The Old Kingdom series is a fantasy series of novels and novellas written by Garth Nix. The first book, Sabriel, was published in 1995, with the main sequels Lirael and Abhorsen released after the turn of the century.
Books[]
The following books and stories make up the series, in publication order.
- Sabriel
- Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr, set fourteen years after Sabriel.
- Abhorsen, a direct sequel to Lirael.
- "Nicholas Sayre and the Creature In the Case," a short story originally published for World Book Day, then again as part of Across The Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories.
- “To Hold the Bridge: An Old Kingdom Story”: a novella first published in Legends of Australian Fantasy in 2010, then again in 2015 as part of To Hold the Bridge.
- Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (2014), a prequel talking place 600 years in the past.
- Goldenhand (2016), a direct sequel to Abhorsen and "The Creature In the Case" and follow-up to Clariel.
- Terciel & Elinor (2021), a direct prequel to Sabriel.
Accolades & Acclaim[]
Awards[]
Sabriel won Aurealis Awards in both the Best Fantasy Novel and Best YA Novel categories.
Lirael won Australia’s 2002 Adelaide Festival Award for Children’s Literature, along with a Ditmar Award.[1]
Abhorsen won another Aurealis Award[2] while "To Hold the Bridge" earned another Ditmar Award. Books in the series have been finalists for mainstream book awards over twenty times.[3]
Critical psychosocial accolades[]
The series has been applauded as possibly unique among fantasy, especially in recent years as its first readers are becoming literary critics, as being beyond feminist or even post-feminist: the Old Kingdom is a place where gender roles do not exist.[4][5][6] Sabriel had been lauded for "slaying gender stereotypes," but the extent to which Nix's worldbuilding would take this was perhaps not seen until recently in "To Hold the Bridge" and Clariel, where gender parity is shown to have existed even centuries ago.
- ↑ https://locusmag.com/2015/03/garth-nix-back-in-the-old-kingdom/
- ↑ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurealis_Award_for_Best_Young_Adult_Novel
- ↑ https://www.sfadb.com/Garth_Nix
- ↑ https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2015/09/books-shaped-sabriel/
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/apr/15/my-favourite-book-as-a-kid-sabriel-by-garth-nix-samantha-shannon
- ↑ https://digital.library.txstate.edu/bitstream/10877/3292/1/fulltext.pdf