gek-opel said:
Its all about the grey King, and the earlier one with Will (is it?) and the evil thing from the dark with an owls face (again ? many years have passed). Hauntological children's books. The way they engage with British mythos and sense of place, home and unhome, chilling and brilliant. I have obviously erased the last one from my memory....
Actually, the thing with Owl's face isn't evil. Isn't it some carnival mask he gets sent as birthday/xmas present from his elder brother which has an owl's eyes (mabye face) and a set of antlers - and which, after it floats away from his house in a flood, is taken by Herne the Hunter (actually, it's the head of Herne the Hunter) who then routs the forces of the dark?
Christ, it does have real power that second book - I can still vividly remember reading it for the first time, just after Xmas, and it bringing me out in goosebumps because it was so chilling and magical. If anything, I thought the Arthurian elements kinda got in the way of the other, darker, profounder pre-Christian vestiges of ritual and legend that the books evoke.
Weirdly, discussing it now has made me want to read it again...