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Before she went to join Sam and Mogget downstairs, Lirael paused for a moment to look at herself in the tall silver mirror that hung on the wall of her room. The image that faced her bore little resemblance to the Second Assistant Librarian of the Clayr. She saw a warlike and grim young woman, dark hair bound back with a silver cord rather than hanging free to disguise her face. She no longer wore her librarian's waistcoat, and she had a long Nehima at her side rather than a library-issue dagger. but she had kept her library whistle, tucking it into the small pouch at her belt. Though she was many, many leagues from any help the whistle might summon, she felt the need to cling to some small part of her past and her identity.
She had become an Abhorsen, Lirael thought, at least on the outside.
PW called this "a riveting continuation of the story begun in Sabriel and Liraed. At once an allegory regarding war and peace and a testament to friendship, this is a thought-provoking fantasy." Ages 12-up. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Gr 7 Up-Garth Nix's trilogy comes to a dramatic and apocalyptic close, with all the clever plot twists and inventive voicings by Tim Curry that made Sabriel and Lirael (both 2002) award winners. In this segment, both Sabriel and Lirael, the latter now elevated to the powerful rank of Abhorsen (a kind of magician) in Nix's parallel world, have important roles-but so do Sabriel's son Sam, Mog the cat, and a ubiquitous and charming creature known affectionately as the "disreputable dog." Nix's imagined world seems to be situated near the time of our own turn from 19th to 20th century, the perfect backdrop for a classic theme, played out refreshingly within this story: the perils and the promises of technology. Magic, the antithesis of human ingenuity, flows both for the good and against it. The forces of evil are able to swell the ranks of their army through the recycling of dead folks into almost-invulnerable foot soldiers. Besides death and the good vs evil struggle, another folk motif brought into focus here is that of friendship: Sam's lifelong friend, Nicholas, literally must lay down his life in the course of the action. Abhorsen is an excellent denouement for a fantasy that is both literary and popularly accessible. Out loud, the powers of this future classic are intensified, especially through Curry's inspired dramatization.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Nix (Lirael, 2001, etc.) brings his trilogy to a literally earth-shattering conclusion. Action explodes from the very first pages as King Touchstone and Abhorsen Sabriel are targeted for assassination while on embassy to Ancelstierre. On the other side of the Wall, in the magical Old Kingdom, Prince Sameth and newly proclaimed Abhorsen-in-Waiting Lirael race frantically to rescue Sam's school friend Nick from the sinister clutches of the necromancer Hedge and his plot to unleash the Destroyer from a prison forged before the beginning of time. While the accelerating tension leaves little room for introspective character development, Lirael discards diffidence for decisiveness as she grows into her new duties, as the formerly feckless Sam, freed from the awful burden of fear, discovers confidence in his role as Wallmaker. But their mysterious Free Magic companions-the enigmatically feline Mogget and the effervescently canine Disreputable Dog-still steal the show, even as their secrets are slowly revealed. Despite constant weariness, despair, and attacks from Hedge's monstrous Dead minions, the priceless value of the Life they champion shines through small lapidary moments: a handclasp with a friend, a lick from the Dog, a shared tin of sardines. Terror, courage, bitterness, love, desperation, and sacrifice all swirl together in an apocalyptic climax that pits both Life and Death together against the destruction of everything. Even as Nix neatly ties off all the dangling plot threads, he hints that there are plenty of stories left to tell about the Old Kingdom. This one is breathtaking, bittersweet, and utterly unforgettable. (Fiction. YA)
A riveting conclusion to a powerful fantasy.” — Locus
“Breathtaking, bittersweet, and utterly unforgettable.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“At once an allegory regarding war and peace and a testament to friendship, this is thought-provoking fantasy.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A brilliant mix of subtlety and tension, darkness and light. Nix’s Old Kingdom is a world as fully realized as Narnia or Cittagazze.” — VOYA
“More than three hundred pages of breathless chases, near escapes, and intense confrontations. Nix’s intricately imagined fantasy world is peopled by complex players worthy of both their dramatic backdrops and their moral dilemmas.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Praise for Lirael: “Riveting.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“What makes Lirael a delight is the magic that Nix brings to his story and to his characters.” — Locus
“Startling subplots abound and keep the pages turning.” — Publishers Weekly
Praise for Sabriel: “Rich, complex, involving, hard to put down, this first novel is excellent high fantasy.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The action charges along at a gallop-a page turner for sure.” — ALA Booklist (starred review)
“Sabriel is a winner, a fantasy that reads like realism. Here is a world with the same solidity and four dimensional authority as our own, created with invention, clarity, and intelligence. I congratulate Garth Nix. And I look forward to reading his next piece of work.” — Philip Pullman
A brilliant mix of subtlety and tension, darkness and light. Nix’s Old Kingdom is a world as fully realized as Narnia or Cittagazze.
More than three hundred pages of breathless chases, near escapes, and intense confrontations. Nix’s intricately imagined fantasy world is peopled by complex players worthy of both their dramatic backdrops and their moral dilemmas.
Nix has created an ingenious, icy world. The action charges along at a gallop. A page-turner for sure.
By turns rousing, charming and slyly funny, Sabriel is an engaging tale that slays sexual stereotypes along with its monsters.
A wonderful new fantasy filled with rich and complex imagery.
A compelling fantasy. The story is remarkable for the level of originality and leaves readers to explore for themselves.
A riveting conclusion to a powerful fantasy.
More than three hundred pages of breathless chases, near escapes, and intense confrontations. Nix’s intricately imagined fantasy world is peopled by complex players worthy of both their dramatic backdrops and their moral dilemmas.
Sabriel is a winner, a fantasy that reads like realism. Here is a world with the same solidity and four dimensional authority as our own, created with invention, clarity, and intelligence. I congratulate Garth Nix. And I look forward to reading his next piece of work.
By turns rousing, charming and slyly funny, Sabriel is an engaging tale that slays sexual stereotypes along with its monsters.
| BN ID: | 2940172162886 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 04/08/2003 |
| Series: | Old Kingdom (Abhorsen) Series , #3 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Abhorsen (MSR)Chapter OneA House Besieged
There was another fog, far away from the smog of Corvere. Six hundred miles to the north, across the Wall that separated Ancelstierre from the Old Kingdom. The Wall where the Old Kingdom's magic really began and Ancelstierre's modern technology failed.
This fog was different from its far-southern cousin. It was not white but the dark grey of a storm cloud, and it was completely unnatural. This fog had been spun from air and Free Magic and was born on a hilltop far from any water. It survived and spread despite the heat of a late-spring afternoon, which should have burned it into nothing.
Ignoring sun and light breezes, the fog spread from the hill and rolled south and east, thin tendrils creeping out in advance of the main body. Half a league on from the hill, one of these tendrils separated into a cloud that rose high in the air and crossed the mighty river Ratterlin. Once across, it sank to sit like a toad on the eastern bank, and new fog begun to puff out of it.
Soon the two arms of fog shrouded both western and eastern shores of the Ratterlin, though the sun still shone on the river in between.
Both river and fog sped at their very different paces towards the Long Cliffs. The river dashed along, getting faster and faster as it headed to the great waterfall, where it would plunge down more than a thousand feet. The fog was slow and threatening. It thickened and rose higher as it rolled on.
A few yards before it reached the Long Cliffs, the fog stopped, though it still grew thicker and rose higher, threatening the island that sat in the middle of the river and on the edge of the waterfall.An island with high white walls that enclosed a house and gardens.
The fog did not spread across the river, nor lean in too far as it rose. There were unseen defenses that held it back, that kept the sun shining on the white walls, the gardens, and the red-tiled house. The fog was a weapon, but it was only the first move in a battle, only the beginning of a siege. The battle lines were drawn and the House invested.
For the whole river-circled isle was Abhorsen's House. Home to the Abhorsen, whose birthright and charge was to maintain the borders of Life and Death. The Abhorsen, who used necromantic bells and Free Magic, but who was neither necromancer nor Free Magic sorcerer. The Abhorsen, who sent any Dead who trespassed in Life back to whence they came.
The creator of the fog knew that the Abhorsen was not actually in the House. The Abhorsen and her husband, the King, had been lured across the Wall and would presumably be dealt with there. That was part of her Master's plan, long since laid but only recently begun in earnest.
The plan had many parts, in many countries, though the very heart and reason for it lay in the Old Kingdom. War, assassination, and refugees were elements of the plan, all manipulated by a scheming, subtle mind that had waited generations for everything to come to fruition.
But as with any plan, there had already been complications and problems. Two of them were in the House. One was a young woman, who had been sent south by the witches who lived in the glacier-clad mountain at the Ratterlin's source. The Clayr, who Saw many futures in the ice, and who would certainly try to twist the present to their own ends. The woman was one of their elite mages, easily identified by the colored waistcoat she wore. A red waistcoat, marking her as a Second Assistant Librarian.
The maker of the fog had seen her, black haired and pale skinned, surely no older than twenty, a mere fingernail sliver of an age. She had heard the young woman's name, called out in desperate battle.
Lirael.
The other complication was better known, and possibly more trouble, though the evidence was conflicting. A young man, hardly more than a boy, curly haired from his father, black eyebrowed from his mother, and tall from both. His name was Sameth, the royal son of King Touchstone and the Abhorsen Sabriel.
Prince Sameth was meant to be the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, heir to the powers of The Book of the Dead and the seven bells. But the maker of the fog doubted that now. She was very old, and once she had known a great deal about the strange family and their House in the river. She had fought Sameth barely a night past, and he had not fought like an Abhorsen; even the way he cast his Charter Magic was strange, reminiscent of neither the royal line nor the Abhorsens.
Sameth and Lirael were not alone. They were supported by two creatures who appeared to be no more than a small bad-tempered white cat and a large black and tan dog of friendly disposition. Yet both were much more than they seemed, though exactly what they were was another slippery piece of information. Most likely they were Free Magic spirits of some kind, bound in service to the Abhorsen and the Clayr. The cat was known to some degree. His name was Mogget, and there was speculation about him in certain books of lore. The Dog was a different matter. She was new, or so old that any book that told of her was long since dust. The creature in the fog thought the latter. Both the young woman and her hound had come from the Great Library of the Clayr. It was likely both of them, like the Library, had hidden depths and contained unknown powers.
Together, these four could be formidable opponents, and they represented a serious threat. But the maker of the fog did not have to fight them directly, nor could she, for the House was too well guarded by both spell and swift water. Her orders were to make sure that they were trapped in the House. The House was to be besieged while matters progressed elsewhere — until it was too late for Lirael, Sam, and their companions to do anything at all.
Abhorsen (MSR). Copyright © by Garth Nix. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
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