34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not superior, but still pretty good, July 19, 2008
"Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)"
- Rihanna
Book Six of the series "The Keys to the Kingdom" has the young hero Arthur Penhaligon taking on the oldest Trustee and first Denizen who just happens to be the third oldest entity in the Universe. Superior Saturday is a powerful sorceress who rules the Upper House with the help of thousands upon thousands of lesser sorcerers who do her bidding while stacked in iron framed cubicles with wire meshed floors and no ceilings.
Working conditions suck big time, what with the perpetual rainfall and all, and the job is even tougher for the "grease monkeys" who have to keep the chains and gears in working order. Promotions and demotions are physical moves, sometimes accompanied by projectiles and heckling, and job perks usually mean not much more than a different colored umbrella (ella, ella, eh eh eh)
Superior Saturday is afflicted with the sin of envy, and her sole ambition is to infiltrate the domain of Lord Sunday, through the "Incomparable Gardens". It's up to Arthur, with a little help from his friends, to rise to the top of her Babel-like Tower and secure the Sixth Key.
With this series, you need to read the books in order so as to understand what's going on. This one is very short, but is one of the least complicated as far as the convoluted links that exist between the House and its parts, namely The Lower House, The Far Reaches, The Border Sea, The Great Maze, The Middle House, The Upper House and the Incomparable Gardens. Many sub-plots are left hanging, but the major bummer is the cliff-hanger ending that leaves the reader suspended in mid-air awaiting the final book of the series.
A must-buy for fans of the series in preparation for the final showdown, but a bit lacking in substance on its own.
Amanda Richards, July 19, 2008
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The rain keeps coming down, August 4, 2008
Arthur Penhaligan's week is almost over, but unfortunately it's not getting any better. Not for him, and not for the House.
In fact, just about everything is tumbling down in the penultimate book of Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series, "Superior Saturday," in which Arthur finally encounters the malevolent sorceress who's been messing things up throughout the series. It's a suitably chaotic and haunting story, and Arthur's internal struggles and new discoveries are a pretty fascinating read -- but don't expect it to really end on anything but a massive cliffhanger.
Arthur receives an emergency call from his brother, who warns him that the Army is about to nuke their entire town. Desperate, Arthur tries to shield the town, but instead ends up slowing time. Unfortunately that is only one of his worries: the magic of the Keys is transforming Arthur's body and mind into something inhuman, and Nothing is eroding away the very foundations of the House. To stop it, he must somehow steal away Superior Saturday's power, and he has to rely on one of the less reliable forces in the House to smuggle himself and Suzy into Saturday's domain.
While Leaf and her pal struggle to save Friday's sleeping victims, Arthur explores Saturday's realm. Turns out Saturday is building a vast tower built by Piper's Children and overseen by sorcerers, so she can reach the Incomparable Gardens that Lord Sunday rules -- and what's more, Arthur is having a lot of trouble locating the Will. His only hope is to climb the tower with Saturday's sorcerous army -- but what awaits them at the top?
"Superior Saturday" is not just saturated in rain, but in desperation. A lot of bad things are happening all at once, since the House is about to collapse, the town is about to be bombed by the Army, all the Piper's rats and children are suspect, and Arthur has found that he can't even trust Dame Primus anymore. There are a lot of bad things going on in "Superior Saturday," but Nix also unfolds some intriguing new revelations about the House and its purpose, during another visit to the imprisoned Old One.
And Nix somehow loads all of this into the plot without making it feel clunky or infodumpy. He spins a suitably dark and gloomy atmosphere over Saturday's domain, full of steampunk-style machinary and lots of ever-drizzling rain. It moves pretty gradually for awhile, but speeds up after Arthur locates the Will, and bumps into another old enemy. And Nix isn't afraid to throw in some horror moments, such as an unfortunate Denizen whose body was dissolved by Nothing, or the chaotic attacks on Saturday's army during the climax.
The biggest problem is that "Superior Saturday" doesn't really end -- the action and tension slowly build for a long time, only to snap like a recoiling spring... on a cliffhanger. Rather than being story unto itself, it's the first half of a story that "Lord Sunday" will finish.
While Arthur seems to accept his transformation a bit too easily, his struggles with his inhuman thoughts ("For a moment he even felt like striking Scamandros, or forcing the Denizen to prostrate himself and beg forgiveness") and rapidly changing body are well-drawn. And Nix raises some intriguing questions about just what it is that Arthur is turning into, since it's made quite clear that he's not transforming into a run-of-the-mill Denizen.
While it has no real ending, "Superior Saturday" is a dark, mildly horrific ride through what is left of the House, and promises a spellbinding finale in the final Keys to the Kingdom novel. An enthralling little book, so long as you don't mind waiting for what comes next.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing Semi-Finale, July 18, 2008
Every book in this series takes a while to get into. However, I was extremely disappointed with the dud of an ending this book had. Either Nix was pressured to finish this book before he was ready, or the publisher got too used to the one book for every denizen Monday-Sunday in the series.
This book seemed rushed, half-hearted and not at all as satisfying as the others in the series. If you don't want to be disappointed, buy Superior Saturday and Lord Sunday together (when it comes out) and read them together as they should have been one book from the start. I really like this author and feel that there must be too much pressure to meet deadlines and follow formulas, a combination of which has stifled Nix's creativity in his latest installment of The Keys to the Kingdom series.
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