Review of 'Abhorsen' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Maybe 3.5 stars, but I'm feeling generous. Certainly improved over [b: Lirael|47624|Lirael (Abhorsen, #2)|Garth Nix|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266458951l/47624.SY75.jpg|2067752], if only because it has a story with an actual plot and ending (albeit carried over from the previous book). Oddly, like its predecessor, however, the book's title implies that the story is about one person when in fact it is primarily about another. I'm not sure who's responsible for naming these books—whether Nix or someone at his publisher or perhaps a Shadow Hand stuck in a cubicle somewhere—but the titles of the second and third volumes of this series leave a lot to be desired.
Now that I've gotten to the end, I can't help but think that the story itself suffers from the absurdity of the escalation. It's the same sort of thing that happens in TV shows, where the Big Bad gets bigger each season, until the showrunners have …
Maybe 3.5 stars, but I'm feeling generous. Certainly improved over [b: Lirael|47624|Lirael (Abhorsen, #2)|Garth Nix|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266458951l/47624.SY75.jpg|2067752], if only because it has a story with an actual plot and ending (albeit carried over from the previous book). Oddly, like its predecessor, however, the book's title implies that the story is about one person when in fact it is primarily about another. I'm not sure who's responsible for naming these books—whether Nix or someone at his publisher or perhaps a Shadow Hand stuck in a cubicle somewhere—but the titles of the second and third volumes of this series leave a lot to be desired.
Now that I've gotten to the end, I can't help but think that the story itself suffers from the absurdity of the escalation. It's the same sort of thing that happens in TV shows, where the Big Bad gets bigger each season, until the showrunners have painted themselves into a corner. In Sabriel, the title character had to fight and defeat one of the Greater Dead; however, by Lirael and Abhorsen, the fight is against an entity called The Destroyer, who can unmake all life and existence itself. There could have been a way to ease into it further, giving Lirael more of a (realistic, IMO) Sabriel-esque journey, but that didn't happen.
I also should bring up something that has bugged me a bit with Nix's writing, but which hit a peak in this book: His tendency to use words and phrases that come out of very specific events, persons/groups, or products. An example from an earlier book is when Nix describes Touchstone as a berserker, which has a primary world etymology that doesn't really fit with the world Nix created. For the most part I can get past this, but a more egregious example occurs in this book: Bakelite, an actual brand name from the primary world, named after a real person, which makes no sense at all in the Ancelstierran history. That's the sort of thing that pulls me right out of the story as my brain tries to figure out a way to resolve the discrepancy, to no avail.
To end more positively, I do enjoy the continued explorations of the two types of magic, as well as the larger mythology behind them.
