The Underland Cyclopedia
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Gregor the Overlander is this first book in The Underland Chronicles series. Since its release, the novel has been published in several languages and has even been made available as both an audiobook and ebook. It was also published under the alternate title "Gregor and the Rats of the Underland" in the United Kingdom edition.

Synopsis

When Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of their New York apartment building, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath the city. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders, bats, cockroaches, and rats--but the fragile peace is about to fall apart.

Gregor wants no part of a conflict. He just wants to find his way home. But when he discovers that a prophecy foretells a role for him in the Underland's future, he realizes it might be the only way to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Little does he know his quest will change him--and the Underland--forever.

Plot Summary

Eleven-year-old Gregor is left home alone in his family's New York City apartment to watch his baby sister, Boots, and grandmother. But when Boots falls through an old air duct grate in the building's basement and Gregor dives in after her, the two fall miles below into the Underland: a subterranean world home to humans with near-translucent skin; giant sentient bats, rodents, and insects; and an escalating conflict between the human city of Regalia and the rats' King Gorger. While there, they meet several "Underlanders", the Regalians' crown princess Luxa, her cousin Henry, and the bats who are "bonded" to them being among them. At first, Gregor wants only to return home, but when he is attacked by two rats during an escape attempt and saved by the Underlanders, he inadvertently brings the conflict between the two groups to a head.

It is then that he learns the real reason for the rats' hatred of Overlanders: a mysterious prophecy written by the human colony's founder, Bartholomew of Sandwich, hints that an Overland "warrior" will stop an attempt by the rats to take over the underground realm once and for all. The Regalian council believes Gregor to be this warrior, and tries to convince him to undertake the quest mentioned in "The Prophecy of Gray". Though he sympathizes, Gregor is reluctant to help until he learns a surprising fact: his father, who disappeared unexpectedly over two years before, had actually fallen down into Regalia just like Gregor and Boots and been taken prisoner by the rats. Gregor, his sister, and a group of Regalians go on a journey to rescue Gregor's father and recruit allies for a war against the rats.

The quest group is challenged to successfully recruit allies for the Regalians, and then journeys to find Gregor's dad, emaciated and tortured, in the personal prison of King Gorger. When the rat king discovers their rescue attempt, Henry reveals that he has been helping the rats all along, hoping to ally them with the Regalians and conquer the entire Underland. During the questers' attempt to escape, Gregor sacrifices himself to lure the rats' attack force--King Gorger and Henry among them--off the edge of a cliff. Henry's bat Ares, who had no knowledge of his bond's treachery, chooses to save Gregor rather than Henry as they fall. When the few remaining quest members make it back to Regalia, Luxa and her family are devastated, both because of Henry's treason and death and because Ares has been sentenced to banishment for allowing his bond to die. Gregor then saves his life by using his status as the "warrior" to form a new bond with him. When things have settled down somewhat and the Regalian doctors have done all they can for his father, Gregor and his family return to the surface.

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