Sabriel

Author: Garth Nix
Reviewer: Todd & Lydia
Ratings: 5/5 and 4/5 stars

Summary:

Since childhood, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who refuse to stay dead. But now her father, the Abhorson, is missing, and Sabriel must cross into that world to find him. With Mogget, whose feline form hides a powerful, perhaps malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage, Sabriel travels deep into the Old Kingdom. There she confronts an evil that threatens much more than her life and comes face-to-face with her own hidden destiny. . . . From Amzon.com

Todd: 5/5 Stars

Sabriel was an interesting tale of a daughter thrust into a world she scantly knows about, and a role she never assumed would be hers. The tale and the character are an interesting creation, a young lady who just turned eighteen and happens to have magic over the dead. This is a skill which is important to have and know when numbers of the dead are able to escape from the flow towards the final rest, letting the dead attack and drain the life from the living to prolong their stay among life.

Although, while growing up, Sabriel never realized just why her father taught her the knowledge to put down the dead and the necromancers who would call them. But when Sabriel learns of her father’s passing she departs the safety of her school to go into the Old Kingdom to find her father. But things are not simple once she finds her father’s home, and what destiny has in store for her.

Sabriel rejects that destiny coming to her so soon, and instead dedicates herself to saving her father. And therein lies what makes Sabriel so interesting as a character; she’s a rejection of the standard ideas of what a fantasy hero would be. She’s a young woman, she is a strong if limited magic user, she’s been trained in swordsman ship, and she resists falling immediately in love. This unfortunately tends to happen when the protagonist of a tale is a woman, even when the story is not romantic in nature.

The world of Sabriel/The Old Kingdom is one full of mysteries. The knowledge of the past has been lost because time’s flow and the effects of having the dead rampage the land. The magic is not yet fully defined, but as the full tale has yet to unfold perhaps that will change.

Lydia: 4/5 Stars

My fellow co-reader Todd has expertly fleshed out the intriguing story of Sabriel: within this book a young girl grows into a woman with magical powers. This story, which is the first part of a trilogy, is the perfect introduction into the high fantasy genre. The story is not entirely original, and does contain some clichés. For example, unlike Todd, I believe that the romance in this story was superfluous to the plot, and progressed at far too fast a rate to be believable. However, I can overlook some of the overused plot elements since the series is geared toward a younger audience.

My favorite aspect of the novel is Sabriel herself. She is a strong, intelligent, and extremely likeable female protagonist, which I believe is a wonderful role model to have in a young adult fiction book. She manages to get into trouble throughout the story, but her wit and ingenuity allows her to escape unharmed. I look forward to seeing how she “grows up” as the series progresses.

Todd and Lydia: On a final note, we both loved Tim Curry as the speaker of the audiobook! He imbued the story with life and substance.