Fancy being a necromancer? (Lirael - Garth Nix)

Member Name: chrisandmark

Product:	Lirael - Garth Nix
Date:	07/06/05 (373 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A gripping read, Written by a fantastic author

Disadvantages: None at all

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(and Sabriel) is set in an almost medieval land and time, two lands are separated by a huge long wall; the not quite as out of date Ancelstierre and The Old Kingdom. In this ancient land all types of magical beings live and battles are constantly being fought between good and evil. Time has moved on since 'Sabriel' and Sabriel herself is now the Abhorsan and married to the king with two children. The Abhorsans role is to defeat the Dead which roam almost unchecked in The Old Kingdom by use of magical necromancer bells and complicated Charter spells. Each time word (via a speaking message hawk) is delivered to the Abhorsan about troubles caused by the Dead she takes off in one of her fleet of Paperwings, letting the magical aircraft take her to the source of the trouble.

Lirael gets brought into it as a Daughter of the Clayr, a massive community of women who can see possible futures. The problem is Lirael can't 'See'. Oh she's not blind but in a way she is; she feels like an outcast at fourteen because she doesn't have the Sight and has to wear the childs uniform of the Clayr, a blue ankle length tunic rather than the shiny white and gold gown of the Sighted Clayr. She is, however, adept at Charter magic. Charter magic is what's used by the good people of The Old Kingdom, of course it can be used to cause harm but the Clayr are peace loving people preferring to keep the Free Magic (and usually highly evil) creatures gripped in a sleeping spell rather than destroying them. And there are Free Magic creatures aplenty, most of them bent on the destruction of The Old Kingdom and the Abhorsan. Lirael gets herself into all sorts of scrapes during the course of her employment in the huge Clayr library, and it is because of these scrapes and the way she has used Charter magic to get herself out of trouble that leads the Clayr to send her out to deal with what could be the biggest threat The Old Kingdom has ever faced.

This is a wonderful book. From page one I was gripped, wanting to know what would happen to Lirael now and how she'd cope with the pressures that were on her to complete her quest. Despite being a childrens book it's very dark and quite occult-ish in its portrayals of the various magical beings that inhabit The Old Kingdom. Places and people are described in such a way that I could actually picture them in my head as I was reading, combine this with beautiful names such as Lirael herself, Ellimere, Vancelle and Ryelle and you really can immerse yourself in the tale and imagine what life in The Old Kingdom would be like.

Garth Nix is a wonderful author, he has the ability to make you see what he's writing about without going down the route of 'the black cat with green eyes sat on the blonde womans shoulder' which is common to a lot of childrens books I've read. I started to read Lirael to my seven year old but it was too adult in content and language to hold her interest for long, various pages in the book that I read to her while I was reading were well received though. There's nothing in Lirael that would be unsuitable for older children, death is dealt with in a appropriate manner and not particularly dwelt on. Obviously because the book is about necromancers and the Dead there is a lot of death in the story but it's not all blood and guts, the descriptions of the death scenes aren't graphic enough to give your little darlings nightmares!

What can I liken Lirael to? If I'd actually read any of the Harry Potter books I could possibly say it was a similar style to those. But I haven't. To my embarressment I've never read Lord of the Rings either but I'd say this book is very similar to the film trilogy, I watched the first LotR film and it was this I could picture as I was reading - the rolling hills, odd creatures skulking about, the famous battle scenes.

It would probably help if you were to read Sabriel first as a lot of the words and phrases used in Lirael are explained fully in this first book, if I'd not read Sabriel I'd have had no idea what an Abhorsan was and would have been left confused although the meaning would have come apparent while reading Lirael. While Sabriel wrapped up nicely, Lirael is full of loose ends. When I had about 20 pages of the book left to read I had the sinking feeling that there wasn't enough pages left to tie to story together. That's the beauty of it, it isn't tied together and the ending of Lirael made me want to get the final installment of the trilogy to find out what happened.

I apologise for the overuse of the word 'magical' in this review, but quite simply this is a magical book. I couldn't put the book down, when I was on the last 100 pages it went everywhere with me; to read in the car outside school when I was waiting for the kids to come out, to the doctors for in the waiting room, even to the gym so I could find out what was happening in The Old Kingdom while I was on the exercise bike!

Buy or borrow this book, I promise you can't go wrong. I'm currently on the waiting list at the library to re-read Sabriel and then the last in the trilogy, Abhorsan. The hardback edition is available for £12.99 from WHSmiths or any decent book shop - keep your eye on Garth Nix, he could well be the next big thing.

ISBN 0 00 713732 X

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