Jimmy Melnarik

An engaging bottle episode. The terror of being physically chained to one spot without hope of salvation is pretty intense. However, this is a façade for the backbone of this story: a woman coming to terms with a childhood trauma inflicted by her father. This trauma may have led her to the very predicament she finds herself in, and with a variety of voices in her head, she must escape before death literally comes knocking.

It's cool to know how Narnia was created, how the wardrobe, witch, and lamppost came to be, etc., but there's not much of a story here. Might've worked better as a short story. Without having read the rest of the Chronicles apart from Wardrobe, I'm assuming Digory, Polly, and Uncle Andrew are throwaway characters? Here they are merely vehicles to get us to the creation of Narnia.