The Books of Abarat are a series of young adult fantasy novels written and illustrated by English writer and visual artist Clive Barker. The series is intended to contain five books, three of which have been published from 2002 to 2011. The series takes place on the Abarat, a fictional archipelago consisting of twenty-five islands, one for each hour of the day (and one extra).
Series Abarat (2002) Days of Magic, Nights of War (2004) Absolute Midnight (2011) Kry Rising (forthcoming; working title) Until The End of Time (forthcoming; working title; intended as final volume)
History Barker began painting illustrations for the first book in the series, Abarat, in 1995. He had originally intended for these paintings to be used in a 25-story "Book of Hours". As the number of paintings increased and the plot idea expanded, he decided the series would require four books (later increased to five) to fully contain the plot and characterisation.
Islands of the Abarat The series is set on the "Islands of Abarat", of which each is based on a time of day (except the last island, which is based on the 25th hour). These islands are mounted in the Sea of Izabella, an ocean sometimes personified by the characters. Together, they compose what is described as "a limitless world" encompassing "chaotic diversity", called Abarat. Below are descriptions based on statements attributed to the character Samuel Hastrim Klepp, author of the popular tour-guide Klepp's Almenak:
1:00 a.m. The Pyramids of Xuxux "There is no quieter place in the Abarat than at One o'Clock in the morning, where the six Pyramids of Xuxux rise out of the dark and uncannily placid waters of the Izabella". Some have suggested that these pyramids and the Ziggurat of Soma Plume at 5:00 p.m. were "designed by the same hand and built by the same masons". The writer of Klepp's Almenak, the omnipresent traveller's guide to the Abarat, disagrees, claiming that "the tombs at Soma Plume are calm and curiously reassuring places" whereas the six pyramids at Xuxux are "sites of mystery and tragedy". The character Christopher Carrion uses the pyramids as a breeding-ground for the diverse, monstrous insects known as the Sacbrood.
2:00 a.m. Idjit Klepp, who never visited it while sober, described Idjit as an island of "immense charm", saying that it "encourages excesses, a kind of happy foolishness". It shares with neighbouring Gorgossium a "spiky, barren topography, [while] storms rage perpetually about the landscape. It has been calculated [Klepp adds] that a visitor to Idjit is more likely to be struck by lightning than a man on the roosts of Efreet is to be hit by bird excrement". The result is either instant death (as in the human world) or euphoria.
3:00 a.m. Pyon Pyon is described as having been "once a quiet island, but no longer. The work of an entrepreneur by the name of Rojo Pixler has transformed the island utterly. It was Pixler's dream (some have said folly) to build the biggest city in the archipelago on Pyon, its light so bright that the darkness of the Hour would be a grand irrelevance". This is Commexo City, a Las Vegas-like tourists' paradise whose image Pixler seeks to impose on the entire archipelago, and whose site was formerly occupied by a mansion associated with the Carrion family.
4:00 a.m. Isle of the Black Egg Here "lie the Pius Mountains, a range of needle-sharp crags that are the tallest natural phenomenon on the islands". These are the home of peaceful, mountain-dwelling villagers, but are also the origin named of the character Geneva Peachtree, who is once described as a "revolutionary". Klepp claims to have "discovered to date two hundred and seventeen explanations for the name [of the island], each contradicting the next. As I cannot distinguish the value of any one explanation over any other, and it seems arbitrary to simply pick one for retelling here", and adds, "I'd prefer to simply state that nobody knows how the island got its name and leave it at that".
5:00 a.m. Speckle Frew Speckle Frew is "geographically an uneventful island; the earth is sandy and covered with fine, sharped-edged grass, while the wind is always howling. Though the terrain is scarcely varied, the island is home to a wide variety of species, most of them dangerous". Being the habitat of such animals, Speckle Frew is called "a bestiary" and "not to be trespassed lightly". Despite this, it is suggested to be a quiet landing-point by a seafaring character called a "Sea-Skipper", and a mystic named Mariah Cappella is said to have lived there. Mariah's son is Finnegan Hob, a figure of some importance to the story.
6:00 a.m. Efreet "Unlike its neighbour, Speckle Frew, which has always been a wild spot, Efreet was once an island of great sophistication. The city of Koy, considered to have been the most cultured city in the Abarat, was built on the lower steppes of the island. Opinions vary as to how long it stood and why it fell, but what remains of the city – rows of pillars, archways, and frescoes – testifies to a site of elegance and learning". Efreet is also home to five infamous monsters: the armoured, orange Waztrill; the Thrak, a purple beast with a small head and huge compound eyes; the serpentine Vexile; the shaggy, blue, lice-infested Sanguinius; and the bipedal Fever Gibe.
7:00 a.m. Autland Autland is "joined to Efreet by the Gilholly Bridge. There is a palace on Autland, built for Queen Muzzel McCray, to a design that appeared to her in a dream, or so local legend dictates. The Queen's husband was a creature called Nimbus, Lord of the Tarrie-cats. Nimbus still lives in McCray's palace, inside the dream – so to speak – of the woman he loved".
8:00 a.m. Obadiah This is "an island of extraordinary flora. Here a visitor will find strange and sometimes aggressive plants growing in virtually inexhaustible profusion. Some have called Obadiah the Elegiac's Garden, and suggested it may have been a laboratory in which the mythic Creators of Abarat, A'zo and Cha, experimented with [the evolution of life]".
9:00 a.m. Qualm Hah This is "a puzzling place to explore, because it has two distinct faces. At the western edge of the island stands the busy seaport of Tazmagor, where the food is good, the people happy, and the air filled with the din of extemporised songs". "Toward the eastern end of the island", nothing is built, and no one gives a reason for not doing so; this, says Klepp, is peculiar, given overpopulation in Tazmagor.
10:00 a.m. Spake This is a mountainous island having many cypress trees on its lower slopes: "On its heights, above the trees, stands a simple stage, which has been used for performances of every kind – circuses, slapsticks, and High Tragedy – since the beginning of known time". By a consequence of the island's location, its Theatre "is every three days shrouded in a mist that blows from the southeast", surrounding the hill, and both fog and Theatre are illuminated by "tiny flames" therein.
11:00 a.m. Nully "Topographically speaking, the island merits little study, but it is the location of one of the Abarat's most extraordinary buildings: the Repository of Remembrance", which is described as the Abarat's most famous museum. "The toys of emperors, the rag dolls of queens", and other now useless but historically and sentimentally valuable objects are kept here.
12:00 noon Yzil The island of Yzil is a "lush and temperate" forest. Here lives the Princess Breath, a figure of Abaratian legend who by her exhalations creates live things, which are then wafted through the air until they arrive at some suitable habitat. She is mentioned in the first book and seen in the second book by characters Malingo and Candy.
1:00 p.m. Hobarookus Hobarookus is a small, rocky, swampy island inhabited by pirates and buccaneers. The food produced there is prepared by the best cooks in the Abarat, because of the hour's use as a lunch time. Kalukwa birds, a species of bird whose eggs "hatch downy human babies every ninth year", are common throughout the swampy areas, called the Sinks. These babies are commonly taken and raised by the pirates.
2:00 p.m. Orlando's Cap Orlando's Cap is a small, ill-favored island. It is here that an insane asylum is located, because the founder believed that the 2:00 hour promotes healing in the soul. Patients are apparently allowed the run of the islands, and have been given permission to follow artistic disciplines, which means that there are many weird and wonderful sculptures and objects created by the patients.
3:00 p.m. The Nonce The Nonce is a beautiful, drowsy island. Most people who visit fall asleep quickly, and dream about the beginning of the world. This implies that the Nonce is the site of that event. It is also notable for its torrential rainstorms, which wreak havoc on the native plants before becoming the water supply of new growth. This new growth takes the form of a rainforest so biologically diverse that there is often little separation between plants and animals. The name "nonce" means "the immediate" or "the moment at hand".
4:00 p.m. Gnomon This island is riddled with the ruins of temples and Oracles. On many parts of the island, the air is full of "whispering voices", all sounding at once. Many roads on the island lead nowhere; thus leading to the speculation that Gnomon was once part of the island of Soma Plume. Whether this would violate the accepted correspondence of hours to islands is not revealed.
5:00 p.m. Soma Plume Soma Plume is a large island, twice the size of Gnomon. It houses the Great Noahic Ziggurat, a place that has been used for burial of the dead for many generations.
6:00 p.m. Babilonium This island consists of a single, immense carnival, encompassing rides, comedic plays, freak shows, and all other manners of entertainment.
7:00 p.m. Scoriae Scoriae is the meeting place of night and day, also known as the 'Island of Lengthening Shadows'. It has on it a live volcano known as Galigali, as well as the Twilight Palace, which once belonged to King Claus of Day. Galigali has destroyed three great cities in its time: Gosh, Divinium, and Mycassius, without leaving survivors. Ruins of the cities, as well as the Twilight Palace, still remain.
8:00 p.m. Yebba Dim Day This island, also known as the Great Head, is a sort of "informal capital" of the islands. It is fashioned in the shape of a giant humanoid head and shoulders in the likeness of its late owner Gorki Doodat. It is a labyrinth of tunnels on the inside, and the outside is mostly covered by shabby dwellings, save for the half-dozen high towers atop the statue's cranium. Some of these towers are said to contain individuals of immeasurable age. This island is Candy's first destination in the Abarat, but is destroyed in the third book.
9:00 p.m. Huffaker Huffaker is a large island, peppered with huge rock formations resembling "natural cathedrals", the largest of which being Hap's Vault. Lydia Hap, after whom this cavern was named, claims that the Vault (which she refers to as the Chamber of the Skein) is the origin of the so-called Abaratic Skein, a thread of light which connects everything in every world to everything else.
10:00 p.m. Ninnyhammer This island has almost no "noteworthy" characteristics, save for the town known as High Sladder, inhabited by the "tribe of feral tarrie-cats". On the northeast side of the island is the wizard Kaspar Wolfswinkel's house, which some, upon seeing the glass observatory in the roof, have mistaken for a giant eye or temple. This house has traditionally been inhabited by wizards or magicians, but little else is said of it. Its dome is broken early on in the story, but the remnants retain the power of magnifying both the image of the viewer inside and the objects he sees outside.
11:00 p.m. Jibarish