Sabriel by Garth Nix

Title: Sabriel
Series: The Old Kingdom #1
Author: Garth Nix
Source/Format: Purchased; Paperback
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Collins; January 1, 1995

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Enter the Old Kingdom, a world of dark secrets and dangerous magic.

As a child, Sabriel was sent across the Wall to Ancelstierre to safety. Now eighteen years old, she receives a cryptic and desperate message from her father, the Abhorsen—the magical protector whose task it is to bind and send back to Death those who won’t stay Dead. Fiercely determined to help her father, who is perilously trapped in Death, and save him from the sinister Free Magic entity that has somehow ensnared him, Sabriel must prepare to enter Death herself—and find her destiny. To preserve life, the Abhorsen must enter death.

I haven’t picked up a Garth Nix book in many-many years—the last ones I read were The Keys to the Kingdom with Mister Monday and the following novels. However, one series that has persisted on my TBR list (for just as long) has been Nix’s The Old Kingdom. So in the interest of slimming down that TBR by another book, I picked up Sabriel, the first of that series.

Sabriel was a phenomenal novel, and had almost everything I love about fantasy. There was a good deal of traveling the main character, Sabriel, undertook during her adventure. However, each step of the way presented its own pitfalls, ensuring the story kept a sense of urgency. It was part cat-and-mouse game, part fetch quest, and there was no happy ending guaranteed in a story that dealt with so much death.

The magic had a cool system, essentially necromancy, which required literally stepping into death as well as a set of very particular bells. I loved this aspect of the story and the details that went into developing it. After all, each bell was imbued with a different power—and had varied consequences for ringing them—which only added another layer of detail to a magic system that was already working within a clear set of relatively unique rules.

There were two primary places where the story took place. There’s Ancelstierre, where Sabriel attended Wyverly College, which—although a fantasy country—could have been reality, albeit a historical time period. There were cars, electricity, and even weapons. The Old Kingdom, by contrast, was pure fantasy and entirely bleak; a place that was clearly on the losing side of a conflict. And it was into the horror left behind and the grueling battle against “those who won’t stay dead,” that Sabriel enters as a begrudging player, in the grand scheme of things. She didn’t want the job, more than that, however, she wanted to find her father, the Abhorsen. And her anxiety is part of what propels the story, at least early on, before she gained allies and came to understand the greater danger posed to everything and everyone. As a result, the story had intensity to it, and I enjoyed every second of it.

All in all, I adored this novel, and I’m looking forward to eventually continuing with this series.