Sunday, March 14, 2004

It's all about keeping the Dead from coming back

I finished reading ‘Sabriel’ today. It took so long because I’m also reading ‘The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy’, ‘Fighting the Forces : what’s at stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, ‘Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home’ (the one about the history of Chinese migration to the US) and, of course, the thick wad of readings related to my MLIS study – all at the same time.

Anyway…I thought it was pretty clever to add Chapter 1 of the sequel onto the end of ‘Sabriel’. The ending of the book was quite abrupt, prompting me to want to know what happens to her next. Discovering an excerpt of the next book was at first a pleasant surprise (because I might find out), then a slight feeling of disappointment (because Sabriel appears to be not in the sequel). That makes me want to read ‘Lirael’ anyway, just to find out what the situation is.

I’d never known what necromancy was, and ‘Sabriel’ gave me quite a good idea of the gist of it. (Obviously, fantasy writers are going to make the details of necromancy very different from each other’s.) What intrigued me were the tools used to put the Dead in their rightful place – bells. It must take a lot of practice to avoid ringing them accidentally, eh?

It’s also a bit of a coming-of-age tale, with our heroine (at the relatively ripe old age of 19) learning about her destiny, her powers and responsibility, and boys. I like Mogget – the Free Magic creature who is really clever and useful when trapped in his cat body, but dangerous and hateful when released. He kind of reminded me of the character of Angel in BtVS, actually.

Yesterday I came home with 'Tales of the Slayer : Volume 3'. Yes, I've succumbed to reading tv series-based fiction.

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