Will write review after I get back from ALA! ( )

I sped through the first three books in the series, and then immediately went to Amazon to buy the rest of the series. This series is a possibility for book (s) of the year even though they are YA books. The books are set in a fantasy world where the planet is covered in a veil which makes the whole world dark.

The Chosen live in a Castle with seven towers that is lit by sunstones. The sunstones also give them the magical ability to bend and weave light. Tal, the hero of the series, is a young Chosen of low order who is just on the cusp of the rituals that would bind him to a spiritshadow, give him his own rank within the Chosen, and make him an adult.

The Icecarls live in the wild parts of the world. They sail on iceflows and hunt selski, huge creature that are the source for food and material for the Icecarls. The Icecarls have maintained a war-like lifestyle, and fear light magic and moving shadows. The two societies are complete opposites of one another. With the exception of a few leaders they have no idea that the other society exists. Until Tal falls from the Castle and finds himself in the Icecarls world, and very unwanted. He is allowed to make the dangerous return trip to the Castle only because the Icecarls need a sunstone, and only with an Icecarl accompaniment, a girl named Milla. Milla is also on the cusp of adulthood, waiting for the trial that will make her a shield maiden.

Together Tal and Milla will uncover a sinister conspiracy that threatens their entire world. Both characters develop nicely and richly through the series. They learn to break out of their cultural habits to learn from each other. They face danger, and mistrust, and betrayal, but they continue on.

As I’m writing this review and trying not to give too much away this quote came to mind, “It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo; the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going… because they were holding on to something.” Samwise Gamgee in The Two Towers. That’s the way I feel about these books too. Samwise you said it just right. ( )

An exellent book about the heiarchy of life as portrayed through children and their involvement in a magical world. ( )

Garth Nix is probably one of my favorite author's in the YA fantasy type genre. And the wrap of this series points out just why. All his stories while filled with the fantastical have a poignant tie to humanity and all its ups and downs. And he never forgets the family. Lovely series for the youth and for the adults who like to regress time and again. ( )