Product Description

E-book extra: "How I Write," Garth Nix's statement on his craft.



Book One of the Sabriel-Lirael-Abhorsen Trilogy.

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 Mage Abhorsen, 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....

Book II: Lirael; Book III: Abhorsen (January 2003)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13968 in eBooks
• Published on: 2001-05-15
• Released on: 2001-05-15
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

Amazon.com Review
After receiving a cryptic message from her father, Abhorsen, a necromancer trapped in Death, 18-year-old Sabriel sets off into the Old Kingdom. Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants, and Shadow Hands. Unlike other necromancers, who raise the dead, Abhorsen lays the disturbed dead back to rest. This obliges him--and now Sabriel, who has taken on her father's title and duties--to slip over the border into the icy river of Death, sometimes battling the evil forces that lurk there, waiting for an opportunity to escape into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father, and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the horrible forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible exhaustion, violent confrontations, and terrifying challenges to her supernatural abilities--and her destiny.

Garth Nix delves deep into the mystical underworld of necromancy, magic, and the monstrous undead. This tale is not for the faint of heart; imbedded in the classic good-versus-evil story line are subplots of grisly ghouls hungry for human life to perpetuate their stay in the world of the living, and dark, devastating secrets of betrayal and loss. Just try to put this book down. For more along this line, try Nix's later novel: Shade's Children. (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 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
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Amazing
I love this book! I am 20 years old and I read this book in the 8th grade. It was awesome. I have read it, along with the rest of the trilogy every summer since then. It has everything I love about book taking you away in a fantasy world. I liked how there was a love story under the main story line. I still recommend this book to my family and friends who want to add a great book to their collection. You will not be disappointed! At least I hope not :)
~EG

Sabriel Audio CD - Garth Nix - Read by Tim Curry
What a fabulous tale!

Having read all of Garth Nix's trilogy ('Sabriel', 'Lirael' and 'Abhorsen'), as well as his collection of short stories 'Tales From Across The Wall', and having enjoyed them all thoroughly, I was thrilled to find 'Sabriel' available on CD, read by the legendary Tim Curry beautifully narrating such a dark and intriguing story. A fantastic tale detailing the life of a young girl with a dark path set out in front of her for which she is not prepared and only half willing to follow, it is a must read/hear for children and adults alike. I pre-ordered it as soon as I found it due for release, shipping it all the way over to the UK, and I am eagerly awaiting the release of 'Lirael' and 'Abhorsen' on CD so I can sit back and enjoy them as much as I continue to enjoy 'Sabriel'.

changed my view
This book changed my view of science fiction/fantasy books forever - an instant favorite for me! I can't analyze it as critically as I'd like, but I enjoyed it, and I'll always make sure its on my bookshelf!