The Crystal Cave
- 480
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award
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Our view
“The Crystal Cave” tells the Arthurian legend as Merlin’s own coming of age, in prose some readers find beautiful. They single out its landscapes and its depiction of magic, and others like how the supernatural coexists with something close to history. There are also readers who find Merlin a passive hero to whom things simply happen, object to the way women are written, or had not expected so much early British warfare.
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
The Crystal Cave is a 1970 fantasy novel by Mary Stewart. The first in a quintet of novels covering the Arthurian legend, it is followed by The Hollow Hills.
Reading order · Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy
Full order & progress →- The Crystal CaveThis book
7.97.9 / 10 - The Hollow Hills
8.08.0 / 10 - The Last Enchantment
–Not ranked yet - The Wicked Day
–Not ranked yet - The Prince and the Pilgrim
–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 108 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 42% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.7 | 9 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 7.8 | 99 | 92% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Crystal Cave?
It has 480 pages — shorter than 61% 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 7.9 and 8.0, closest to this book.
