Lirael - Garth Nix

If there’s one enduringly popular genre for children and adults alike it’s that whole sword and sorcerer thing. Over the years I’ve had mixed experiences myself. I’ve tried Raymond E Feist and not really taken to it; Tolkien was something of a disaster as I found the Hobbit almost unreadable whilst the infusion of horror through Clive Barker left me cautiously optimistic that I may like this genre after all. I will qualify this by saying I’ve yet to try Philip Pullman who comes highly recommended. That heady mix of ancient lands, strange almost biblical/far Eastern sounding names and layer upon layer of mystical magic that nobody really quite understands should be a ...

About 12 months ago I read a book by Garth Nix called Sabriel about a young necromancer in a fantasy land who fought adventures with the Dead (and even the Greater Dead) by going into Death itself. It was a good book, not great, just good. Lirael is the next part in The Old Kingdom Trilogy, following on from when we met Sabriel and her father. I picked it up in the library out of curiosity more than anything, in my opinion Sabriel had been taken as far as she could possibly go in the previous book so I was interested to find out what Lirael was all about. I read the 527 page book in 3 days. It's fantastic. Lirael (and Sabriel) is set in an almost ...

I acquired Lirael by accident really, but the story has got me hooked on Garth Nix's writing. As it is the sequel to Sabriel, I was initially unsure about reading it before first reading Sabriel; but then I didn't want to buy Sabriel and find that I didn't like either book. So that settled it and I just got on with reading Lirael. The story is set in a magical land called the Old Kingdom, which borders with the more normal Ancelstierre; a land without magic. Where the people of Ancelstierre use modern mechanics, the people of the Old kingdom use what is called charter magic. Lirael is born a daughter of the Clayr, a people ...