Lucy and Edmund Pevensie return to Narnia with their much-disliked cousin Eustace Scrubb, where they find themselves on the sailing ship the Dawn Treader. Prince Caspian (the title character from the previous book) has just set out to find the seven lords who supported him, whom his uncle deliberately sent to sea in the (apparently successful) hope that they would be lost. Reepicheep - the two foot tall talking mouse with an over-abundance of courage and honour - is the only other returning character.

In my previous reviews of the "Chronicles of Narnia" books, I've made several comments about racism, sexism, heavy-handed Christian allegory, White Saviour syndrome, and deus ex machina. All still true. But as I also said for most of the other books, it's also a very entertaining story. And to Lewis's credit, the plot structure of each story has been hugely different. Being epic fantasy, there's usually a quest - but they bear no resemblance one to the next, and that's a very good thing. This book contains the most wildly imaginative (and absurd) creations of the series, but it's all a great deal of fun.