by C.S. Lewis (1956)
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Imagine the world you love crumbling under a lie. Tirian, the last king of Narnia, bound to a tree as the ape Shift parades a donkey named Puzzle draped in a lion’s skin, roaring lies as the voice of Aslan. The Calormenes invade with their cruel god Tash, and your heart sinks with the dread of betrayal—every beloved forest glade trampled, every talking beast deceived. That’s the gut-punch opening of The Last Battle, and it never lets up.
From there, Lewis drags you through the fray: Tirian’s desperate rally with Jewel the unicorn, the eerie stable door that swallows worlds, spitting out horrors or glories depending on your soul. You feel the rush of sword clashes in the dark, the wonder exploding when the true Narnia unfolds—mountains higher than Everest, colors brighter than dawn, friends like Peter and Lucy reuniting in a land that dwarfs the old one. It’s eschatology wrapped in adventure: the stars falling like rain, the great tree of Narnia crashing in flames, Aslan’s judgment not as fire and brimstone but a door to something vaster. Reading it feels like mourning a childhood home while glimpsing paradise beyond—tears for what’s lost, electric joy for what’s coming.
What sets this apart? No endless quests or dragon hoards here; it’s the end of the world, raw and unflinching, where faith is tested by apocalypse, not prophecy. Lewis doesn’t shy from the terror of deception or the ache of finality—Shift’s cunning, Rishda’s cynicism, the dwarves who choose mud over light. Yet it surges to hope, that “further up and further in” ecstasy where every story’s true shape reveals itself. Echoes ripple into Pullman or even Rowling’s veils between worlds, but this is the pure source, unfiltered.
If you loved the wardrobe’s magic in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but hunger for its cosmic crescendo, or if The Return of the King’s bittersweet farewell left you yearning for more eternal fire, this is your book.
Tonight, crack it open—the stable door awaits, and your real adventure begins on the other side.
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