Sabriel

September 29, 1997
PW gave a starred review to this Australian fantasy about a young necromancer, calling it "rich, complex, involving, hard to put down." Ages 12-up.

September 1, 1996
Gr 6 Up-This vividly imagined fantasy pits a young necromancer against a shambling horde of deliciously gruesome minions of an unspeakably evil sorcerer. Raised in peaceful Ancelstierre, where magic is weak and technology has reached the level of automobiles and flying machines, teenaged Sabriel suddenly receives evidence that her wandering father is no longer in the Land of the Living. She sets out to find him, though it means crossing over into the Old Kingdom, where time and the very stars are different, and then past the Gates of Death. Sabriel is no stranger to these dangerous domains, but she quickly learns that the physical and magical walls erected to keep the living and dead separate are nearly broken down. With the help of a depressed, half-blood prince who has spent the last two centuries as a wooden statue and a seeming cat who is actually a powerful magical creature, the young woman evades a thicket of traps and hazards to rescue her father-only to lose him permanently in the opening rounds of a vicious, wild climax. Nix fills in the background with inventively developed details. Though he doesn't handle every element with equal skill, his monsters are scary and repulsive, his sense of humor is downright sneaky, and he puts his competent but not superhuman heroine through engrossing physical and emotional wringers. This book is guaranteed to keep readers up way past their bedtimes.-John Peters, New York Public Library

Starred review from October 1, 1996
Gr. 7^-12. The mage Abhorsen is an "uncommon necromancer," who, rather than raising the dead like others of the art, lays the dead back to rest or binds those that will not rest. Sabriel, his daughter, has been sent for her safety to boarding school outside the Old Kingdom, where she is in her last year when she receives her father's sword and necromancy tools, which means that Abhorsen is either dead or trapped in the realm of Death. Determined to find her father, Sabriel enters the Old Kingdom, which is under attack from the minions of Kerrigor, an evil being who once was human. There, with the aid of Mogget, a Free Magic elemental who is bound in feline form to be the servant of Abhorsen, and Touchstone, a young man whose past harbors a terrible secret, Sabriel goes up against Dead spirits, Shadow Hands, gore crows, and the like, in a desperate quest to find her father's body and fetch his spirit back from Death. Nix has created an ingenious, icy world in the throes of chaos as Kerrigor works to destroy the Charter that binds all things for the good of the land and its inhabitants. The action charges along at a gallop, imbued with an encompassing sense of looming disaster. Sabriel, who entered the Old Kingdom lacking much of the knowledge she needs, proves to be a stalwart heroine, who, in the end, finds and accepts her destiny. A page-turner for sure, this intricate tale compares favorably with Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass" and will surely appeal to the same audience. ((Reviewed Oct. 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 2, 1996
Sabriel is her last year at Wyverley College, a private school in Ancelstierre, where Magic does not work, but near the Border with the Old Kingdom, where it does. She and her father are also highly skilled necromancers, who fight the dead who seek to return to Life. But when her father is somehow trapped in Death, she must journey into the Old Kingdom to find him. She does not know that it is wracked by struggle (like that in Ursula LeGuin's The Farthest Shore)-a magician has brought chaos by refusing to die and hopes to use Sabriel and her father to further consolidate his power. Sabriel goes on a long journey throughout a densely imagined world, learning as she goes, and meeting such strange characters as Mogget, a raging natural force contained in the shape of a cat. She also develops a relationship with Touchstone, a young man who turns out to be as crucially involved as she is. Although Sabriel is possessed of much heavy knowledge ("A year ago, I turned the final page of The Book of the Dead. I don't feel young any more"), she is still a teenager and vulnerable where her father and love for Touchstone are concerned, making her a sympathetic heroine. Rich, complex, involving, hard to put down, this first novel, an Australian import, is excellent high fantasy. The suitably climactic ending leaves no loose ends, but readers will hope for a sequel. Ages 12-up.