Sabriel

Another gripping dark fantasy adventures for my collection. I heard about this book last couple of years but only recently had I bought it and I'm glad I did.

Sabriel by Garth Nix is the first book of the trilogy. It started off with a flashback in which Abhorsen saves his new born baby daughter Sabriel from death and from Kerrigor. Then it brings you to Ancelstierre where Sabriel grows up since she was five years old at the Wyverly college.

Abhorsen is a necromancer but instead of raising the dead, he lays the dead back to rest.

One night when Sabriel was eighteen, she receives a message along with his father's sword and bandolier that contain the bells. This could only mean that his father, a famous necromancer, is in the realm of the dead, and she as Abhorsen's daughter must taken on his father's title and duty.

This forced Sabriel to go back to the Old Kingdom to search for his father's body. But first she must crosses the Wall and go to Abhorsen's house. Since she was practically raised in Ancelstierre she has little knowledge of Old Kingdom. On her way there, she met with a Mordicant, Kerrigor's servant who determined to kill her by any means. She escapes from the Mordicant when she crosses the river but only memontarily.

At Abhorsen's house she met with a dangerous/funny soul that has taken a form of a cat named Mogget. Mogget has served the Abhorsen's family for hundred of years and was bound by the miniature Saraneth on his neck-collar.

Sabriel is convinced that her father's body must lay somewhere in Bellisaere. Mogget then accompany Sabriel for the journey but went wayward when they were attacked by another Kerrigor's servant. They landed in Holehallow where Mogget free of his cat form tried to diminished Sabriel and if not for the ring handed by Mogget before the journey Sabriel would have been dead.

At Holehallow Sabriel freed Touchstone that was trapped as a figurehead for 200 years. Touchstone swears then to serve Sabriel and along the way, romance bloom between Sabriel and Touchstone.

Sabriel found his father's body in Ballisaere and realized Kerrigor's want both his father and her blood to break the Charter stone that keep Old Kingdom from descending into evil. The only way to defeat Kerrigor is to find and destroy Kerrigor's original body which he kept alive with Free Magic.

In her journey to saves Abhorsen and the Old Kingdom, Sabriel had to endures almost impossible exhaustion, evil confrontation and near-death experiences that challenges her supernatural abilities as an Abhorsen.

I was sceptical at first and not sure whether I will like this book once I finish reading it but after few pages its an effort to actually put this book down. Nix brought you immediately into the action. You might feel disoriented at first but will get used to it quickly and glad that Nix made it so so that you are actually be part of the story and not just someone reading a story.

This is not your typical good-vs-evil kind of book. Nix delves deeply into the mystical world of necromancy, magic and the monstrosity of the undead. Who would have thought a book that uses bells to bind the dead can be so enjoyable?

I am already delving into Lirael, the sequal.

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