addition of their cousin Eustace into the cast of characters was a solid one, as he provides a good amount of comic relief and also a decent little development arc of his own. This was my favorite Narnia book since the chronological first one, The Magician's Nephew, and I read that one almost a decade ago, so it's tough to say which one I actually liked more. Still, with just two Chronicles left, I think I'm finally starting to enjoy the series the way so many others do. Of course, the last two could be terrible. We'll see.
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