Over Sea, Under Stone
- 252
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“Over Sea, Under Stone” is a young reader’s adventure built on Arthurian legend, and adults say they would have loved it as children. It is more mystery than fantasy, the magic only hinted at, which makes it a gentle way into the genre. Some grown-ups find the characters thin, the villains evil without explanation or the simple story stretched; others say it holds up on rereading. Four more books follow.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Over Sea, Under Stone is a contemporary fantasy novel written for children by the English author Susan Cooper, first published in London by Jonathan Cape in 1965. Cooper wrote four sequels about ten years later, making it the first volume in a series usually called The Dark Is Rising Sequence. In contrast to the rest of the series, it is more a mystery, with traditional fantasy elements mainly the subject of hints later in the narrative. Thus it may ease readers into the fantasy genre.
Reading order · The Dark Is Rising Sequence
Full order & progress →- Over Sea, Under StoneThis book
7.57.5 / 10 - The Dark Is Rising
7.97.9 / 10 - Greenwitch
7.87.8 / 10 - The Grey King
–Not ranked yet - Silver on the Tree
8.08.0 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.2 across 187 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 56% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.5 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 6.7 | 21 | 11% |
| Hardcover | 7.3 | 166 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is Over Sea, Under Stone?
It has 252 pages — shorter than 97% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Fantasy — with scores between 7.5 and 7.6, closest to this book.
