This being fantasy, first cousin to fairytales and heir to human dreams, you can be almost certain that she will. HarperCollins Children’s Books 2003 (1995).Ī young woman finds herself thrust into a task that she feels unprepared for, and of course you have to hope that, despite the odds, she succeeds. So it is with Lirael, the second in the series. From fairytales through myth and on to much classic literature we all like a pleasing narrative where good, despite the odds stacked against it, overcomes evil in the end and all deserving souls live, for the foreseeable future, happily ever after.
SHORT OLD KINGDOM TALES SERIES
In Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series that sense of predestination is encapsulated in the question “Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?” Now while many abhor such casual predetermining of individual or collective futures by Fate (or whatever one chooses to call it) there is no denying that as a plot device in fantasy it can be not only a successful but also satisfying way of ensuring that karma catches up with individuals and justice in all its forms is seen to be done. With backgrounds such as these the notion of prophecy looms large, even saws and sayings become significant determinants which one defies at peril or at least with little success. It’s hardly surprising – it shares this principle with fairytale, with mythology, with religion, whether Fate is called a fairy godmother, a god or any other kind of demiurge. Much of fantasy is founded on the principle of Fate taking a hand in deciding future outcomes. Romano-British mosaic fragment, British Museum (2013)ĭoes the walker choose the path, or the path the walker? Continue reading “The mask of hindsight” →
But, increasingly, she finds herself hemmed in by circumstances and political machinations and, to add to the usual teenage growing pains, she is subject to virtually uncontrollable rages when she is pushed towards and beyond the threshold of her dangerous temper. We then cut to young Clariel who has been brought against her will to this byzantine metropolis by her parents when all she wants to do is live a life in the Great Forest. Set centuries before the events Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen, Nix’s novel opens unprepossessingly with an old fisherman, Marral, who beachcombs the shore in front of the city of Belisaere, but who then picks up an object he shouldn’t. You’d think, with Clariel preceding the action in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy, that it would be easy to predict the way events will go, and that the end result is a foregone conclusion. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when it comes to prequels. Not Charter Stones but Haverfordwest’s gorsedd circle for the 1972 National Eisteddfod And what else is it that binds the fates of these two resourceful young women? Is her mission linked with the troubles Lirael is facing further south? You can guarantee it. Meanwhile, in the far north of the Old Kingdom a young woman named Ferin is being pursued by malevolent beings who track her flight to the south.
SHORT OLD KINGDOM TALES PLUS
When the Abhorsen Sabriel (focus of the first book in the series) decides to take a well-earned honeymoon with King Touchstone, young Lirael is left in charge to take responsibility for dealing with reanimated dead creatures plus a Free Magic entity which suddenly emerges to create a crisis to the south of the Wall. Lirael, the sympathetic protagonist of the second of the novels, is now Abhorsen-in-Waiting and a powerful Charter Magic necromancer.
This isn’t to detract from the otherwise masterful storytelling which had this reader continually tempted to read just a few more pages, and perhaps a little bit more after that or from the convincing worldbuilding that has suffused and sustained the Old Kingdom sequence now for five novels and a couple of novellas. If in the end I was disappointed it was in the actual execution of those resolutions, which felt a bit perfunctory in the last few chapters.
What I didn’t see coming were the inklings of young love, not once but twice, but what I did hope for were resolutions of threads that had been left slightly hanging from previous books in the series, and in this I was not disappointed. The Sham Castle, Bathampton, Bath from an old postcardĪs I would expect from one of Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom novels Goldenhand is chockful of suspense, bravery and fortitude.
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