Day 03 – Your favorite series
My favorite series is actually the Vesper Holly Adventures by Lloyd Alexander. There are six books:
The Illyrian Adventure
The El Dorado Adventure
The Drackenberg Adventure
The Jedera Adventure
The Philadelphia Adventure
The Xanadu Adventure
The books following the adventures of teenage scholar and adventurer Vesper Holly who is the rich orphan of a famous and wealthy archaeologist and is being raised by her guardian Professor Brinton and his wife whom Vesper calls Uncle Brinnie and Aunt Mary and lives in a mansion outside of Philadelphia. She's 16 when the series starts and 20 when it ends. Oh yeah and it all takes place in the 1880s.
The first book, the Illyrian Adventure, starts shortly after her father dies when she meets Brinnie and Mary for the first time and convinces Brinnie to take her to Illyria to find out what happened to her father who disappeared while on an excavation there.
Her adventures take her to many fictional lands (which is a brilliant way to avoid bein historically inaccurate) and a few ones that are real (only two - Philadelphia at the World's Fair of 1875 - and Greece in the Xanadu adventure.) It follows her from her father's death to her marriage to great guy and their first child.
She is described in the first book as having "the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear in all of them." She is a high spirited, unlady like, brilliant victorian woman and really far too good to be true, but I totally wanted to be her so I didn't mind.
The thing about the books that I really loved, more than the fun heroine and stuffy but fun Uncle Brinnie who is actually the narrator of the books and keeps making pointed jabs at the cutthroat world of academia, is the way Alexander misses legend, history, and mythology in all of the books and introduces the reader to real 19th century problems in fictional situations - like the native of El Dorado having to deal with losing their culture to the white men and slavery issues in the Sahara region of Jedera. THe Illyrian adventure has a fantastic sequence about a myth, a village ceremony, and a set of statues. So they appealed to me on many levels.
And of course there is the villain - Dr. Helvitius. He's totally awesome - her equal in every way although much older and wealthier and is totally what I like in my villains - ruthless, rich, sophisticated, brilliant, and has an interest in the heroine.
I first discovered the series when I was 11 or 12 and ended up at my Grandma's farm in the middle of a hot summer with no more books to read (I'd finished what I brought with me). So my mother took me and my sisters to a bookstore and told us we could get any two books we wanted. I picked out the Drackenburg Adventure and the Jedera Adventure. I read the Jedera one first, not realizing it came after the Drackenburg one and that they were #3 and #4 in a series. I fell in love with them and re-read them two or three times at week. When I got home I found and bought the first two. Three years later I found out he had released another book - The Philadelphia Adventure and immediately purchased it (within a day or two of finding out about it.). Years later in 2006 I found out that he had written and published the final book in the series, the Xanadu Adventure, and rushed to the store to purchase it. I re-read all the books (which were pretty worn out by now) before reading the final one twice.
It's fairly predictable as young adult books go but it full of great characters, great details, and is a fun romp through history, mythology, and fiction. I recommend it to all young adult readers and any adults who just want a fun and fast read.
