Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780006513704
Edition: New Ed
ISBN: 0006513700
Label: Voyager
Manufacturer: Voyager
Number Of Pages: 496
Publication Date: August 02, 2004
Publisher: Voyager
Studio: Voyager

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
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




Rating: - Yet more frustration...
First off I want to say how much I enjoy and cherish the two books of Clive Barker's "Abarat" series. They are unique creations in children's literature, with beautiful images to match prose that is exciting in its description of character and events, alongside some wonderful ideas.

My only frustration is with the lack of a concrete publication date. This book was supposed to be out by now although various retailers have different ideas of its publication date:

- Borders ... Read More

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Rating: - Wolverhampton Libraries LGBT Reading Group Review
Candy is an unhappy teenage girl growing up in Chickentown, Minnesota, when, after another bad day at school, she finds her way into another universe with the help of John Mischief and his seven brothers. The adventure that follows has all the strange characters that you'd expect from a magical fantasy novel, as well as the obligatory baddies to boo and hiss at.

The illustrated version shows the imaginative images that provided Barker with his original inspiration, which shies away from ... Read More

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Rating: - Could do better
This book is obviously written for a different audience to Clive Barker's earlier books. He has much more competition now and has not made the change entirely successfully. Abarat is highly reminiscent of the Garth Nix "Mr Monday" series but lacks the spark.

Most annoyingly of all, Abarat is not a complete book. It just stops half way through the story and demands that you buy the next book in the serious. It feels as though Mr Barker has written a book and his publishers have decided, ... Read More

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Rating: - Intricate story from one of literature's great story-tellers
Given Clive Barker's reputation as one of literature's great writers of horror, I expected this to be dark, violent and grim, like Cabal. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered an intricate and delicately-woven fantasy-driven story, with little to no violence.

This is not to 'Abarat's detriment, however. In actual fact 'Abarat' is a great story, about a teenage girl named Candy who lives a disatisfied, disillusioned and generally unhappy life in the ridiculously-named 'Chickentown'. In ... Read More

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Rating: - Amongst my favourite books
This is one of my favourite books ever. There are characters from the first book, and new ones, but they are all great, and each more fantastical then before.
The story starts a few months after the first finished and Candy and Malingo have been travelling around the Abarat. However they are still pursued by Christopher Carrion's henchmen and they are seperated, and have to make their own seperate journeys. Their adventures take them through more of the hours, from Twilight to Three in the afternoon ... Read More

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