Sabriel (Old Kingdom, #1)

by Garth Nix

[Angie]

I can definitely see why Sabriel is so well loved, but for me, it was just a pretty good read. I liked it, but it was nothing special. Eighteen year old Sabriel is away at school when she learns that her rather is dead or trapped in Death. Yes, there is a difference. Now, it's up to her to rescue him, but that means crossing the Wall into the Old Kingdom. This may not seem like a huge, daring adventure, but since her father is a necromancer, he's able to bind the dead so that they actually stay dead. With him gone, by the next full moon, the dead will rise since the barrier between Life and Death is slowly crumbling. It's a race against the lunar calender for Sabriel!

My main issue with Sabriel was the world. I was expecting an interesting Fantasy realm with magic, but what I got was basically our modern world mixed with our medieval world and some times in between...with magic. The technology is very much the same as ours. There's electricity, telephones, cars, buses, even motorcycles and tanks. They have the same weaponry and military. Even the school system is the same as modern day Australia. The calendar is also ours, with November mentioned specifically. I have a feeling this was done for the benefit of a younger audience, but since nothing about the book felt young to me, I found myself irritated by this simple world building.

However, the magic portion of Sabriel was fantastic. There's Free Magic and Charter Magic and necromancy! Free Magic seemed more wild, while Charter Magic makes use of special symbols and incantations. The necromancy side also seemed really well developed. It's not just about resurrecting dead things. Sabriel (and her father) can cross over into Death in order to retrieve spirits or banish them. There's also magical servants known as sendings that roam around in Life, some of them better at their job than others. Of course, there also scary, evil things that should probably stay in Death, and they're after Sabriel.

The plot was fast paced and action packed. It seemed like dear Sabriel couldn't catch a break! She's at a slight disadvantage since she didn't grow up in the Old Kingdom and in fact doesn't know much about it all. Something bad is happening, but she doesn't find out until close to the end, since her companion (a snarky, talking cat) is under a spell and can't talk specifics. But she's a smart girl and very determined, and makes use of all of her resources. There is a small romance, which I was very unimpressed by, so I have nothing to say about it.

So...I liked Sabriel. It was fun, but I was quite distracted by the world building. I don't like modern technology in Fantasy unless it's done in an interesting way, and it wasn't. A car was a car, and skis were skis. I just couldn't accept this and it negatively impacted the experience for me.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.