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Summary
Summary
Award-winning author Garth Nix returns to the Old Kingdom with a thrilling prequel complete with dark magic, royalty, dangerous action, a strong heroine, and flawless world building. This epic fantasy adventure is destined to be a classic and is perfect for fans of Rae Carson, Kristin Cashore, Scott Westerfeld, and Cassandra Clare.
Clariel is the daughter of one of the most notable families in the Old Kingdom, with blood relations to the Abhorsen and, most important, to the King. She dreams of living a simple life but discovers this is hard to achieve when a dangerous Free Magic creature is loose in the city, her parents want to marry her off to a killer, and there is a plot brewing against the old and withdrawn King Orrikan. When Clariel is drawn into the efforts to find and capture the creature, she finds hidden sorcery within herself, yet it is magic that carries great dangers. Can she rise above the temptation of power, escape the unwanted marriage, and save the King?
Reviews (2)
Horn Book Review
Six centuries before the events of Sabriel (rev. 1/97), Lirael (rev. 7/01), and Abhorsen (rev. 3/03), circumstances in the Old Kingdom are vastly different: the addled king refuses to rule; the Abhorsen neglects his duty to fight the resurrected dead; and treacherous Governor Kilp presides over capitol city Belisaere. Seventeen-year-old Clariel (who is related to both the royal and Abhorsen families, and thus a distant ancestor of Sabriel and Lirael), feeling claustrophobic in the bustling capitol, wants nothing more than to live in the Great Forest--until Kilp murders her parents and abducts Clariel to establish her as a puppet queen. Clariel's grief and fury get the best of her, leading her into a devil's deal for revenge with manipulative cat-creature Mogget (a mainstay character of the other novels) and two sinister Free Magic beings. This prequel is a tonal departure; Clariel is both less likable and less noble-minded than her heroic kinswomen, and this is not a story of selflessly protecting the kingdom but rather of the protagonist's unwitting, gradual corruption. Series fans anticipating answers about Clariel's transformation from duped young woman into powerful necromancer Chlorr of the Mask (or about Mogget's own story) will not get them here: Nix writes in his author's note, "As to what [Clariel] did in the intervening years...who can say?" But those same fans will treasure this long-awaited opportunity to return to a much-loved world, built with as much originality and richness as ever. katie bircher (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Selfishness and betrayal provoke inexorable tragedy in this dark prequel to a beloved fantasy trilogy.All Clariel wants is a solitary life in the Great Forest, but her mother's status in the powerful guilds, along with her connections to the royal and Abhorsen families, requires Clariel to stay in the capital, plagued with etiquette lessons and trapped in a loathsome betrothal. When her parents, tutors and even her friends play her for a pawn, Clariel can barely hold back her fury, and she seizes an opportunity to escape by helping capture a monstereven though she feels the deadly allure of its Free Magic. While familiarity with Nix's Old Kingdom series isn't necessary, it certainly adds depth, though its fans will be well-aware that Clariel's story can have no happy ending. More shocking is the vicious portrait of the magical realm at its peak of prosperity: savage inequality inciting social breakdown, king and mage alike abandoning their responsibilities, and respect for the Charter diminished. Hostile and self-centered, Clariel makes an interesting (if not entirely likable) protagonist; her depiction as (emphatically!) asexual and aromantic is refreshing, despite the problematic implied link to being anti-social and aloof. Still, readers will hurt with her as she longs passionately for freedom, rages at her enforced helplessness, snatches at desperate bad choices, and claws after a faint, bittersweet redemption.A thunderstorm of a tale, bitter and brutal but dazzling in its ferocity. (Fantasy. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
