Abarat is an as-yet unfinished Young Adult fantasy quintet (of which so far only the first three books, Abarat,Days of Magic, Nights of War, and Absolute Midnight have appeared) written and illustrated by one Clive Barker.Yes, thatClive Barker.The books follow the adventures of a young woman named Candy Quackenbush. She hails from the small town of Chickentown, Minnesota, a tiny burg with a higher population of its eponymous fowl than people. She longs for something more than her small-town life, but doesn't know where to find it. One day, a strange compulsion grips her, and she races to the outskirts of town. There, she finds a strange man named John Mischief, whose brothers live as heads sprouting out of his impressive antlers, who is running from a strange, gaunt man named Shape. But through the powers of a magical lighthouse, she manages to summon a sea from nowhere—and from there, she is carted off to the Abarat. The Abarat is an archipelago where every island is an hour of the day, and it is full of strange, wonderful creatures. But sinister beings lurk in the shadows, and they have impure designs on Candy...Perhaps the most noticable aspect of the books is that they are all lavishly illustrated by Clive Barker himself with hundreds of full-color paintings, on glossy paper. They're a visual trip as well as a mental one. While Vanilla Edition, non-illustrated print runs of the books have been made, the pictures are part of the fun.
This series provides examples of:
Abusive Parents: Candy's father is abusive to everyone in the household.
And I Must Scream: The dolls that Mater Motley's dress are made out of are alive.
Absolute Midnight: Anti-Villain again and with the villain in name only, with huge portion of Woobie.
Apocalypse How: As of Absolute Midnight, at least a Class 0. Mater Motley releases the sacbrood, which blot out the Abarat's sky. The resulting darkness wakes a metric ton of Eldritch Abominations, which rampage unchecked over several of the islands. Thousands die. It's heavily implied over the course of the book that it's only going to get worse.
Artificial Human: Some of the stitchlings are fairly close.Also the Kid of Commexo.
Bigger Bad: As of Absolute Midnight, the Nephauree.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Princess Boa. People rhapsodize about her in glowing terms, painting a picture of someone who was incredibly kind, gentle and loving. In Absolute Midnight the truth is revealed and it turns out that it was a MASSIVE ruse on Boa's part.
Earn Your Happy Ending: The second book is remarkably dark, grim, and frightening, but it ends on a fairly joyous and uplifting note. It's similar for the Absolute Midnight
Exactly What I Aimed At: John Mischief does not harm Shape, and instead shoots the lighthouse light out. When Serpent asks him why he'd do this, he notes that he takes no pleasure in harming living things. And shooting out the light means Shape will have to follow them, leaving Candy safe.
Fish out of Water: Candy, at first. She assimilates pretty quickly, which the John brothers notice.
Friend To All Children: The blind card-reader at the start of book 3, AKA Zephario Carrion.
Gentleman Thief: The John brothers. And boy, are they ever gentlemanly!
Giant Flyer: The enormous "corpse-moth" from the first book. A "behe-moth," if you will.
Great Big Book of Everything: Klepp's Almenak, though the Abaratians know you'd be wise to take everything Klepp writes with a grain of salt. It's good in a general sense, though.
Half-Human Hybrids: Lots and lots of them everywhere around - Izarith the part-Skizmut, half-dragon priest Deetha Maas.
The Hecate Sisters: The Fantomaya. Mespa is the Maid, Joephi the Matron, and Diamanda the Hag.
Head Pet: Candy briefly has a squid as one. He dies of exposure, sadly.
Hufflepuff House: Many of the islands, other than the ones we spend the "most" time on.
Interspecies Romance: Several. Candy and Gazza, mostly [1]d Candy and Malingo. Princess Boa and Finnegan Hobb are this, too.
Ironic Nursery Tune: Shape likes to use these to intimidate people, though they're more openly sinister than tunes from our world, having apparently been written by Card Carrying Villains. There are some innocent nursery tunes too, though. For example, the lullaby Zephario Carrion sung to his son, Christopher.
Monster Sob Story: Christopher Carrion's backstory. His entire family, except for his grandmother and absent father, died in a massive fire, he was brought up to be a perfect villain by his abusive grandmother who had sewn up his lips for saying the word love, fell in love with a princess who used and then shunned him...and his life didn't get better since then.
Morality Pet: Maratien to Mater Motley in the third book. She's one of the few people who Motley's shown actual kindness and concern for, even more so than her own son.
...and then she kills Maratien and sews her soul to her dress.
Multiple Head Case: The John brothers, who share a body, but different heads.
Schedule Slip: The third book, Absolute Midnight, took seven years to finish, officially getting out on September 27, 2011 - drawing deep sighs of relief from the fandom.
Split at Birth: Inverted. Maybe. Princess Boa's spirit was reincarnated into a just-about-to-be-born Candy. However, prenatal Candy had a soul of her own. So Candy as an adolescent girl is referred to as the "Two in One," and realizes that "Candy" and "Princess Boa" are two halves of the same whole within her - hence, fused at birth. . It's not exactly clear, just role with it.
Stalker with a Crush: Carrion is of the more malicious sort. Gazza gets disturbingly close, too.
Straight Gay: Two-Toed Tom (who tells offJohn Serpent for an apparently bigoted comment) and his (thus far offstage) love interest Tidal Jim.
Vanilla Edition: There are two paperback editions of each book—one that has the pictures (and is still pretty expensive even by hardcover standards), and one that doesn't. Interestingly, the Vanilla Edition tends to get shelved in either the teen or adult section of most bookstores/libraries, while the regular ones tend to get shelved with the kid's stuff—Illustration Age Ghetto, perhaps?
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: For the first book, Barker admits that most of the pictures came first, and a story just kind of sprung up around them. He's planned the rest a bit more carefully, though.
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