Series Review: The Seventh Tower by Garth Nix

It seems like when I mention Garth Nix to the readers in my sphere, everyone has read a different one of his books. Wilfrid handed me Sabriel. Ben recommended Shade's Children which I'm still trying to find. Jessica handed me these books, "The Seventh Tower" series.

Tal has problems. His father is missing and his mother is sick. In order to get out of his trouble, Tal needs a 'primary sunstone.' In this world, the sunlight is blocked from the surface of the planet by a magical black veil. The sunstones are almost exactly what they sound like, stones that store light in the form of magical energy. Tal's people, the Chosen, have a highly regimented and organized society to manage teaching and using the light-based magic. At the bottom of the organizational ranking are those who cannot use magic at all, the Underfolk. If Tal can't get his sunstone, the whole family will slide down to Underfolk status. So, Tal decides to steal one.

However, it all goes wrong when Tal falls off the tower where the sunstones are grown and ends up on the frozen surface of the world where he meets Milla, a combative member of the Icecarls. Now Tal is stranded on the surface and he still needs a sunstone.

I'm trying to get away from the series review format. I don't think, in general, that I do justice to the books when I'm writing them, even if I really enjoy the series. However, with this series, it really all felt like one very long YA novel that got chopped up into six books. This is not the first time that I've felt this way about a YA series. I think that publishers have imposed a length limitation on individual novels regardless of the size of the story particularly for the younger end of the audience group.

As a side note, since discovering Garth Nix in February of this year, I've now read a total of 20 Garth Nix novels. I've enjoyed it, but I think it's time for Garth Nix break.