Read All The Books Aaaaaah! discussion

There are a lot of nice alternate fan covers made for this book, but this official Anniversary one's pretty nice, too.

I've read short stories by Garth Nix, but this will be the first novel of his I've read.

Judging from this, and the Sir Hereward & Mr Fitz stories, it seems Nix likes to have very formal, contractual magic, involving people reading off speeches that sound like legalese in order to cast their spells. I'm not sure if the two series take place in the same world or not.

The world setting is a little confusing, in that it's definitely not taking place in any real-world countries, but the text mentions that Sabriel's school badge has a Roman numeral on it, and the lettering on a sign is described as mock-Gothic.

Coincidentally, a girl just showed up in this book named Jacinth, and in the last book I read one of the main characters was Jacynth.

I like this. This is one of the kinds of writing styles I like, and everything has been interesting and engaging so far. No tedious sections, no matter what she's doing or thinking. I also like how each of the bells has a name and does a specific thing when rung.

The game American McGee's Alice was published 5 years after this book. I suspect that that version of the Cheshire Cat character was partially inspired by Mogget (the free-magic creature that takes the form of a cat, and acts as guide for Sabriel) from this book. The personality of McGee's Cheshire Cat seems closer to Mogget than to the original Cheshire Cat, and they both speak the line "ride the wind", which the original Cheshire Cat does not.

A surprising scene of adult angst -- more than I expected for the way this book is marketed -- when Sabriel hears her love interest having sex with some random maid through the walls.

They're in a large, bustling city, but part of it is sectioned off because it's been taken over by the dead. That's the setup of the SSI game Pool of Radiance!

All done, and overall, I'm pleased. I really liked that climax and ending.

I was thinking I would rate this 5 stars, but there are a couple of things that bring it down just a little.

Now, I like the world in this book. It's interesting and has a lot of cool, unique elements. We don't see very much of it, but that's fine. I don't care much for excessive travelling. What we have here are essentially two worlds divided by a border, where time of day, season, weather, etc. are different on each side. One side is sort of early 1900s level tech and society, and the other is old-fashioned society and magic.

However, there was no explanation given for why technology, even extremely simple technology like explosives, would stop working when you're too close to the Old Kingdom, or when the wind blows too strongly from that side. And it just doesn't make sense why, say, a bomb, or gunpowder in a gun, or gas in an engine, would fail to ignite in the same world where they have matches, candles and lanterns that use the same kind of chemical reactions, not to mention a SUN which is a giant fusion reactor, and basically everything else in the world that depends on basic chemical reactions to be alive. Unless there's an actual conscious godlike being presiding over everything and picking and choosing when it's okay for a particular chemical reaction to work, and when not, then it just doesn't make sense for technology to fail, because it runs on the exact same laws of physics that living things do. Going the other way is fine. Let magic not work when you're too far into the tech world. But tech should always work.

The other complaint was the character development. We get some nice moments, and some good emotional parts, but there were a good number of times when we should have gotten more insight into the characters. Nix even jumped into a couple of other characters' heads on rare occasions, so that would have been a great time to do it.

Also, the dénouement is extremely brief. The epilogue ends in the middle of the smoking remains of the climactic battle. We don't get to see what happens with any of the characters afterward. We never even find out Touchstone's real name!

Other than that, it was an excellent book with nice prose, never dry or dull, with plenty of good ideas, so it's an easy 4 stars! ★★★★☆