![]() We are also introduced to Candy’s chief antagonists: the aforementioned Christopher Carrion, aka Prince of Midnight, his evil grandmother Mater Motley, and the industrialist Rojo Pixler, all of whom seek to dominate the Abarat. Thus Candy’s adventures begin, as she learns all about the Islands and the crises threatening the Abarat, and finds out that she may well be destined to solve these. She encounters the master thief John Mischief, who is being pursued by a highly sinister creature named Mendelson Shape – John sends Candy to light the lamp in the lighthouse, thereby summoning an ocean, the Sea of Izabella, from the Abarat. ![]() In the first book, Abarat (2002), we meet Candy who, after an argument with her teacher over a school project leaves the school and goes to the edge of town, where she finds the remains of a lighthouse. Clive Barker has done his own illustrations, stunning oil paintings that accompany some editions – I would recommend spending a bit more and getting the illustrated version, because my copies are just the plain old books and I think I’ve missed out. You’d be hard pressed to find a more richly and vividly imagined world. Then there’s the wildlife, the Islands themselves, the magic – giant moths made of coloured ether, rock faces carved into colossal heads, words that turn into aeroplanes and flying vessels created entirely by the imagination. There seem to be thousands of species and peoples in the Abarat, each more wildly imagined than the last. She becomes best friends with a slothlike creature called Malingo after rescuing him from an evil wizard whose power comes from his many hats, and makes an enemy of the evil Lord Christopher Carrion, a man who keeps his own nightmares in a collar around his neck. The first Abaratian character Candy meets is John Mischief, a creature with seven extra heads on his antlers, each with its own name and personality. One of the best t hings about Clive Barker’s writing is his creativity in bringing to life weird, wonderful and terrifying creatures and in Abarat he truly outdoes himself. ![]() But that’s about where the similarities to anything else, ever, come to an end. In basic outline the story is classic – bright child (in this case 16-year-old Candy Quackenbush), bowed by a depressing reality (the grubby, stinking Chickentown, USA, a dysfunctional family headed up by an abusive, alcoholic father) escapes into an astonishing fantasyland, meets a collection of strange companions and embarks on a quest. ![]() to Gorgossium at Midnight, plus the mystical Twenty-Fifth Hour. This is part Review, part Recommendation because I’ve just finished the third book in the Abarat series by Clive Barker, Absolute Midnight, and since I can’t really review it as a stand-alone book I am going to recommend to you the whole series because it is genuinely one of the most beautiful and fantastical things you will ever have the pleasure of reading.Ībarat is a promised five-part series for young adults (don’t let that put you off, Clive Barker’s idea of ‘young adult’ fiction isn’t quite the same as other people’s) which explores the archipelago of Abarat – 25 islands, each of them representing one hour of the day, from The Pyramids of Xuxux at 1 a.m. ![]()
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