Both of these cultures exist under the Veil, a magical cloud-layer that keeps their world separate from the spirit world of Aenir, but they live apart and partly in ignorance of each other. Her society, the Icecarls, are a Scandinavian-coded Viking-like nomadic matriarchy who abhor shadow magic and have a strict system of honor. When Tal loses his Sunstone, he ends up outside the castle in his search for a new one and encounters Milla. They use magic crystals called Sunstones to bend light and to tie shadows to their will, and their society is ranked against the colors of the rainbow, with their leader at the top of Violet. The Chosen live in an enormous, isolated castle, and believe that there is nothing else outside their towers. The Seventh Tower is a series of six books (and believe me, was I pissed as a kid that a series where the mythology is based around sevens only had six books) that follow Tal, a Chosen, and Milla, an Icecarl, as they learn to reconcile their two worlds in order to defend against a greater threat. Although, given that it was Garth Nix writing, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. I was impressed to see that The Seventh Tower uses magic and worldbuilding in a fascinating way that allows for a deconstruction of privilege that feels organic to the story, while providing us with a strong female touchpoint character as well.

Having finally done just that, I am happy to report that the series is definitely an enjoyable read, although I probably won’t be holding onto them for another round a decade into the future. All I remembered was that I liked them enough, so they’d survived several cullings of my ridiculously large book collection until such time as I could reread them and rejudge. (At around 200 middle-gradey pages each, they’re not a heavy read.) I did remember enjoying the series when I read it the first time-probably way back around when it was published between 2000–2002-but very little else. It’s been ages since the last time I read the Seventh Tower series by Garth Nix, but I’d been meaning to read it again, so this weekend I sat down and blasted through all six volumes.

The seventh tower series