Garth Nix

Page Updated: 20/09/02

Garth Nix

Sabriel

02 Sep 02

by Garth Nix

About the Author

Bibliography

First British Edition HarperCollins (2002)

Sabriel
This breathtaking, multi-award winning novel is the first in a trilogy from a brilliant writer. As a small child, Sabriel is sent across the Wall of the Old Kingdom to the safety of a school in Ancelstierre: away from magic; away from the Dead. But her father is Abhorsen, so Magic is in her blood, and death is never far away.
One day, her life is disrupted by the visit of a messenger who has been sent from Death. With him he brings her father’s tools those of a necromancer. At once, she realises that her father has been trapped in Death and his only chance of escape back to Life is through her. She crosses over Wall into the Old Kingdom to begin her dangerous quest.
Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants and Shadow Hands. She soon learns that she has inherited her father’s title of Abhorsen, and that with the title go the duties and responsibilities of guarding the living from the evil of Free Magic and from the Dead who return to life.
She travels over the border into the icy river of Death, battling the evil forces that lurk there and waiting for an opportunity to escape back into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible challenges whilst discovering her own supernatural abilities - and her destiny.
`Sabriel is a winner, a fantasy that reads like realism. Here is a world with the same solidity and four-dimensional authority as our own, created with invention, clarity and intelligence.’ Philip Pullman
`Rich, complex, involving, hard to put down, this first novel is excellent high fantasy.’ Publishers Weekly
`The action charges along at a gallop. A page turner for sure.’ ALA Booklist
`By turns rousing, involving, charming, and slyly funny, Sabriel is an engaging tale that slays sexual stereotypes along with its monsters’ San Francisco Chronicle

About The Author
Garth Nix was born in 1963 and grew up in Canberra, the federal capital of Australia. After working briefly for the Australian Government, Garth took a long holiday in Europe, returning in 1983 to study for a BA (Professional Writing) from the University of Canberra. Around this time, he also put in four years as a part-time soldier (‘weekend warrior’) with the Australian Army Reserve.
After graduating, he worked in a bookshop for some time, then moved to Sydney, where he sank lower into the morass of the publishing industry, steadily devolving from sales rep through to publicist, until in 1991 he became a senior editor. He then went travelling round Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia in 1993, returning to Sydney in 1994 to work as a PR and marketing consultant. He left this job in 1998 to become a full-time writer and also currently works part-time as a literary agent for Curtis Brown.
Garth now lives in Coogee, five minutes walk from the beach, with his wife Anna, a book editor, and lots of books. His recreational interests include fishing, bodysurfing, collecting books of all kinds, reading, films, writing and lunch.
Sabriel won both the ‘Best Fantasy Novel’ and ‘Best YA Novel’ in the 1995 Aurealis Awards. It is also an American Library Association (ALA) Notable Book, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a CBCA Notable Book, a LOCUS magazine Recommended Fantasy novel, listed in 1997 Books for the Teenage (NY Public Library), listed in Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (VOYA) and it was shortlisted for six US State awards.

Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Sabriel (HarperCollins, 2002) Sep 02