I don’t know how many of you know of The Seventh Tower series. It’s a children’s fantasy series by Garth Nix that I came across when I was in middle school. I read the first book, but for whatever reason, never continued despite being fascinated by the worldbuilding and magic system.
This story has haunted me for years, making me wonder what I missed by not continuing the series. It’s relatively difficult to get a hold of, too. It’s not in Kindle, so you have to hunt down physical copies.
This summer, though, I found the entire series at an old used bookshop here in town. They’re just old library copies, but I was thrilled.
The Story
The Seventh Tower series follows a young boy named Tal, who is one of the Chosen, a group of people who live in a large castle with seven towers. Tal’s main goal is to rescue his family, but he uncovers a massive plot that is embedded into his society. The plot is tight, clear, and quite fast-paced as it is meant for children.
The World
The world and the magic are really where this series shines. The story takes place on two planes: the Dark World and Aenir, the spirit world.
The Dark World is covered by a thick magical shadow that has turned the entire world into a vast frozen landscape. The Chosen live in a castle on a mountain. They use light magic, and every Chosen has a Spiritshadow bound to them as servants. A Spiritshadow is a shadow creature that aides their Chosen master.
The rest of the world is dominated by people that call themselves Icecarls. The Icecarls are a nomadic, warrior people with a deep distrust of unnatural shadows.
Aenir, the spirit world, is a land where Chosen go to bind Spiritshadows to them as servants. It’s a magical, changing, dangerous world filled with all sorts of creative and weird creatures and situations. Chosen capture creatures there, and when they bring those creatures back to the Dark World, the creatures become Spiritshadows.
The Magic
I love the magic system in The Seventh Tower. Different colored light is used by Chosen to weave objects out of light. Tal uses this magic to create stairs to escape a prison, rays of destruction to fight, and even to compose music.
The Spiritshadows and the light magic really make the world feel very cohesive. Light magic feels like it belongs in this world, instead of something cool that the author just tacked on.
It’s also an interesting blend of hard magic and soft magic. On the one hand, light magic uses very specific instructions in order to weave different kinds of light. On the other hand, a master of light magic seems to have a nearly infinite array of things it can do, which gives a sense of wonder to it.
Conclusion
I waited over two decades to finish this story after I first picked up The Fall, the first book in the series, and I was not disappointed. If you get a chance to read The Seventh Tower series by Garth Nix, I highly recommend it. It’s a fast read and full of excellent worldbuilding.
The Seventh Tower is one of Nix’s lesser-known stories. Sabriel, the book he won several awards for, is next on my list, as it was recommended by Brandon Sanderson.
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