While the quest that ensues follows a well-worn good-versus-darkness script, I enjoyed its world creation.

Meanwhile, the undead ghouls and spirits that plague that region have been acting up, for reasons that Sabriel doesn't understand, having been away from home for so long. The story begins with its heroine, who is completing a clandestine education in magic, learning that her often-absent father, who spends most of his time in the Old Kingdom, has gone missing.

However, Sabriel has spent most of her life in Ancelstierre, a non-magical country that resembles Britain of the early 1900s, but shares a strange border region with the Old Kingdom. The heroine of the title is a girl of mysterious origins who was born in the magical 'Old Kingdom' and possesses a rare natural gift for necromancy. Here is a world with the same solidity and four-dimensional authority as our own, created with invention, clarity and intelligence.If you're in the mood for a somber, gorgeously visual novel that's part Philip Pullman, part Tolkien, and part a world out of one those artful fantasy illustrations that seemed to have had a heyday in the 1970s, Sabriel might fit the bill.

“ Sabriel is a winner, a fantasy that reads like realism. And every step brings them closer to a battle that will pit them against the true forces of life and death-and bring Sabriel face-to-face with her own destiny. She soon finds companions in Mogget, a cat whose aloof manner barely conceals its malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage long imprisoned by magic, now free in body but still trapped by painful memories.Īs the three travel deep into the Old Kingdom, threats mount on all sides. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him. Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. Sabriel, the first installment in the trilogy, launched critically acclaimed author Garth Nix onto the fantasy scene as a rising star.ĭark Secrets, Deep Love, and Dangerous Magic Game of Thrones fans will love the New York Times bestselling Abhorsen series.

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