Despite the best efforts of my parents, I grew up weird. They tried to interest me in wholesome, appropriate activities like horseback riding and ballet and in return I spent hours laying on my floor with my arms crossed over my chest wondering what a grave felt like. I don’t know why I did it. My sister is incredibly (by most standards) “normal,” in the sense of NOT being fascinated by things like death or witchcraft. I can’t tell you why some little girls become Misty of Chincoteague and others become Wednesday Addams. All I know is that I spent a lot of my childhood learning about various afterlifes, mummification, and Victorian memento mori.
My mother, who tried so damn hard to make me “normal,” did her best to keep me in books. She felt books were a safe place for my mind and they kept me out of trouble. I was a voracious reader and devoured any book placed in my hands. My mother was a teacher and would work the yearly Scholastic Book Fair, always squirreling away some books for me. That’s how I think Garth Nix’s Sabriel, one of the foundational books of my life, first found its way into my hands. I don’t think my mother had read the back of the book, or else she would have never given it to me. She saw the paperback cover, recognized it as a fantasy novel in the same vein as the others stacked high in my bedroom, and figured it would be fine.
I was delighted. I remember getting the book with its pretty painted cover, laying on my bed, and opening it to find the one of the best fictional interpretations of death and the afterlife that has ever graced a page. Sabriel is a stunning, inventive fantasy, a heady mix of modern and medieval, but it’s also a fantastic tale on the gentle existence of what comes after we die and where we go. I would eventually go on to read all the books in the Old Kingdom series, but Sabriel remains the crown jewel of the collection. Garth Nix created something so revolutionary that I’m still awestruck by it today. You don’t have to be a weird goth girl like me, who used to put coins over her eyes and wonder what she’d talk about with Charon during the boat ride to the Other Side, to find an appreciation and acceptance of Sabriel’s kind, no-nonsense vision of Death.
Sabriel is the story of the titular Sabriel who is tasked with trying to find her missing father. The only problem is her father is the Abhorsen, the realm’s most powerful necromancer. With his trusty bandoleer of enchanted bells he can raise or put down the dead. He can also step into the cold, clear waters of death itself, walking through a series of gates, deeper and deeper into the underworld. In the beginning of the book, Sabriel is in a girls’ boarding school in the country of Ancelstierre, which feels like a version of 1940s post-war Australia. Her father sends an undead messenger to her, explaining that he’s trapped in the seventh gate of Death and she must now return home to take up the mantle of Abhorsen, rescue him, and save the kingdom from a great and terrible evil.
It’s not your normal, by-the-book fantasy novel and that’s what makes it so incredible. Sabriel is sharp-witted, logically minded, and taciturn. She reminds me of Alanna from Tamora Pierce’s outstanding Tortal series, my other beloved childhood series. There are many fantasy series that feature strong-willed girls, though. There are not so many where that girl is a powerful necromancer who can raise the dead or who can slip into the underworld itself. For me, Sabriel was a dream come true.
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The Seventh Perfection
Leaving her idyllic school behind, Sabriel crosses the Wall that separates Ancelstierre from the Old Kingdom to the north, a land of pure medieval fantasy. Her life is divided between two different places: One modern, one old. One of life, and one of death. She returns home and sets out on an adventure, gathering some of the requisite fantasy companions as she proceeds with her quest. There is Mogget, a talking cat with a shadowy past, as well as a love interest she rescues from being frozen in time on a distant, awful shore. The narrative hits all of the regular fantasy beats and tropes that you would expect, except that everything feels fresh and different in Nix’s capable hands. To a different author, Sabriel and her ilk might be seen as the villains of the story—fantasy is notoriously distrustful of necromancers, people who speak to the dead, and psychopomps. They are so often cast as sinister goths straight out of a Hot Topic clearance section or as mad, tortured souls. In Sabriel, necromancy is seen as just another skill, and death is treated with practicality and kindness.
Death is often caricatured in fiction. It can either be anthropomorphized as a looming, humorless grim reaper, dripping with both evil and malice, or as a big joke, played for laughs to make the concept of death much less scary. Recent decades have given us better, more thoughtful representations of this concept—as a character, Death from Sandman and Death from Discworld are two versions most people are familiar with (and often fond of). Sabriel’s take on the concept of death isn’t personified as a character, and perhaps that’s why it doesn’t get as much attention. I find that to be a shame, because it’s one of my favorite conceptions of what death is, and how it works: Death is nothing to be feared in Sabriel. It is neither good nor bad. It has a purpose to serve, a role to play, but it does not judge and it does not decide who is worthy of compassion or damnation. Sabriel wields her bells and they do her bidding; she is a conduit for death and that is cause for respect. Being the Abhorsen is one of the most important roles in the entire realm, and no one treats her or her family like they are evil or freakish for maintaining the borders between life and death. After a lifetime of reading books that relegated necromancers to sneering, morbid, conniving villains with a bone fetish, Sabriel was truly a breath of fresh air.
Death is a many-faceted thing in this world, and Nix uses it to great effect in order to explore concepts and feelings in a way that feels straightforward, unvarnished, yet graceful. Sabriel is a book about death and it is also a book about loss. Neither are used for cheap shock value or to score emotional points. There aren’t massive plot twists that suddenly blindside the reader. Death is just another feature of life, as a path is part of larger forest. Loss is an inevitable byproduct—not so much a fall-to-your-knees-cursing-the-sky tragedy as it is just an inescapable part of living. It can’t be bargained with, much in the same way you can’t bargain with an ocean or a mountain or the stars. It is poignant, important, and should be treated with respect. Sabriel offers a reverent take on death itself, an understanding born through familiarity. Not right, not wrong…just there, present and inevitable. I find this to be such an important way of seeing death and dying. We live in a society that’s largely terrified by the mere thought of death. which makes processing grief and loss a hard, awkward, isolating road to walk along. We shy away from the idea of death and what it represents, and people who consider it with interest and not fear are considered to be violating a kind of taboo (or at the very least, accused of being rather weird). Sabriel instilled in me a frank, compassionate way of looking at death as something to be understood and accepted, not something to be afraid of.
In the world of SFF, necromancers have earned a bit more respect in recent years. Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon and Harrow of the storied, grim Ninth House have taken the idea of necromancy and death and woven them into a story where bone magic and skeletons are just a normal part of an average day. Our girl Sabriel walked so that Gideon could run (and swagger, and snark). Sabriel showed that death doesn’t always have to be the end—it can sometimes be the entire story, in its own right.
I wish that Sabriel was more widely celebrated, both in fantasy circles and beyond. It’s a beautiful novel, and the Old Kingdom series is full of inventive magic and wonderful characters that will stick with you for the rest of your days. In a perfect world it would have its own lavish Netflix miniseries and a companion tabletop RPG handbook by now. There’s just something about early and mid-’90s fantasy—too late to be deemed a “classic” and too early to have been swept along with the cultural explosion of YA fiction that began a few years later. It’s an oddly purgatorial time period in that many of excellent series from those years remain largely unsung by the mainstream, though championed by devoted acolytes. I could say much the same about Pierce’s Tortal, Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles, or even Brian Jacques’ Redwall, which was quite popular in its day but seems less visible now.
If you haven’t read Garth Nix’s Sabriel, I implore you to go grab a copy. Grab the whole series. Dive into the fascinating juxtaposition of modern-day, magic-less Ancelstierre and the medieval fantasy splendor of the Old Kingdom. Take up the bandolier of bells and wade into the river of death; find compassion in its currents, and come out a little less afraid and a little more curious. You won’t regret it.
Meghan Ball is a writer who enjoys playing guitar and spending way too much time on Twitter. You can find her there at @EldritchGirl. She currently lives in a weird part of New Jersey.
I love Sabriel, so much that I’ve figured out how I would story board it for a movie, and it remains one of my favorite books that I love to read but also hate rereading because it’s so tense that I can’t stand it.
But, maybe I’m not the person who should be commentating because as a girl I loved horseback riding, ballet and figure skating — so not weird enough as a girl who reread Misty of Chincoteague over and over again — even though I loved fantasy novels and tv shows and was interested in witchcraft and death too. Playing out an old jocks vs geeks trope is boring even when it’s dressed as horse girls vs goths.
Although I was a horse girl, I adored Sabriel and its world from the first reading, and it’s a book (and series) I’ve revisited many times since my childhood. Thanks for highlighting it!
I love the whole Abhorsen series. I have introduced my teenage grandsons to it and they love it too, especially the 14-year-old who enjoys monsters and death.
Have you tried any Discworld books? A lot of them have elements about death (and Death the ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION), and treat the subject quite well.
There’s Reaper Man, where Death goes AWOL for a while (and sort-of becomes involved with an old lady). While Death is away, nothing dies, but the book is rather moving at the end as it describes the world going back to normal: there’s a slightly nightmarish quality to the world without Death, like a party where people would rather like to go home because they’re tired, but can’t.
There’s Mort, where Death takes an apprentice. Who later gets married, and Death considers the child Susan as his grand-daughter.
Death likes curries, and cats, and occasionally tries to give his clients moments of consolation (which don’t necessarily go well). He has a sense of responsibility in whatever job is put in front of him, and takes it seriously.
Including in Hogfather, where he has to fill in for Father Christmas who has gone missing.
Whenever Death has to temporarily leave his duties, Susan (who is level-headed to a fault and isn’t afraid of any creatures of darkness like zombies, banshees or bogeymen) takes over for a while.
I love Sabriel and the Abhorsen Chronicles but find it a little jarring to refer to Sabriel as a necromancer since necromancers are clearly the enemies of the Abhorsens. The Abhorsens have their own role which is fascinating and complex around Death and simplifying them down to necromancers feels off to me. Also I agree on how the imagery of Death in these books is striking and amazing. Otherwise, I agree and love all that you’re saying here. This world is one of my favorites for its complexity and the great characters.
I have a cat named Mogget and had my only child been a girl, naming her would have been impossible, how could I choose between naming her Sabriel or Saraneth???
These books definitely played a big role in shaping my young adult life.
Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?
you know, we could put our heads together and write that rpg sourcebook…
a while back i created a “wizard school of the abhorsen” for this purpose, for my wife to play a character like sabriel in our homebrew:
https://questfriendsgaming.com/2018/07/30/dd-homebrew-wizard-school-of-the-abhorsen/
I love these books so much, I named the first dog I got as an adult Kibeth (she’s rather too well named).
I think this is a bit too strong. Necromancy doesn’t *have* to be used for evil, but it *usually* is — the Abhorsens are exceptional.
IIRC, there’s a line from the book that goes something like “I am a necromancer, but not of the common sort”, which pretty clearly establishes that there *is* a common sort and he doesn’t want to be confused with one.
Well, *now* there are. When Pierce was first writing, not so much. I wonder who the weird little girls reading the Locked Tomb series this year are going to grow up into? And what will *they* write? I hope to live long enough to find out.
BTW, if you’re looking for more books about young women with kinda creepy powers, I really enjoyed both _Something Strange and Deadly_ and _Children of Blood and Bone_ (although they’re quite different from each other and from _Sabriel_, so tastes may vary).
Sabriel is my favorite book ever, and this is a great tribute to it. I too picked it up from a middle school scholastic book fair at age 13, 2 years after it was originally published. It remains my favorite book to this day and I’ve read it over 20 times in the last 23 years. I actually own 4 copies of it, including one Garth signed for me. It’s always nice to hear other people love this book as much as I do.
I loved the entire series, and introduced my husband to them as well. We recently sent the set to our nephew and nieces and are eagerly awaiting the time when our son is old enough for them. And I agree, I would love to see it turned into a miniseries!
I can’t tell you why some little girls become Misty of Chincoteague and others become Wednesday Addams.
Since the titular Misty was actually a horse, that might not be goth but it would still be pretty magical.
I have been a Garth Nix fan for years, I love this book and the whole series. I’m glad to see it getting recognized and I hope more people will check it out. I would also throw in that Tim Curry reads the audio books for the original trilogy and its pretty awesome! I think most of the Garth Nix books would make great anime, like studio Ghibli stuff.
I highly recommend seeking out Garth Nix’s Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz stories as well.
Can anyone tell me about the artist for these covers?
The original cover art is by Leo and Diane Dillon.
I came to this series as a woman grown and can testify that it electrified me as much as it has electrified younger readers. I will say that, while the way Nix portrays death itself as ultimately rather peaceful and beautiful, his descriptions of the undead things greedy to return to life (whether raised by necromancers or dead necromancers themselves) are terrifying. One of the early scenes in Sabriel fit that to a tee.
(My google-fu tells me that Sabriel apparently means “A Hero of God,” which … seems relevant. Lirael, on the other hand, fetches up no particular meaning. It’s just beautiful. Both names remind me of the titles given to various types of angels, although that may just be me.)
@Wub “Have you tried any Discworld books? A lot of them have elements about death (and Death the ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION), and treat the subject quite well.”
Did you read the essay? She literally talks about this in the seventh paragraph.