Product Description

Venture into the magical landscape of the Old Kingdom for three spellbinding tales of discovery, destiny and danger. This stunning boxed set contains Garth Nix's bestselling Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen. SABRIEL A young girl discovers her destiny is to take on the duties of the Abhorsen and protect the living from Free Magic and the clutches of the Dead. LIRAEL As an ancient evil casts its shadow and threatens to break the very boundary between Life and Death, Lirael is forced from her position as Second Assistant Librarian to confront the power that is rising. ABHORSEN The Destroyer is awake and summoning forces more powerful than any before. Can Lirael - newly appointed Abhorsen-in-Waiting - and her small team hope to find the clue that will lead to the downfall of this mighty force? And if so, can they defeat it and save the Old Kingdom from this ultimate evil?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #251701 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Paperback

Review
"[Garth Nix is] the coolest read in the playground." Amanda Craig "Sabriel is a winner, a fantasy that reads like realism. Here is a world with the same solidity and four-dimensional authority as our own, created with invention, clarity and intellience." Philip Pullman "I think Garth Nix has created a really remarkable and persuasive wold, and done it in the grand style of high fantasy and heroic romance, with some wonderful twists and turns. His Sabriel is a heroine truly worthy of that role." Lloyd Alexander "Rich, complex, involving, hard to put down, this first novel is excellent high fantasy." Publishers Weekly "By turns rousing, charming and slyly funny, Sabriel is an engaging tale that slays sexual stereotypes along with its monsters." San Francisco Chronicle "The action charges along at a gallop. A page turner for sure." ALA Booklist "Readers who like their fantasy intense in action, magisterial in scope and apocalyptic in consequences will revel in every word." Kirkus starred review "What makes LIRAEL a delight is the magic that Nix brings to his story and to his characters. It is filled with twists and turns, playful inventiveness and dark magic, and is sure to satisfy his many readers." Locus "At once an allegory regarding war and peace and a testament to friendship, this thought-provoking fantasy also resolves the true identities of the popular Dog and Mogget characters-and suggests that Nix may still have more tricks up his sleeve." Publishers Weekly "Fans will be overjoyed." School Library Journal

From the Publisher
Question and Answer with Garth Nix:

What is your favourite piece of clothing?
My R. M. Williams elastic-sided boots
If you were stranded on a deserted island, what 3 things would you want to have with you?
I presume a satellite phone is out of the question, so:
1. "The How to Survive on a Deserted Island Manual"
2. A knife or machete
3. A very large clear plastic tarpaulin
Describe yourself in 3 words.
Absent-minded writer guy
What time do you get up in the morning?
Usually between 4:45am and 7:00am depending upon my young son. Preferably closer to 7:00am!
Do you have any pets? What are their names?
No pets, unless you count the two swallows that are building a nest under the canopy above my office door. Maybe I should give them names.
What are 3 things you love about where you live?
The sea, the trees, the birds
What makes you most happy?
A cup of tea, a good book and my family around me
Did you like school? What was your favourite subject?
I sometimes liked school. My favourite subject was History. Or maybe English. Or Drama.
When did you start writing and what gave you the inspiration to start?
I started writing stories when I was six or seven, but didn't seriously try to write and get published till I was nineteen.
What do you like to read? And what book are you reading now?
I like to read all sorts of books. I'm currently reading a history of Venice by John Julius Norwich.
What was the first book you can remember reading?
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
What is your favourite TV programme and pop band?
My favourite TV program is an old one, Dr Who. My favourite pop band changes, but I guess my all-time favourite would be The Beatles.
What is your perfect holiday?
Taking it easy at a beach house on the NSW South Coast in late Spring, before lots of people go there
If you could travel back in time, who would you be and why?
I would like to be all sorts of people, but I wouldn't mind being a long-lived, healthy medieval king who died in bed at an advanced age, mourned by all.
What is your favourite food?
Sausages and mash
What would you do if you won the lottery?
Give some of it away, invest the rest in interesting projects like making films, or producing a play, or re-publishing some old books that have disappeared
What is your favourite sport?
Fishing
If you could be invisible for the day, where would you go?
The Invisible Club, though it's a pain to find and you keep bumping into people
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Where I live now, near the beach in Sydney
What is your ideal Saturday/weekend?
To be at home with my family, with no obligation to do anything or be anywhere
If you had 3 wishes from a genie what would it be?
That would depend upon the nature of the wishes. If I could make really big wishes for other people I would wish:
* For everyone in the world to be healthy and vigorous (and if that was too hard for the genie, then I'd try for all children to be healthy and vigorous)
* For all the weapons in the world to turn into flowers
* For everyone to be able to experience compassion and understand kindness
If the wishes had to be for myself, I would wish for:
* A really good singing voice
* Extremely good health for my whole family
* A small very comfortable castle on a large private island in Sydney Harbour

About the Author
Garth Nix was born in 1963 and grew up in Canberra, Australia. After taking his degree in professional writing from the University of Canberra, he worked in a bookshop and then moved to Sydney. There he sank lower into the morass of the publishing industry, steadily devolving from sales rep through publicist until in 1991 he became a senior editor with a major multinational publisher. After a period travelling in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia in 1993, he left publishing to work as a marketing communications consultant . In 1999 he was lured back to the publishing world to become a part-time literary agent. He now lives in Sydney, a five-minute walk from Coogee Beach, with his wife, Anna, and lots of books.

Customer Reviews

Into Death
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.

compelling YA fiction for adults
I bought this book cheaply on a whim, and couldn't put it down. Groan, then there was the wait for the next in the trilogy, Lirael, but it was certainly worth the wait. It seemed centuries before the third book, Abhorsen, made its debut, and that, too, lived up to the anticipation.

So what makes this series so compelling? Complex well-depicted characters, fast-moving plots, a magical world full of surprises. Mr Nix's ideas are just so clever, and he writes with simplicity, of a world that he brings to life. Having said that, I haven't liked much of his other stuff, just this series.

There are 2 worlds in which these books are set - one is magical with necromancers, standing stones of power, walking dead and talking animals; yet over the boundary wall (with its barbed wire, and concerned military) is a country reminiscent of 1940s England. The first and second books both have strong, introverted teenage heroines who have to learn their inherited powers in extremis before disaster strikes, the third book is very much a tidy-up of loose ends, and an answer to background questions, but, by the time, you've read the first two books, you are so sucked-in, you want to know. The writing in all 3 is superb.

So, to summarise, good writing, good characterisation, but you need to read them in series order.

Oh, Nix has since written a couple of others set in the same world - The Creature in the Case, and Across the Wall - A Tale of the Abhorsen and other stories

Better than His Dark Materials
I'm going to go ahead and say it: these books are better than HDM. The reason is that at NO POINT do these characters ever turn into mouthpieces for the authors own agenda, and therefore they are far more convincing to the end. Sabriel is an exciting, orginal piece of fantasy - Lirael and Abhorsen togehter fully deserve the name 'masterpiece'. Not only are we presented with an intensely real and multi-layered fantasy world which leaves you itching to explore, but also truly human characters with quirks, strengths, fears and flaws (even the non-human ones). Mogget and Dog are brilliant creations, at one time the essence of ambiguous cat and loyal dog and also of unhuman supernatural semi-deities. I think that Garth Nix changed the face of children's fantasy with these books, opening the door to the cross-over audience in a way that no other author, even Pullman or Rowling, have done. Complex, welll written and perfectly paced, these books are the cream of the cream of fantasy fiction, and have a permanent place on my shelf.