'Abhorsen' by Garth Nix

ISBN: 0060594985
Format: Paperback, 340pp
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Price: $12.99

I don’t know about you but when I reach the end of a trilogy I get a little sad. I know that all good things must come to an end but I always hate to see it happen. You want the conclusion, you want all those little loose ends tied up, but at the same time you want the adventure to continue.

Abhorsen is the third and final book of The Abhorsen Trilogy and I am sad to see it end. This is an amazing series, with great characters, a fully realized world, and more than enough adventure to keep you turning pages.

Lirael, Sam, Mogget, and the Disreputable Dog have set off to rescue Nick, Sam’s school friend from Ancelstierre. Nick, who does not believe in magic and thinks that everything can be explained by science, has had a fragment of the Destroyer placed in his heart by Hedge the evil necromancer who Sam barely escaped from in Lirael.

Lirael has come to terms with the fact that she is the Abhorsen-in-waiting, with the Abhorsen Sabriel and Kind Touchstone missing it is up to her and Sam to save humankind from the Destroyer. As they travel closer to where Hedge is keeping Nick they fight off the Dead Hands and Gore Crows, each character facing trials of their own.

Meanwhile Nick or rather the fragment of the Destroyer in him is over seeing the excavation of two silver hemispheres that each contain a portion of the Destroyer. Hedge’s plan is to make them whole and release the ancient evil within.

At one point Lirael almost rescues Nick but the fragment of the Destroyer in him prevents it. Lirael is forced to let him go and watch as Hedge takes Nick and the hemispheres from the Old Kingdom across the Wall and into Ancelstierre.

The final stand is made there, in Ancelstierre, with the whole cast of characters. The ending is anything but anticlimactic. You know that the good will triumph over evil but there is always a price and by the last page of the book I was in tears.

The Abhorsen Trilogy is an original and solid fantasy. Each book has something different to recommend it, and Sabriel could stand on it’s own, but they are strongest as a whole. This is a great trilogy well worth the shelf space and I know that I will read these again.