<P> One reviewer for The Junior Bookshelf offered a mixed review: "One of the difficulties lies in accepting that apparently very ordinary children have a special destiny . This is the major obstacle to the acceptance of Narnia . Four at least of the Six who have the duty of holding back the Dark do not seem up to the task . Time switches too, although handled skilfully enough, are not always easy to swallow . Where Miss Cooper excels is in the management of setting...The writer captures the smell of the countryside...Miss Cooper shows how fine her observation is and her ability to convey its tingling reality . Perhaps, now that the Dark has been put finally to flight, she will pursue this aspect of her art ." </P> <P> Fantasy scholar Carole Scott remarks how, in one chapter of this novel, "the power of evil is presented in modern dress through a bigoted Englishman's outburst of racial prejudice directed against an immigrant of color ." </P> <P> Nearly all the locations mentioned in the books are based on real places . Over Sea, Under Stone and Greenwitch are set in Trewissick, which is based on a village in southern Cornwall called Mevagissey . Susan Cooper used to visit Mevagissey as a child . The Dark Is Rising is set in the part of Buckinghamshire where Cooper grew up: Huntercombe is based on the small village of Dorney, and the Great Hall is Dorney Court . The Welsh setting in The Grey King and Silver on the Tree is the area around Aberdyfi, the village where Cooper's grandmother was born and where her parents lived . </P> <P> John Clute wrote in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "The overall tale evolves--not without occasional narrative confusion when time paradoxes and puzzles must be confronted--towards a guardedly affirmative climax in which it seems that the various young protagonists plus Bran Davies (King Arthur's son) may succeed in staving off entropy and totalitarianism ." </P>

Where does the dark is rising take place