Abarat

Clive Barker

Clive Barker can't be said to have hit a slump after Sacrament, because his books are usually (The Damnation Game excepted) a cut above anything else anyone's releasing, but his two post-Sacrament books, Galilee and Coldheart Canyon, didn't seem up to the standard Barker had set for himself in such fantastic journeys as Sacrament, Imajica, and the books of the Art. With Abarat, however, Barker has returned to the fantasy milieu in which he is the strongest, and has turned in quite a fine piece of work.

Candy Quackenbush lives in Chickentown, Minnesota, a place that really defines "nowhere special." She feels, however, that she should be somewhere else, and very soon after the book starts, she finds that somewhere else-- the Abarat, an archipelago in a sea somewhere not of this earth. Abarat, the first book in a projected series, introduces the main players, sets up (we assume) the events of the forthcoming books, and introduces us to the Abarat itself.

Barker's strength has always been the creation of dense, detailed mythologies in which to set his stories. He doesn't reveal everything, so the reader doesn't feel the need to sit with copies of a Biblical concordance and various creation myths in attendance while reading one of Barker's novels, but he gives the reader enough that there's an understanding that there's a whole complex scenario working behind the scenes. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings series operates in the same way, as do Herge's Tintin graphic novels. Barker's worlds often feel as if they have that same level of detail, which is one of the things that separates him from other writers of books like this, and make his work such a pleasure to read. Abarat may well be the most detailed of the lot to date, surpassing even the attention to detail paid to Imajica. Though it's obvious that Abarat is mostly setting up things to come, it's a joy to have one of the modern masters of high fantasy back on form and writing stuff this lovely.