Boy, Garth Nix’s SABRIEL, LIRAEL and ABHORSEN are really good books. I read Sabriel a few years ago but somebody told me to not read Lirael until Abhorsen was available because Lirael didn’t so much end as stop, and they were right. I just got around to reading them all three in the last couple days. By the end of Abhorsen the trilogy has reached a really magnificent crescendo. It is extremely worthy.
I’m going to take my entirely unworthy self off to work on TBF some more now. :)
But, gosh, you are VERY worthy. :)
Really?
I liked _Sabriel_, and enjoyed _Lirael_, but the ending of the book pissed me off.
It wasn’t, by ANY means, an ending. There wasn’t a complete plot arc. _Lirael_ ended on a cliffhanger: Stay Tuned, Folks! Next Installment In 8 Months!
Which I think is a shitty thing to do to your readers.
Now, by all rights, _Abhorsen_ and _Lirael_ are two halves of one book, where _Sabriel_ is more standalone.
Contrast that to RR Martin’s latest books, where each book as a complete plot arc, but there are, oh, about 40% of the threads that remain unfinished, leading naturally into the next segment of story.
And with all that said, if you EVER do to the ending of one of your books what Nix did to _Lirael_, I will beat you with your own shoes.
Well, since I’d been *warned* about the end of Lirael, I was neither surprised nor annoyed by it, except for a vague feeling of discomfort when Abhorsen picked up literally two hours after the end of Lirael. It was just odd, because books don’t usually work that way. But I do think that’s a very annoying thing to do to your readers, particularly if they haven’t been warned, and you can beat me with a shoe if I do it.