This seven-way split in class divisions and power is so easy to make artificially perfect-cut-and-dry fantasy, colour-by-numbers fantasy. Again, the colour of the light plays a role-generally, Violet is most powerful, but there are also specific colours for specific purposes (Green ray of healing, Red ray of destruction.) Colour and light also signify all sorts of other things instead of bowing, you give light from your Sunstones, and judging of events is coded by the colour you flash (Yellow ray of failed ambition, Violet of Attainment, White ray of disgust, etc.) People can only use colours in their own level or below a Green man might use any colour from Red to Green, but not Blue and above. Light, channeled through Sunstones, is made into powerful weapons and tools using a powerful enough Sunstone, a user can make solid stairways and floors out of light, play a symphony on specially-constructed crystal, or fire off destructive rays.
Within these colours there are further class divisions, with Violet Shadowlords at the top and Red Dimmers at the bottom.
The people who live in the seven towers are almost all Light mages of some sort or another, and are divided into seven orders-from Red up to Violet. In this world, light is of paramount importance. The Seventh Tower takes place in a world living under the Veil, a thick layer that prevents sunlight from reaching the ground. I love Garth Nix for how he treats pat ideas in fantasy. For the past few months, I've just had the most intense craving for this series and put it off because I was busy, or out of country, but then I got my hands on them and yes, they are still delightful. This is not a feat because they're tiny little books published by Scholastic, and two hundred large-print pages apiece, and also I've read them before.
I inhaled the six books of Garth Nix's The Seventh Tower series- The Fall, Castle, Aenir, Above the Veil, Into Battle and The Violet Keystone-in the last two days. Sorry, all-other-allegedly-superior-books and books waiting in the review-queue, I play favourites. So this review is jumping the queue, because I love it.
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