Out of the four tales which make up the Time Quartet, my favorite was always A Swiftly Tilting Planet. The hero was my favorite character from the series, the introspective and brilliant Charles Wallace, and I was exhilerated to finally get to see the inner workings of his mind and dreaming.
All of the Time Quartet are classics in any child's library, though A Swiftly Titling Planet took a slightly darker turn as the Murray clan grew older and faced more problems. Madeleine L'Engle's not considered one of the great ladies of youth-oriented science fiction for nothing.
The image of Charles Wallace riding the unicorn again comes from the image of my own battered paperback copy of the novel, though I have but a vague memory of that specific cover now.
Peeking out of the right side is my own little version of Neil Gaiman's Dream, the snide and often melancholy title character of his breathtaking Sandman graphic novels. I felt a nod needed to be made toward that brilliant art form, both its writers and artists, and Dream so naturally fitted in with my cast of tellers of tales. |
