I've finished Garth Nix's 'Abhorsen' and I have to say it's such a triffic book.
Looking back over the whole trilogy, 'Sabriel' is a bit of a taster; it introduces the world and it's creatures, the magic and it's laws.
'Lirael' and 'Abhorsen' are one story broken over two books (a bit of a bummer if you can only find one of them).
'Lirael' was great because it introduced some great new characters; the heroine of the title, who should be a seer but can't; Sam, the son of the Abhorsen (the person who makes sure people stay dead, among other things), who seems unable to rise to his inherited position of Abhorsen-in-waiting; and the Disreputable Dog, a primordial magic creature who looks, acts and woofs like a dog.
In 'Abhorsen', the world is about to be destroyed, Lirael and Sam discover their true roles in life, we find out what the Disreputable Dog really is, and Mogget (an evil magic creature who has been enslaved to serve the Abhorsen, in the shape of a white cat) redeems himself.
The characters are so much more three-dimensional by the third novel. The Dead are more yucky, the good guys are more interesting and the evil ones are more scary. The trips into Death are fascinating (this Nix guy is amazinly imaginative!). Mogget does a 'Spike' - after having been a cat for thousands of years, he's come to like the world exactly as it is.
Other good things about the trilogy - his female characters are really strong (and no armoured-bikini in sight, but that might be because it's teen fiction) and their names are easy to pronounce (no strange hyphenated ones).
I'm hooked. I'm now reading 'Mister Monday', from his children's fantasy series 'The Keys to the Kingdom'.
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