The Game of Sunken Places

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The Game Of Sunken Places is a children's book published in 2004 and written by M.T. Anderson.

[edit] Synopsis

The book follows the story of two 13-year old boys named Brian and Gregory when they visit a mansion in Vermont during fall break, owned by Gregory's Uncle Max. Uncle Max in himself is a strange character who uses complicated words from past such as effluents and insalubrities all the time and acts very much like a aristocrat from the 1700's. The two uncover the board of the Game of Sunken Places in the nursery and unintentionally set the game into motion. Once they go out into the woods and begin playing the game, they meet unlikely allies such as Kalgrash the troll and work together to accomplish all the challenges using the game board as a map. In the final challenge, Gregory is about to win and Brian is being strangled by Jack Stimple. By believing that Jack was their opponent, the two almost fell into his trap. Jack wasn't playing the game at all. Gregory was the player for the Thusser Hordes and was about to win when Brian stopped him. Jack Stimple was meanwhile being dragged away by monks for strangling Brian. Gregory trusts Brian, and lets him win the game and so another battle had been won in the name of the Norumbegans.

[edit] Characters

• Gregory: The more witty and wisecracking of the two protagonists, he provides comic relief throughout the story and is very athletic. He apparently wishes to be a shower curtain repairman when he grows up.
• Brian: The more pensive and more thoughtful of the two. He is unathletic though he is very smart but most people, like Uncle Max and Jack Stimple consider him weak and feeble. His quick thinking saved their cause in The Game of Sunken Places.
• Uncle Max: He is the owner of the surrounding forests where the battlefield of the game is. He is a very peculiar man and in the end, it is revealed he is a machine built by Wee Sniggleping.
• Prudence: She is Gregory's older cousin who lives with Uncle Max. In the beginning, she is described as nice but has the sense of humor of a brick. She was the one who planned out the entire game because she was the one who won the last game. In Crete, she won the Game that was held in a Labyrinth and won the honor of planning the next game.
• Jack Stimple: Also known as Balerond. He was at first believed the opponent of the two boys in the game. He is the human representative of the Thusser Hordes who once lived in the Vermont Mountains. He was evil towards Brian due to him being on the opposite side. He is skilled at using throwing disks as weapons and in the end poisons himself after Brian wins the Game.
• Wee Sniggleping: He is essentially an elf who builds mythical creatures like ogres and trolls and Uncle Max to be used as a sort of "special effect" in the game. When the boys visited him, he was a very short-tempered creature who made several mentions to the Keebler Elves and Town House Crackers in his outbursts.
• Kalgrash: He is a mechanical troll built by Sniggleping who was ordered to guard a bridge with a bloodstained axe in the woods and ask the riddle to those who tried to cross:

                            "Bird of the Air,
                            I answer the gust.
                            With a long sorrowed groan
                            I go where I must.
                            Give me."

The answer was a weather vane on top of the mansion which was rusted and shaped like a bird. After the riddle was answered, he turned out to be a caring machine who despite having maternal programmings was like a mother to the two.

• Speculant: He speaks in riddles and he is often as hard to understand as Uncle Max. He controls the Game and makes sure the rules and limits set down by Prudence are followed. He is very ugly, stands 8-feet tall, and has almost a beaked nose. At the end, he collects Jack Stimple's body after he poisons himself.
• Thusser: An ancient war was fought in Vermont before humans had ever arrived. The Thusser Hordes are one of the sides. To decide who would win the war, they made the results fall into the hands of the humans as they played the game in the current days.
• People of the Mound of Norumbega: The elfin people that fought the Thusser in the ancient wars. In the game, one player represents the Thusser and one represents the Norumbegans. The winner of the Game decides if the victory of a battle is with the Norumbegans or the Thusser. This story focuses around just one of the games which means this will only complete one battle. Another battle has to be fought before ultimate victory can be decided.