Reviewed by DAVID LARSEN
Australian writer Garth Nix first appeared on my radar a year ago, when he completed his superb Old Kingdom fantasy trilogy. It's been marketed for teens and pre-teens, but it's one of those kids' series that works very well for adults, being engagingly literate and fast-paced.
Nix's new
series is a slightly different kettle of fish, in that the children I've asked about it all liked it far more than I did. As parents discover to their cost, the "kids love 'em, adults tolerate 'em" book category is a vast one, and some of its contents are faddish, slip-shod, and genuinely awful.
This isn't at all the case with The Keys to the Kingdom. Telling the story of young Arthur Penhaligon, who wakes up one morning to discover he's been chosen to recover the seven great keys of creation from the unpleasant heavenly bureaucrats who've appropriated them, it's in most respects just as well crafted as the Old Kingdom books. Here's Garth Nix:
"The Keys to the Kingdom is seven books because it's based on the days of the week, the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues. Because I didn't want the obvious comparison with Harry Potter, I thought about trying to do it in four books or three, but it structurally just didn't work ... It's really one long book that will be published in seven episodes and I hope that down the track it will appear in one volume."
It's that seven-part structure that makes the story drag slightly from an adult perspective. Book one (Mister Monday): Arthur overcomes great odds, gets first key. Book two (Grim Tuesday): Arthur overcomes great odds, gets second key. Five more books. Five more keys. Hmm...
To me, this predictability makes the many excellently weird details of Arthur's adventure so much wallpaper. To my seven-year-old son, it gives the series a wonderful sense of pattern. "I think I know what happens in the next one!" he said gleefully, after romping through the first. When he turned out to be right, he was thrilled. Garth Nix knows exactly what he's doing.
* Allen & Unwin, $17.95
* David Larsen is an Auckland reviewer.
