Customer Reviews

Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After falling in love with the first book, I immedeately pre-ordered the second volume of this wonderful series. Now, after I read this volume, I can't wait to revisit Clive Barker's amazing Abarat!

Picking up right where the first book left off, our heroine Candy continues her journey in Abarat and in her journey of self-discovery. After finding out that she has been to Abarat before in Book One, this volume reveals to the reader (and to Candy) the answer she has been seeking and introduces us to the begining of the war between the forces of Night and Day. Along the way, we are introduced to several new characters, including the famed Dragon slayer Finnigan Hob and Letheo the beast-boy.

Once again, Barker's colorful and lively paintings take center stage. This is no truer than in several chapters that deal with Candy and Malingo as they explore the island of Babilonium (aka The Carnival Island). Taking a cue from such fantasies as Little Nemo in Slumberland and Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials triology, Barker creates paintings that showcase his description about the island, from a gallery of freaks to the crowds of people from just about every corner of the Abarat! This is my favorite part of book; it makes me want to explore the world Barker has created for myself and take in all the sites, sounds, and smells!

Once again, if you have not read the Abarat series, what are you waiting for? If you love fantasy series that are orginal and descriptive like The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, or His Dark Materials, then read this series! Once you've been to Abarat, you'll want to go back for more!

Let me begin with this caveat: if you did not read or did not like the first book of Abarat, do not bother with this book. You will be either lost or unmoved.

If you enjoyed the first book of Abarat, though, this one is well worth the wait (though I admit I could not wait, and spent an outrageous amount to get the advance reading copy). It ups the ante considerably, providing us with the thing most missing from the first book: interaction between our heroine, Candy, and Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight. These are the best chapters of the book; they took my breath away - Carrion is one of the greatest villains I've ever had the pleasure to read about.

The rest of the book, while not perfect, still managed to make me bite my nails and hold my breath and gasp at the many sights proferred to us by Clive Barker's pen and paintings. More than anything, this is a visual treat, not just because of the lovely paintings but because of the rich description that makes you see the story as if it is unfolding right in front of you.

But - this is definitely part of a story, not the whole. Do not go into Abarat thinking each book is a separate tale. I almost wish Clive Barker had waited to publish the series until it was complete. There are many questions left unresolved, and a variety of characters juggled in different parallel plot threads. Each person will probably have their favorite character and complain they're not in the book enough. I have to admit I rushed through some parts on my first read to get to more Carrion - what can I say, I have a soft spot for the bad guys. All I can say is wait for Abarat 3 & 4 - I'm counting on Clive for an amazing pay-off.

Reading about the journey of Candy Quackenbush within the Abarat is a far more enjoyable experience in book two. The author expands his imagination as he introduces more unusual intelligent mythical creatures. It is a pleasure discovering the eccentricities of each new creature as Candy encounters the cultural differences within this archipelago. The reader is now familiar with the territory and eagerly turns the pages anticipating each new thrill, knowing at any point ... with a twist and turn of events ... there maybe an ambush by Christopher Carrion, Lord of Midnight or one of his subordinates. By now the reader knows he has an obsession with meeting Candy to discover the source of her magic. He is convinced she possesses special powers for having survived the many obstacles placed in her path and having vanquished highly formidable foes sent by him to capture her. The fact she has managed to evade him is an endless source of irritation which goads him further on his mission. One unexpected source of pleasure is reading how his grandmother Mother Motley has insight into his devious plans and even sees within his heart what his true desires are. She sews day and night helping to create an army of fiends to aide him during the anticipated battle to win control of the Abarat. More surprises await the reader as Christopher Carrion and his grandmother clash on personal levels when she hurls insults and hateful epitaphs at him. While one is rooting for Candy to overcome their evil intentions ... the reader can not but laugh at some of the clashes between these two villains. There is truth to the old adage 'divide and conquer'...

The friendly and unique creatures from book one, such as John Mischief, the other Johns and Malingo, become old pals as the reader is taken down meandering pathways exploring the islands and experiencing new adventures. New challenges await Candy and one of the most gratifying discoveries within the book is when Candy *finally* meets the dragon slayer ... Finnegan Hob who had been engaged to Princess Boa, who was killed by a dragon. This reader is very pleased the author did not cop out and create a romantic interlude betweeen these characters. Romance would diminish the natural appeal of the books which is reading about imaginary creatures, magical mythical islands where the heroine experiences excitement and adventure.

The author does a superb job of weaving together a common thread which ties the Abarat and Chickentown. It is heart warming to read how Candy, at last, communicates with her mom, dad and brothers. The mysterious connection between the three wise ladies from the Abarat who sailed on the Sea of Izabella and Candy Quackenbush of Chickentown Minnesota is revealed. The reader learns how and why Candy Quackenbush came to possess unique powers of magic ... This story is complete in all of its myriad of details and magic. It fully deserves 5 stars. Thanks to Allison for lending me book two. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

Beyond the realm of Earth lies the archipelago of Abarat where every island is a different time of day. Candy Quackenbush, originally from the Midwestern town of Chickentown is brought for reasons she doesn't quite understand to this new world where magic works. What she does know is that Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, wants her brought to his home in Gorgossium, a place where monsters obey their lords' bidding and night never ends. He sends his minion the Criss-Cross man to bring her to him but he dies trying.

Carrion and his grandmother Mater Motley plan to bring war to Abarat so that darkness will reign forever over the land and the champions of light will be defeated. They fear that Candy and her allies will stop them but Carrion has another reason to capture Candy, one that he doesn't understand himself until he recognizes who she really is. While evading Carrion's minions, she has plenty of hair raising adventures on the various islands but always she is forced to move on or be caught in her enemy's web.

Clive Barker has made his mark as one of the best fantasy writers of young adult tales since C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. This book contains 125 illustrations that raise the bar of excellence even more. Candy Quackenbush's adventures can be compared to a magical version of The Perils of Pauline. Candy doesn't know her purpose for being in Arabat is to avert a war but she does her best to help people who are victimized and manages to find a little time to have some fun. DAYS OF MAGIC, NIGHTS OF WAR is a fantasy worth reading by high school students as well as adults.

Harriet Klausner

Beautifully written, and amazing storyline. I personally did not like the ending, due to an attachment to one of the characters, but most probably will love it.

Clive Barker, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War (Harper, 2004)

Barker delivers Days of Magic, Nights of War, the second book in the Abarat series, and I fervently hope he doesn't take as long with the third as he has with the third book of the Art (for which, George R. R. Martin fans take note, we Barker devoted have been waiting for eleven years). Candy and Malingo are still on the run from Christopher Carrion, and here have to gather something of a small army, most of whom we met previously in Book One, to combat his various schemes. Those who have not previously read Abarat will likely have a hard time getting around, as Barker spends no time reacquainting us with things to which we'd already been introduced in the first book (and thank heaven for that). Those already familiar with the world, however, will discover exactly the kind of book one expects from Clive Barker-- rich, fast-paced, with well-drawn characters and clever twists in the tale now and again. There are a few things that seem a bit more transparent than one would expect, but we'll have no idea if we're right until the third book comes out.

A very worthy successor to Abarat. Can't wait for the third book. *** ½

I just finished this book in two days because I was really really REALLY drawn into the story. I loved the first book, but this one had to be atleast a hundred times better. First off, I enjoyed that Mr. Barker did not take time for a "review" chapter, that way you didn't have to suffer through rehashed information to get to the new story (For example, J.K. Rowling blandly rehases what happened in the previous novel, and this I find is highly irritating). But on the otherhand when there was a need for details, he subtly put them in, that way you didn't have to reference the first book. The story is very fast and adds a lot of new levels. Mr. Barker is the first novelist I have found recently that can actually create a bad guy that isn't entirely horrid but still evil enough that you can hate them. The protagonists in this story are exactly how you want them to be and increasingly human (though of course being of Abarat are clearly not human). The paintings are far more breathtaking in this novel, and I found myself taking the time to really study them; they fully added to my reading exprerience. I don't know if my sheer excitement over this novel makes a good review... but it was worth a try. Overall, if you liked the first book or thought it was "okay" then please give the second book a shot. Mr. Barker has perfected everything about this series as far as I can tell-- great new characters and the old favorites (I was quite happy when a few popped up again), great new Islands, and the story takes some very interesting turns! Please read! I can't wait for the next book!

This book was so exciting. I just simply loved it. It is the second book in the Abarat series and furthers Candy's adventures in the Abarat. Old characters return, such as: John Mischief, Malingo, and all of the other characters, as well as awesome new charaters: Finnegan Hob, Letheo, and some others. It was really exciting and I found it really hard to set down. It didn't take me very long to read and I love it so much, i just an't wait for the next one to come out. I love ABARAT.

On the one hand, I would have given Barker's 'Days of Magic, Nights of War' the 4 and 1/2 or maybe 5 stars it deserved back in 2004, when it emerged in hardcover glory. The second installment in his Abarat "series" brought greater excitement (as one would hope) to the adventures of Candy Quackenbush & friends in the wild, weird world she entered. In this 2004 segment, Barker regales with a nearly over-burdened plot, but manages to create a compelling world teeming with amazements. His paintings/illustrations are utterly exquisite and make this entire idea a thing that ought to be forever treasured.

But it's hard to do so. The first book arrived six years ago in 2002. The second four years ago in 2004...ominously along with hype about a film, a theme-park deal, etc. With the complexity, incoherence, and surrealism of his Abarat plotline, this is a series that Barker needed to keep coming at a viable pace (at *least* one book every other year).

But with the sad and apparent neglect given to finishing this extended work, it has been all too easy for initially enthralled readers (and buyers!) to lose complete track of the basics of this story. Moreover, it has been all too easy to lose interest altogether in its outcome. The unfolding of this series has been so ruined by whatever strange delays have taken place, that one is hard-pressed to imagine how Harper Collins is really going to salvage the project in terms of contemporary viability.

It's apparent that the film is OUT (and understandably so, after such sloth in Barker publishing the whole thing). I can't help but feel that Barker has really short-changed his audience and his great Abarat (once so full of potential) by failing to complete the installments in a remotely reasonable fashion. Again, one wonders how excited the publisher is going to be to promote the future 3 volumes(3 more?!? I don't see it happening).

That's a shame--if Barker had stuck to his work ethic and vision, forgoing the lure of hasty, premature movie-studio deals and theme-park rights, this series could well have been one of the great multi-part sagas of our time for young adults (and those who "think" young). But as it is, the audience of 13 year-olds he targeted in 2002 is now getting ready for college and interest for the project as a continuum has been fatally lost.

I was moved to write this review because I was recently reorganizing my library and happened upon my 2004 hardcover copy of "Days of Magic, Nights of War" and nearly flipped. "Wow! I just about forgot this series existed!" I said to myself. "The rest of the books must have come out ages ago and I happened to miss them in the bookstore." Wrong. I was very disappointed to learn of the serious discrepancies in the publishing history of this series. Not only because I paid hardcover prices 6 and 4 years ago, expecting to have the whole set in reasonably timely fashion (every other year, perhaps), but also in a bit of sadness for a magnificently complex tale I expected to savor and unravel during my actual *lifetime.*

I'm glad to know that these books have a second life in paperback, and may win some new fans in that form, but even the paperback edition of this portion came out 2 years hence, and this only underscores how terribly this once-vibrant project has been derailed. At such a rate, I will indeed be ninety before the last one comes out--which I won't be waiting for.

The interest, once-piqued, has dimmed. The reader's faith (once-earned) has been breached. The best we can hope for is that Barker will even finish this tale one day, and that, after we are all long dead or aged, the whole series will be able to be purchased at once by future-folks. But Barker has even jeopardized that hope. Why should publishers be eager to manufacture & market five expensive illustrated volumes in the distant future if the project couldn't even get off the ground properly in its own day(s)? The entire project needed one cohesive decade, at least, to build up its classic status, its legend, and its mystique for posterity. Instead, it has been left in the proverbial lurch. A failure, especially given the greatness of Barker's artwork--which really is as crucial as the narrative, in this case.

And, to reiterate, had this series been given its due diligence by the author himself, it would have been a collection worthy of all-time greatness. Now, I'm sure some die-hards may still care, but there can't be enough. After six, seven years, I'm a former die-hard who's not going to go back and read them the first two again, especially with no real guarantee that an ending will ever come! If you happen to read this, Mr. Barker, please know that you have disappointed an admirer of what ~could~ have been something truly, truly monumental.

"Days of Magic, Nights of War" picks up immediately where the first volume left off, which is a good thing for anyone who's followed the series. "Abarat" is an excellent young adult novel; "Days of Magic, Nights of War" manages to be even better: richer in detail, characters, background, and plot--and even more exciting--this novel is rare in that it stands perfectly on its own. You don't have to read the first one to understand the second perfectly.
"Abarat" follows the adventures of Candy Quackenbush, a seemingly normal teenage girl who is accidentally swept away from her world, into a magical archipelago known as the Abarat, where time is not time at all, but a place, or rather, places: each island inhabits one of the hours on the clock. For instance, there is Gorgossium, which stands at the hour of midnight; the Nonce, which is three in the afternoon; and Scoriae, which stands at seven in the evening. The first novel chronicles her initial discovery of the Abarat; her first encounter with her best friend, Malingo; her fight against Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Gorgossium, whose dearest ambition is to vanquish all the magic and goodness in the Abarat--already flagging severely--and replace everything with a permanent midnight, over which he will rule supreme.
All of this is established in the first novel, yet it is woven seamlessly through this second one. In the second one, Christopher Carrion, intrigued by Candy and hating her for it, sends assassins after her, tracks her, and in the end pursues her himself--all the while preparing for the day of Absolute Midnight.
Candy, meanwhile, is discovering that she is NOT an ordinary girl; for one thing, she is a powerful incantatrix (spell-sayer) and, oddly, remembers things from the Abarat, things she has never even seen. While running from Carrion, she darts all over the islands, dodging the Lord of midnight while trying to save the Abarat, and unraveling the mystery of just who she is. If she and her companions are to save the Abarat from Christopher Carrion, she must know who she is, for she is irrevocably tied to the Abarat's fate.
The second installment of Barker's saga is beautifully written and imagined. It's not flawless--Barker's writing can drag a little--but it's still beautiful, from style to character to plot and all in between and beyond. Personally, I was disappointed on this score: in the first volume, Barker sets the stage for SOMETHING between Candy and young, slightly sinister entrepeneurial genius Rojo Pixler, but there is no mention of him in this novel. Pixler, even if he's not precisely evil, is dangerous. Carrion wants to plunge the Abarat into absolute midnight; Pixler may not want destruction, but he wants to destroy the heart of the Abarat just the same by plumbing all of its magic and mysteries and putting them up for sale--for his own benefit. Even in their clash or confrontation or whatever it is didn't happen in this book, to exlcude even a mention of him when he's obviously important is a literary misstep.
However, that's a relatively minor complaint--in fact, that and the very occasional flatness of Barker's generally incredible writing are the only complaints, certainly nothing that would have kept me from buying the book if I'd known. I'd reccommend it to any fantasy fan, and most people in general. But beware: this book has creepy imagery, both in the form of Barker's drawings, and in the descriptions and actions of characters. The horror of the stitchlings and the sacbrood, and definitely the sadism of Mater Motley, Christophert Carrion, and even Admiral Bloat are above most younger readers. Even Letheo's physical and psychological suffering at the hands of Christopher Carrion are causes for pause, if not censorship. Anyone 12 and older can handle this book without a problem. Most 9-11 year olds will be able to as well, and even younger readers capable of this material should be all right in most cases. Still--just in case, if you have any doubts--review it, because even though it's amazing, it's amazing at least in part because of the contrast between goodness and horror.
All in all, this novel was excellent, and I do reccommend it.