Sabriel by Garth Nix

Sabriel (Old Kingdom, #1)

by Garth Nix

Breathtaking novel, the first of a trilogy, from a brilliant newcomer to the Collins fiction list.

Sabriel is sent as a child across the Wall to the safety of a school in Ancelstierre. Away from magic; away from the Dead. After receiving a cryptic message from her father, 18-year-old Sabriel leaves her ordinary school and returns across the Wall into the Old Kingdom. Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants, and Shadow Hands - for her father is none other than The Abhorson. His task is to lay the disturbed dead back to rest. This obliges him - and now Sabriel, who has taken on her father's title and duties - to slip over the border into the icy river of Death, sometimes battling the evil forces that lurk there, waiting for an opportunity to escape into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father, and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the horrible forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible challenges whilst discovering her own supernatural abilities - and her destiny.

Reviewed by Amber (The Literary Phoenix) on

3 of 5 stars

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Sabriel was at school when a messenger brings her father's sword and the Abhorsen bells to her. It can mean only one thing - her father, the Abhorsen, is in grave danger. Sabriel does what she knows she must - she sets off to her father's estate to learn what she can about putting the dead to rest, and sets about saving her father, and saving the kingdom.

I still think that the world of Sabriel is fascinating. It's a dark fantasy, with the edge of A Game of Thrones to it. It feels like the North to me. I love this world and the ideas, but the first three quarters of Sabriel were slow for me. I think that challenge lay in the narrator - I really like Tim Curry, but sometimes it feels like he drags on. I *love* him as part of a cast, like in Dracula, but I found my mind wandering in this one.

Nix takes it slow, getting his readers accustomed to the Old and New Kingdoms. The pacing can be trying, but the story is worthwhile. There's something dark and wicked beneath the surface of this book, and in the last quarter, the story promptly ramps up and the story devours you. It's SO GOOD but the execution can be trying. But, trust me, it's worth it. This is a reread for me, and I know so much more is on its way.

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