Customer Reviews

The Abhorsen Trilogy Box Set

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Garth Nix delves into the dark heart of high fantasy in the Abhorsen Trilogy, three interconnected fantasies about a family of necromancers who lay the dead -- and forces of evil -- to rest. Humour, detailed writing and deep characters, along with a richly-realize world, make this a classic-in-the-making.

"Sabriel" is the story of a teenage girl living happily at a girl's school, while her necromancer father (the Abhorsen) roams around putting the dead to rest. All that changes when a sending brings her father's sword and bells, meaning that he is dead or incapacitated. So Sabriel takes on her father's duties, accompanied by a Free Magic cat and a mysterious young prince, and battles the specter of a horrible evil creature that is reaching out from death to snare her.

"Lirael" takes us to the cold citadel of the Clayr, a race of seers. Young Lirael is depressed because she doesn't have the gift of Sight yet, even though everybody else her age does. But things take a sinister turn when she sets a horrifying, bloodthirsty creature loose, and must work -- with the help of the mysterious Disreputable Dog -- to get rid of it. But what Lirael doesn't know is that the outside world is in danger too, from a sinister new enemy.

"Abhorsen" brings the series to an explosive conclusion. Lirael and her nephew Sameth -- along with "cat" Mogget and the Disreputable Dog -- are in danger from the Dead. What's more, the Destroyer Orannis has escaped from his prison and is being assisted by an evil necromancer and the Dead called Chlorr -- and an unfortunate pal of Sameth's. Now Lirael must call on her destiny as the future Abhorsen, and kill the Destroyer.

Garth Nix had only written a couple of books, one of which was an "X-Files" novelization, when the first Abhorsen book burst onto the fantasy scene. Now he's one of the most respected, prolific and well-liked fantasy writers in years, with his single books in print and two hit series for younger readers. But despite his newer works, his tales of the Old Kingdom are still his best.

The Abhorsen Trilogy is a perfect example of dark fantasy, with its grotesque dead zombies that occasionally lurch out to attack the heroes, magical bells, and shadowy beasties that can (sometimes) be restrained. It takes the trappings of high fantasy and lets us see them through a mirror darkly. Not to mention the brilliant concept of the Abhorsen necromancers, who have power over dead and/or magical creatures, and bind them with Charter marks and bells.

Virtually all of Nix's characters are likable -- especially the gutsy Sabriel and nervous teenage Sameth -- and the acid-tongued animals and black humor add a wry spin to the fantastical stories. It takes a bit longer to warm up to Lirael, since she spends several chapters in the same-named book feeling sorry for herself, but once she gets moving she's unstoppable -- and very likable.

Garth Nix gave high fantasy a dark twist in the Abhorsen Trilogy. Full of magic, darkness, death and beauty, this is a classic in the making.

For those of you who feel that dragons, unicorns, and bards are a bit overdone nowadays, this fantasy trilogy offers up a heroine who binds the dead with a bandolier of bells. The Geography of Death is lovingly delineated, from the prologue where Sabriel is born and dies and is rescued from the First Gate of Death by her father, to the third book in the trilogy, where the new Abhorsen braves Death in the form of a river, a waterfall, pools of black water, strange currents that suck the spirit from the flesh.

Sabriel herself is an English schoolgirl, recently graduated from Wyverley Academy with a "first in English, equal first in Music, third in Mathematics, seventh in Science, second in Fighting Arts and fourth in Etiquette. She had also been a runaway first in Magic..." A visitation from the Dead sends Sabriel on a quest through the magical Old Kingdom, in order to reunite her father's body with his spirit which is trapped within the Fourth Gate of Death. She has to do battle with a really nasty necromancer-Adept, and rescue a prince who is a bit of a figurehead at first but who finally develops into a memorable character in his own right.

Sabriel is both helped and hindered by a very non-cuddly cat named Mogget.

"Lirael" is the middle book this remarkable fantasy series. If I ever die and go to fantasy heaven, I hope it resembles Nix's immense library beneath glacier and mountain, where each door opens into a separate mystery. In the catacombs beneath the library, Lirael discovers how to turn herself into an ice otter or a barking owl, reads "The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting", and duels with the monstrous Stilken.

However, "Lirael" isn't just about Lirael. Prince Sameth, heir apparent to Sabriel as the Old Kingdom's champion against evil necromancers, also comes of age in this volume. There are plenty of evil necromancers to go around. In fact, at the end of this book, it appears as though they are winning the war to turn the Old Kingdom into a kingdom of the dead.

"Abhorsen" is a direct continuation of "Lirael," with the ex-assistant librarian and her companion, Prince Sameth carrying on the battle against Hedge and the evil he is digging up at Red Lake. Although Prince Sameth was meant to be the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, heir to the powers of 'The Book of the Dead' and the seven bells, Lirael now takes up that role, and Sam seeks his destiny as a descendant of the mysterious Wallmakers, who built the barrier between the magical Old Kingdom and the mundane kingdom of Ancelstierre. The two will need all of the magic they can conjure up against an enemy that threatens not only the Charter, but all living beings.

The swirl and cross-currents of life gradually ebb as the dead pass through gate after gate on Garth Nix's nameless river--a river like Styx or Lethe that runs through each of our subconscious underworlds as a legacy of our water-bound gestation. It is an eerie experience to remember that journey of birth--only this time in the wake of the dead--in this marvelous fantasy trilogy.

Words cannot express my love for this trilogy. I first discovered "Sabriel" when I was 12 years old and browsing a small corner of my school's library dedicated to "teen" books. Sabriel stood out to me in a way that no other book has - or probably ever will - and I soon devoured it with a passion. Soon after, Garth Nix released the novel's two sequels ("Lirael" and "Abhorsen") and to this day I consider the Abhorsen trilogy to be my favorite fantasy series (this coming from someone who loves Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings as well).

The main character of two of the three novels is Lirael, a young woman who is somewhat of an outcast among Clayr society (women who can see the future). Lirael has never been gifted with the Sight, and in a way is shunned from the society she lives in. To make matters worse, her mother abandoned Lirael when she was just five years old, and her Aunt Kirrith - the only family Lirael has left - pays little attention to her. However, Lirael has a gift that the Clayr do not: instead of looking into the future, Lirael is a Remembrancer, someone who can see the past. In Lirael and Abhorsen, Lirael must learn to accept her gift, because she is the only one who can discover how to stop Orranis, the Destroyer. With her friends Prince Sameth, the Disreputable Dog, and Mogget, Lirael journeys to stop Orranis before it is too late.

Of course, Sabriel (the main character of the first novel who also has a minor role in the other two) cannot be overlooked. She is more accepting of her destiny than Lirael is, and is also one of the strongest female heroines that I have ever read. She is certainly someone that young readers (such as my 12-year-old self) can look up to. Her story is completely different from "Lirael" and "Abhorsen" (Abhorsen is a direct sequel to Lirael, whereas Lirael is merely a continuance of the world Nix created), and I almost wish Nix had included more of her in the sequels.

Like the Harry Potter series, Garth Nix's stories have that "coming of age" feel to them, and like Harry Potter, they are written in such a way that any person - young or old - can read, enjoy, and connect with the age-old themes present in the series. If that doesn't win you over, I should probably add that Garth Nix is one of the funniest writers I have stumbled upon. The one regret I have about this series is that it is not popular enough; very few people know of the wonders of the Old Kingdom trilogy.

This trilogy is satisfying and surprising in the strength of its female characters while never losing sight of a good story. Fantasy at its finest...you get parallel worlds, magic, mundanity, and misunderstanding, but not to comic effect, rather to catastrophic endings.

What is really lovely about reading this series, other than the fine prose, is the ambivalence that each character encounters and doesn't quite overcome...in other words, it is a fine telling of the difficulties that we all have in the negotiation of adolescence to adulthood. This series is never condescending and truly pays attention to the intelligence that all of us carry.

I discovered this trilogy a few years back, and it has been a favourite for some time. After a recent re-read, I decided it was high time I reviewed it.
This trilogy by Garth Nix, begun with Sabriel and followed by its sequels Lirael and Abhorsen, is a truly original piece of work and an amazing masterpiece of imagination.
It is set in two neighbouring lands. Ancelstiere, a modern country full of modern technology and modern thinking people. And the Old Kingdom, a country where magic and sorcery abound and the dead have an annoying habit of not remaining that way.
Sabriel is an Abhorsen, heir to a legacy that has passed down through generations of her family. On the death of every Abhorsen, a new one continues the work of laying the dead back to rest and defeating the necromancers who seek to raise them.
One of the things that makes this trilogy so original is Garth Nix's portrayal of death. After life is ended, a victim enters a kind of in-between realm consisting of a cold, fast-flowing river that passes through nine gates. Only once passed the ninth gate does a person embrace true death. Until then, a dead spirit can either be returned or banished, and those with the ability can cross in to death to work their will.
Twenty years after Sabriel has come in to her inheritance, we meet two new characters. Lirael, a member of a clan of women able to see the future. And Sameth, son of Sabriel and Abhorsen in waiting. Both these characters are set on a path to discover their destiny.
Garth Nix writes both richly and atmospherically. His portrayal of the realm of death is done particularly well. His characters are well thought out and thoroughly explored. Most Notably Mogget. A white cat who is far more than what he seems and is by far the author's most complex and interesting creation.
Danger, magic and monsters abound, with more than a little of the scare-factor thrown in.
I would recommend these books to any fantasy reader looking for something a little different from the usual formula. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

This set is absolutely AMAZING! These books take you to another world, half much life our own and the other half a mystical and scary place where free magic creatures and evil beings brought back to life are roaming free. These books are well written which makes the pages fly by. I have read these books at least 10 times, maybe even more and they get better each time I read. One of that many up sides to these books is how the 2 main characters (Sabriel & Touchstone) are in the next two books. I hate series where you fall in love with the main characters and then the next book is about someone totally different. Sorry about rambling on but I feel like this book is a great great great read for anyone. If you like the fantasy genre, you will not be disappointed.

I've only read the first book thus far, but I figured I'd better review it now because it might take me a while to finish the series and, honestly, I don't want to look at the review reminder in my e-mail inbox that long. So...

...This was a well written, tight fantasy. It has enough depth to make the world of the Old Kingdom believable, yet spares unnecessary details whenever it can. Nix uses an intesting tool to create a world nearly as well realized as Middle Earth without nine appendicies (props to Tolkien for persistance. You would shudder at our ADD world my fantasy writing friend...) Anyhow...where...oh yes; Nix creates detail without frills by refering to plot elements and then not explaining them right away. This sounds like bad writing, but it's not. One just has to have the patience to realize that eventually we'll figure out what Charter Magic is, and what that rhyme means. In the meantime, we're given a world where characters and narration flow naturally, without pausing for lengthy explanations. I like it.
As far as the content goes, it's a good story. As in all things, there's nothing new, but I try not to read books and tell the world where the author stole his plot elements from. There's nothing new under the sun, every artist is, at their best, a glorified hack. And Nix does a good job of making the old new again. I love how his magic is so real, how bells are weapons, death is a swiftly flowing stream and all such things. I'm interested to see where Nix goes with this series.

My first thought after I finished this series was "why did I wait so long before getting my hands on these books?"

I don't even know how to describe how much I adore this series. I read it many years ago, but I still read and reread it often. I've recommended these books ( especially Sabriel, which remains my favorite ) to all of my friends and they all loved it as well.

I had never heard of this series, but I stumbled across it on Amazon. It was great and different from any other fantasy I've read.

I was first introduced to Garth Nix a little before my 12th birthday-when re-reading the whole Anne of Green Gables series every month was part of my normal book rotation. I didn't know what a necromancer was, much less why anyone would want to write about a well educated young woman fighting them to save her father and a whole Kingdom that had never really been her home.

Sabriel lives in a land divided by an old, crumbling wall. It's nothing special this wall, old and crumbling, nothing that would really keep out an invading force. Yet on the other side the Army of Ancelstierre waits with old fashioned weapons for something horrible to come over the wall. They wait in the dark because frequently the lights go out and any kind of technology fails them. They used swords instead of guns because the guns fall apart. All because of what is on the other side of that wall.

But there comes a time in every young girl's life when she must embrace the inner rebel who lives inside, just screaming to get to out. Sabriel's moment comes just after she graduates a finishing school in Ancelstierre that also teaches charter magic and martial arts-when a sending appears from her father giving her the bells and sword of the Abhorsen. Interpreting this as a call for help- meaning her father is either dead or trapped too far in death to get out on his own-Sabriel heads for the old Kingdom, a land she may have been born in but has no practicle knowledge of-and no idea of the new dangers abounding within.

Sabriel may be an Abhorsen-one of many in a long hereditary line-but this family of necromancers doesn't raise the dead to do their bidding, they lay them back down and send them back from whence they came.

Sabriel knows almost nothing about this.

Could she quell the tides of rising dead? Interpret her father's message, travel through a world she has no preparation for with only a servant bound by the most powerful magic to keep it from killing her? Free a mysterious man trapped in a spell and bound by guilt for an act committed over 200 years ago that still has ramifications today? Try to defeat an evil that has defied the Abhorsen for hundreds of years? And bring the old Kingdom into something back of the glory it once was?

As the terrifying repository of knowledge on all things dead says on its very last page: does the walker chose the path-or the path chose the walker?

I should mention that Sabriel can stand totally on its own and does so very nicely.

*******Spoilers next about what happens after Sabriel. *******

Next we have Lirael, the only member of the prophetic Clayr who can't see into the future and has dark hair instead of blond and sharp features instead of cherubic ones. Ostracized by her community after finally realizing she'll never gain the sight she becomes a Liberian in the Clayr's great library-which holds so much more than just books. Working there Lirael becomes an accomplished charter mage and even gains a mysterious friend-the disreputable dog- who grew out of a statue and gains her freedom when she discovers her true destiny and identity.

It's been fourteen years since Sabriel became Queen/Abhorsen and in that time the old kingdom has become considerably safer-but there are still areas no one goes. Around red lake is one of them. And it just so happens that Prince Sammeth's friend from Ancelstierre, Nick (who happens to not believe anything about the old kingdom and that everything has a scientific explanation) is funding a dig at a site there that people avoid as much as possible and lighting strikes far more often than normal.

On the other side of the wall in Ancelstierre the King and Queen of the old Kingdom are politicking with the government so they don't sent thousands of refugees over the wall with promises of free land-when really they'll be walking straight into a trap set by a necromancer Sabriel has yet to catch.

And back in the Old Kingdom Sam is plotting an escape from his necromancy lessons-as he is certain he is not meant to be the next Abhorsen. But his older sister is so clearly meant to be queen that the burden falls upon him. So does what any noble prince would do in the situation- runs away.

And lastly the whole Gangs here in Abhorsen to face the biggest evil of all- something so dangerous it was buried not only in the earth but in seven layers of warded materials guarded by the Abhorsen, sought by many a necromancer- none of whom knew what they were getting into. This is not just a fight to save a life or a kingdom, but the whole world and may more after that.

These books are amazing fantasy novels that manage to straddle the age gap between young adult and adult very well. They are quite scary, but that's the only kind of content that might be upsetting to younger readers. And since it's not nearly often enough you come across a real strong fantasy heroine who doesn't need anyone's help, they're also a big girl power boost. And funny and full of mystery and legend. Recommended to anyone over 12 or very advanced young readers who don't scare easy. I'm not exaggerating on this point- these books are full of characters and beings out of the worst nightmares.

Five stars. A trilogy to read over and over.