re:mote voices

Title: Lirael
Author: Garth Nix
Publisher: Collins

Lirael is the second in Australian Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy - following on from Sabriel, which was discussed here recently. Like Sabriel, Lirael is listed in the teen fiction category, and continues the fantasy kingdom, where those that support the charter fight against the rise of the living dead.

Sabriel dealt with one of the three levels of the power behind the charter, the Abhorsen, the necromancer who puts the dead back rather than raising them. The Clayr were featured briefly, a race of clairvoyants who can see a multitude of possible futures. With that Lirael is a daughter of the Clayr, though much to her frustration she is different from the rest. The powers of clairvoyance come on with puberty, but for some reason by her fourteenth birthday Lirael still hasn't gained the sight. So that as the book starts with her birthday she is contemplating suicide.

However instead of throwing herself from the edge of the Clayr's glacier she witnesses a meeting between a couple of her cousins and the new King and the Abhorsen, which she shouldn't. Which brings her unwanted attention, however rather than get into trouble she is given opportunity, managing to be given a job in the mysterious and dangerous library of the Clayr. Which she explores with relish, excelling at magic, and gaining more ability than any around her realise.

Lirael has a greater time scale than Sabriel, so we stick with Lirael from 14 to 19, rather than following Sabriel as she is dropped in to the deep end as an 18 year-old. Giving us more time to get to know Lirael, and experience the ups and downs and adventures she has on the way to learning her true destiny and why she is different from the Clayr. One of the interesting ways in which Nix moves the plot along is by supplying the reader clues, so that if they are keeping up they should know exactly what is going on, while leaving Lirael without enough information to put it all together right until the last minute. Another trick that Nix uses is to follow the success of Mogget in Sabriel - the talking cat who was Sabriel's companion - who reappears in Lirael, but is secondary to Lirael's own companion, a spirit dog that she manages to summon as a 14 year old.

While the zombie assaults which were so prominent in Sabriel are less of a feature in Lirael, there are still some extensive descriptions of attacks by rotting corpses, along with the development of the bigger picture. Which is built across the years, and mounts to the cliff hanger at the end of Lirael, leaving everything still unresolved for the trilogy's conclusion.