Sir Thursday (The Keys to the Kingdom, #4) in Aussie Readers

Jun 01, 2014 Anne Hamilton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: australia-nz, fantasy, ya, spec-fic

As I was writing up Drowned Wednesday, I realised with a jolt that each of the Trustees faced by Arthur represents one of the seven deadly sins. Ok, I know - a bit slow of me - and I was pleased to see this guess confirmed by lots of info around the web.

So, it was with some anticipation I wondered who Sir Thursday would symbolise. Would it be pride, envy or wrath? As it transpired it was the latter.

Sir Thursday's demense is in the Great Maze: a massive chessboard-like warzone in which the many As I was writing up Drowned Wednesday, I realised with a jolt that each of the Trustees faced by Arthur represents one of the seven deadly sins. Ok, I know - a bit slow of me - and I was pleased to see this guess confirmed by lots of info around the web.

So, it was with some anticipation I wondered who Sir Thursday would symbolise. Would it be pride, envy or wrath? As it transpired it was the latter.

Sir Thursday's demense is in the Great Maze: a massive chessboard-like warzone in which the many and varied troops under Sir Thursday and his marshals fight the Nithlings. These are allowed in a controlled fashion into the Maze via a corridor with four gates. The four gates are never opened simultaneously... until curious orders arrive to allow hundreds of thousands of Nithlings in and hold all the gates open.

Arthur is drinking a toast when he finds a shilling in the bottom of his glass. By taking it the shilling, he puts himself in a position where he has to accept recruitment in Sir Thursday's troops for one hundred years. He can't believe it... would Mister Monday or Grim Tuesday or Lady Wednesday, all of whom he has defeated, have been required to fulfil such outrageous servitude? Yes. Apparently they would have.

Unfortunately for Arthur, not long after arriving at the recruiting station, he's washed between the ears and his memory erased. It takes weeks to get even the slightest bit of it back. This is doubly unfortunate because, back home on Earth, the Skinless Boy has taken his place and he won't be able to do anything to halt this Corigue's assault on his world without a memory.

Meantime, the Piper is leading an army of New Nithlings - no longer the disorganised rabble of the past, these are disciplined troops of superior intelligence. Where, in the past, the armies of Sir Thursday were aided by the chessboard-like tiles moving each sundown. An almanac enabled the armies to know where each tile would move, thus assisting in two ways: large Nithling groupings would get split suddenly by the 'tectonic' transitions but Sir Thursday's troops could transport themselves closer to the Citadel or one of the fixed fortresses simply by knowing where particular tiles were due to move.

However, the New Nithlings have a plan to stop the tectonic movement of the plates. If they can get a spike of ensorcelled Nothing to plate 500/500, the warzone will become static and every advantage Sir Thursday's troops have will be gone. ...more

Like · see review