Superior Saturday (The Keys to the Kingdom, #6) in Aussie Readers

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

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

The ending didn't really exude the sense of story self-containment which the other books in this series have. Ok, it could be argued that none of the stories are self-contained. However the last page in this volume, far more than the others, felt like it was simply a cliff-hanging pause between the last two books and that Lord Sunday would pick up a moment later.

The other reason I marked it down - though in some respects this is hardly fair - is that there's really no doubt anymore that Arthur The ending didn't really exude the sense of story self-containment which the other books in this series have. Ok, it could be argued that none of the stories are self-contained. However the last page in this volume, far more than the others, felt like it was simply a cliff-hanging pause between the last two books and that Lord Sunday would pick up a moment later.

The other reason I marked it down - though in some respects this is hardly fair - is that there's really no doubt anymore that Arthur is going to get the next Key by the end of the book. There's a certain level of suspense lacking.

These aside, this was a very enjoyable excursion into the envious world of Superior Saturday. All her sorcerors - thousands of them in bureaucratic array - are working in an open grid tower which is steadily growing higher. They're working in the rain and each have a colour-coded umbrella, according to their station. They also each have a green-shaded banker's lamp lighting up their work.

It's Saturday's desire to punch through the roof above this tower into the Incomparable Gardens of Lord Sunday, a demense she feels she should have been awarded as the eldest child of the Architect. The problem is that the rain makes the supporting drasil trees grow, pushing the Incomparable Gardens ever higher. And pushing them away faster than Saturday's minions can build the tower. But Saturday's got a plan. By allowing the Nothing to invade and get to the drasil (cute allusion to Yggdrasil) trees, then their growth will be arrested and she'll be able to punch through the bottom of the gardens with a sorcerous rocket.

Yes, it's Superior Saturday who has been behind all the intrusions of the Nothing into the various parts of the House. Now, with it almost destroyed, her plan has come to fruition - to invade the Incomparable Gardens and take back that which should always have been hers by right.

In fact, Superior Saturday hardly appears at all in this book: however her machinations have been so much behind all the events of the previous books, she is a dominating figure nonetheless.

Arthur once more is up to the challenge of finding the Sixth Part of the Will - a clever, clever touch in hiding it this time - and the Sixth Key, Superior Saturday's quill.

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