Sabriel (Old Kingdom Book 1) Kindle Edition

I admit I enjoyed this one. I am not thrilled, but it was a fine read. I will go on with the next one.Sabriel is our 18y old girl protagonist, certainly not ready for the ordeal waiting for her. The writer hates to reveal more than he wants and there is always a mystery. In general, that works and also helps the writing since you can’t argue against decisions made if you don’t know enough.The world is interesting in the sense that the modern world exist, separated from a world of magic, though little is explored on that relationship and it’s implications. What we learn is that technology does not work on the magical world and magic does not work on the technological world, which is convenient.Our story takes place at the magical world, the Old Kingdom. There is a lot of history, a whole world to be explored, however there is only the bare minimum of information, enough to keep you intrigued and to pave the way for more books.The moment our protagonist decides to start on her quest, the tension and the rush never lets go. There is constant action and difficult situations and tickles of backstory.This constant action and struggle keeps us on the edge but it also makes it hard to actually dive into the world and explore it and it’s magic systems. In the end, we get….next to nothing, understanding so little about the magic systems and the magical beings. I wish there was more, it would add a lot to the depth of the book. The story almost looks half finished with that many unanswered questions.The characters were well done, Sabriel and Mogget for the most part. They had a depth and some uniqueness that you don’t often see. I liked the parts of Sabriel that made her a child, her thoughts and words, it felt accurate.The narration was pretty weird, following Sabriel’s perspective but switching to other’s too without a “warning” and mixing it back. I admit it worked but it was …weird.The first book of the Old Kingdom series serves as an introduction. It gets you hooked but with a big question mark: will the next ones deliver? Will we actually get answers to the myriad of questions we have?Well, I guess I will have to read and see for myself!

I bought this when it was on special and picked it up without knowing pretty much anything about it. But it drew me in quickly and after I finished, I immediately bought the next volume, and those are two great indicators in terms of how I should rate a book.The protagonist, Sabriel, hails from a place called the Old Kingdom but has grown up and been educated in a boarding school across a Wall demarcating the Old Kingdom from a place that sounds a lot like the England of right around WWI (electric lights and telephones were available, and tanks had just been invented). This is very much a coming-of-age story, even though Sabriel has just finished her schooling (and so might be considered an adult). She has lived a fairly sheltered life at the school but is suddenly put into a position where she must venture out into the (to her) unknown Old Kingdom.As such, Sabriel is a good proxy for the reader for exploring the Old Kingdom. She knows a little, but has been protected from much more. She realizes quickly how little about the Old Kingdom, or even about magic, she knows, and that makes her sympathetic (however, it seems with the appropriate amount of help, she can easily overcome her limitations). She has a couple of companions on her quest -- a cat who is not what he seems, and a young man who goes by the name of Touchstone. You do learn a bit more about each of them, as well, as the story goes on.I felt like Sabriel's story followed a common pattern -- a young person is forced into undertaking a quest she's not really ready for, and yet she's the only person who can complete it. She rebels against it, but it's her destiny. (In Sabriel's case, rebellion largely involves refusing to be called by a title that is rightfully hers, and also in defining the quest as a mission to save her father when really something else is going on, too.)My favorite part in this book was the journey. There is a lot of traveling and exploration. Normally I hate such things, but they were done really well here, and the surroundings changed in a way that constantly presented new challenges, which is something most authors don't get right. (I feel that Mr. Nix DID get it right, though.) This was a sort of world where I was interested in learning about the environment and history, and I thought it was nicely woven in to the overarching story. This also speaks to worldbuilding, of course, which I thought was quite good.I don't have much to say about the writing. For me, anyway, it slid into the background and did its job of telling the story without being obnoxious. There were no repeated tics or verbal crutches that jumped out at me.Magic was interesting and well-developed. There seemed to be three sorts. Charter Magic is basically the good (orderly?) stuff and can be used for protection, healing, etc. Necromancy can be good or bad, depending on who is wielding it and to what purpose (e.g., raising an army of the Dead or sending the Dead back into Death where they belong), and Necromancy can be constrained by Charter Magic. Free Magic is wild and perhaps unpredictable but can be harnessed. There are also some people who can see the future, but that may be an ability conferred by Charter Magic.A few things didn't work for me, but they weren't dealbreakers. There is a romance that was predictable from a mile off and, in my mind, not set up as much as it should have been. Also, and I'm still not sure how I feel about this, but the final confrontation was odd. It was more of a series of tasks/confrontations. One takes place in Death and was over too quickly for my liking. The feeling of fear was never really all that palpable for me as few to no obstacles were encountered. The next confrontation follows immediately on its heels and I did feel there was a little more at stake, but it is also over quickly. The third confrontation was the biggest, and even in itself consisted of two incidents at separate sites. There were casualties, but I was never really in doubt that certain parties would survive. I did think the final resolution was clever and nicely set up based on events earlier in the book.Overall, I was invested enough in the characters to see the book through (and quickly, I might add). I loved the world building and the journey and all the little details like the various bells used in Necromancy. I thought the magic system was great and I think there is a lot of potential for the future books that are set in this world.

Like others have found, the file for this book must be corrupt on Amazon’s server, as it tries to download but always fails. I have tried on a Kindle, two different iPads and an iPhone all with the same result, when other books download perfectly. I have the books in the series on either side but want to read them in order.

I have never managed to get this book to open. There's obviously a fault which has been mentioned many times over the years, seems to me the right thing to do would be to offer a free replacement to people that have wasted their money on this and been unable to access it.

Well, first of all, Sabriel is an excellent YA fantasy novel - inventive, atmospheric, witty - so I have no serious criticism to make of the book itself (based on having read it in paperback years ago).The kindle edition would be excellent value at the current low price, but unfortunately it's completely broken. The file won't download on any of my devices, and I can't open the book at all. Looking at previous reviews which also mention corrupted files, it's disappointing that Amazon haven't done anything about the problem for some time.Avoid until fixed.

The book is brilliant - hence I have given it 5 *. One I read over and over (as with the whole series). However, I don't like this kindle edition - the author's "interesting" facts at the end of each chapter totally break up the flow of the story. I find that I'm lost in the events and the world... only to come to the end of the chapter and come down to the real world with a bump because of these asides. I don't want to know what the author thinks - at least not all the way through the book! Sure, add them at the end or the beginning for information - or even add them as interactive notes (this is an electronic book after all) - but don't spoil the story. Hopefully the publisher will read this and amend this edition...

One of the things that I liked about Sabriel from the start was the world-building. A crucial part of any fantasy, and Nix has done an excellent job here. Particularly in regard to the well thought through system of magic, but also with the entire world that it is based in. He does a fine line in monsters and the bells are a particularly nice touch.The characters were slower in developing - particularly Sabriel herself, who seemed rather two dimensional in the early chapters, only filling out as the story progressed. This is perhaps a result of Nix's approach to story writing: in one of his little asides about his methods, he says that he puts the story first and the characters develop as he goes along. Well, that's exactly how it reads to me.And while we're on the subject of those asides - at the end of several chapters Nix puts in a paragraph or so about how he writes. Now, as a writer myself, I'm quite interested in other people's ways of working. But NOT while I'm in the middle of actually reading their story! There could hardly be a better way of breaking the flow and pulling me out of the fantasy world than to stop to show off the nuts and bolts. 'Look, this is how I put that bit together'. I found it intensely irritating.But, when he's not sabotaging his own work, Nix writes really well, with a strong and absorbing flow of words that kept me wanting to know what happens next. So, in spite of my grumpy response to his little idiosyncrasies, I would recommend this as a very good fantasy adventure, and I certainly want to go on to the next one in the series.