Abarat [Hardcover]

With Abarat, Clive Barker begins an ambitious sequence of fantastic novels aimed at a young audience as well as his adult fans. There is as much sense of threat to the world here as there was in the horror novels with which he made his name. But the worst almost never happens here--and there is whimsy and charm along with a carefully judged and measured sense of the nightmarish. Young Cindy Quackenbush finds herself transported from the boredom of a Mid-Western chicken-packing town to the 25 islands of the Abarat--islands torn between the evil magician Christopher Carrion and the equally power-hungry rational capitalist Pixler. Each of the islands has a nature determined by an hour of the day--part of the pleasure of the book is seeing how Barker works this conceit out as Cindy travels from peril to peril. The book is literally a book of hours--in the Medieval sense; it's lavishly illustrated with over a hundred of Barker's striking paintings--much of its imagery was conceived of pictorially and then reinvented as story. This is a fine book--it is also a beautiful and charming object. --Roz Kaveney

Barker's energy shows no sign of deserting him, and this fizzing fantasy adventure for all ages is announced as the first of a quartet appearing at yearly intervals, spruced up with some striking illustrations by the author himself. Abarat is an archipelago of amazement and wonder: a land made up of numerous islands, each one representing one hour of the day, each one a unique piece of adventure and danger, all ruled over by the evil Lord of Midnight, Christopher Carrion. Candy Quackenbush (shame about the name) is a 16-year-old who crosses back and forth from our world into Abarat. Yes, Lewis Carroll is the guiding spirit here, but this is very much an Alice for the 21st century, with all the surrealistic imagery that we have come to expect from Barker.

The Damnation Game and Everville established Barker as a highly successful writer of adult fantasy, while his first foray into writing for children, The Thief of Always, introduced the power of his glorious imagination to a younger audience. These young readers are in for the reading experience of a lifetime with the publication of this first book in an eagerly awaited quartet. The project began as a series of oil paintings which Barker intended to incorporate into a story entitled The Book of Hours. But as his artistic output proliferated and his fantastic imagination took flight, the concept of a four-book series was born. Barker makes few concessions in writing for a younger readership - the images and events here are almost as terrifying and graphic as anything in his books for adults. Although the author himself admits to influences as diverse as The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, with a smidgeon of Potter and Tolkein thrown in, Abarat is unique. Candy Quackenbush lives in Chickentown, Minnesota, and the suffocating dreariness of the place, combined with her miserable life at home, is driving her to despair. Storming out of school one day, she ends up in a part of the town she has never been to before, and unknowingly crosses the boundary into another dimension. Crossing the Sea of Izabella she finds herself in the Abarat archipelago - 25 islands, each of which exists for one hour of the day, apart from the 25th island which is in 'time out of time'. Candy clearly has a destiny amongst these islands, which have been in conflict for generations. Most terrifying of all the bizarre creations she encounters is Christopher Carrion, who rules Gorgossium, the Midnight Island. He desires to have mastery over all the islands and then conquer the human world, known as Hereafter. Carrion is evil personified - attached to his face is a bowl full of fluid which contains all the nightmarish, evil thoughts in his head, from which he constantly feeds. This is an enthralling epic which will sink its talons into the imagination of young readers - and adults - everywhere. The pace becomes increasingly frantic as Candy and her loyal friend, the geshrat Malingo, flee from island to island in a desperate attempt to escape Carrion's clutches. Exhausted, they are cast up on the shores of the 25th island where Candy meets the prophetic sisters of Fantomaya. Finally, some parts of the puzzle about her past and her future begin to fall into place, and with the faithful Malingo at her side she sails off in search of her destiny. Ages 11+ (Kirkus UK)

Picaresque digression yields to plot development in this second entry about the archipelago of the Abarat, where each island is ruled by a different hour of the day. Candy Quackenbush and her loyal geshrat pal Malingo are on the run from Christopher Carrion, Lord of Midnight, still scheming to conquer the forces of Day. As Candy begins to uncover her hidden powers, Malingo joins allies old and new in searching for the lost hero Finnegan Hob. Meanwhile, back in our reality, the inhabitants of quotidian Chickentown are troubled by ominous portents. It's all fantastically complicated and dreamlike, sensations intensified by the elaborate sonorous imagery, constant abrupt transitions, and Barker's hallucinogenic jewel-like illustrations. Unfortunately, rather than trust his descriptive powers, he repeatedly tells readers how to feel, with a peculiarly flattening impact. Candy's personality is particularly drab, when contrasted with the frenzied phantasmagoria all around her. Scenes of chilling abuse and gruesome death cast dark, macabre shadows over the adventure. Yet when all the threads are pulled together in a splendidly apocalyptic finale of cinematic scope (film rights have been optioned by Disney), the satisfying resolution leaves plenty of room for sequels. Expect heavy demand. (Fantasy. 12+) (Kirkus Reviews)