For the more fantasy-inclined but less Lord of the Rings inclined, I have a series that is both engaging and complicated.  Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series consists of five books: Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree. 

While the books deal with the rather trite metaphysical battle between Light and Dark, Cooper’s look at it varies somewhat from the likes of Harry Potter vs Voldemort, Good vs Evil.  For Cooper, the Light is as hard a master as the Dark, and there is no imminent reward for joining the Light.  The two sides can never ultimately triumph over each other, and the war between them costs lives, property, and time.

Cooper’s novels focus on four characters: three siblings, Barney, Jane, and Simon, and Will Stanton, the last of the Old Ones, an ageless branch of people destined to battle the dark.  Barney, Jane, and Simon are mortals drawn into the battle by their own curiosity and a family friend, Merriman Lyon, who is of the same kind as Will.  (They call him “Merry” for short, so say “Merry Lyon” five times fast and see what you come up with.)

The Dark has…well…dark characters on its side, from the sinister Rider to the ancient power of the Brenin Llywd.  However, these characters never inspire the utter hatred of their readers, for their humanness reacts with their agelessness to inspire a confusing sort of feeling, both of disgust and pity.  Doomed to be creatures of the Dark, yet full of a passion for their destiny, both the enemy and the protagonists are caught in the swirling winds of fate.

Cooper’s writing style can drag on a bit.  The books are older, written in the 1970’s, and take place in England.  Cooper enjoys description, especially of battles and such, which can be tiresome when all the reader wants is a swift battle, not a three page description of the lightning and the flood.  She does tend to drag some points across the page, but the real beauty of her words comes in the fleeting expressions of her characters: a look of longing on Merriman’s face, the confusion between being a normal boy and an Old One for Will, the innocence of the children.  Through this, Cooper makes her characters alive and living, even those who have no age.

If you couldn’t guess the wordplay behind Merriman’s name, “Merry Lyon” sounds like “Merlin” if you say it right.