Synopsis: Elton John once said that Saturday Night’s Alright for Fightin’, but Saturday Night is just one of the many things that Arthur Penhaligon would rather not fight, with Saturday herself, Superior Sorcerer of the House, topping the list. He has five of the seven keys and five parts of the Architect’s Will have been released, but it is Saturday’s machinations that have led to this and now the House is crumbling from the bottom up as she launches her final assault on the Incomparable Gardens. With his soul teetering on – or possibly plunging over – the brink of humanity, Arthur must make an impossible choice and risk everything to prevent the destruction of the House, and of all that he holds dear in the world of his birth.

Review: In the sixth book of – presumably – seven, Garth Nix plunges into the endgame of Keys to the Kingdom with a vengeance. Arthur is more than halfway to becoming a permanent Denizen of the House, everything he is reluctantly fighting for is being destroyed and the home he has sacrificed his humanity for stands on the brink of nuclear destruction. Moreover, while the previous books have ended with Arthur in a place of relative safety, Superior Saturday leaves his fate and that of Suzy and the Sixth Key up in the air, and Saturday herself still very much in the game.

Seven books is an impressive length for a serial, but the Keys to the Kingdom has never flagged in pace or inventiveness. With its last-act cliffhanger, Superior Saturday not only maintains that pace, but actually accelerates it, paving the way for a truly break-neck final volume (or a very short one where Arthur just thinks bitter thoughts as he falls to his death, but I’m betting against that direction). Don’t start the series here, it won’t make a blind bit of sense, but certainly don’t stop at Lady Friday.

And there are pirates, or at least some rodent buccaneers. If there were only some ninjas and a kitchen sink then this book would have everything.

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2008-07-01