Of Swords and Parasols

This is the sixth, and penultimate, book in Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom series, and it rather shows. The greatest strength of this series has always been the world building in the realms that Arthur encounters, and that continued to be true in this book.

I mean, immortal, superjaded and pragmatic children building skyscrapers miles high in a word where it never stops raining, aided by artificial wings! What’s not to love?

Unfortunately, so much time is spent catching us up with the previous five books and setting up the last book that Nix barely had time to go “Look! Flying child architects!” before the book was over. Which is not to say it was a bad book or that it wasn’t a pleasant read, but it wasn’t long enough to spend much time on the funnest parts, and it was very much a “getting ready for the end” book.

While I haven’t liked Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom series as much as I did the Old Kingdom series, I found the first four pretty entertaining and enjoyable, despite having some serious problems with Drowned Wednesday. The fifth installment, unfortunately, I found rather dull.

Busy with her experiments robbing humans of their memories, Lady Friday isn’t interested having to fight Arthur for the piece of the Will she was entrusted with, and so she resigns from her position and tells Arthur, Superior Saturday, and the Piper that whichever gets there first can have it. There are the typical fun bits with Arthur encountering her oddball underlings and I approve of Leaf continuing to get to have her own adventures, but Lady Friday herself is almost a non-entity, and at this point, I’m mostly interested in Piper and the Piper’s Children (and I get the annoying impression that Suzy is considered less important now that Arthur has a male Piper’s Child as a buddy to have adventures with) and what’s going on with Dame Primus. And, in complete honesty, a week after reading it and I’ve forgotten most of what’s happened.

The third book of Nix’s The Keys to the Kingdom picks up almost immediately after the second. This time, Arthur, along with his friend Leaf, is whisked off to a sea-covered realm, but the two are waylaid and separated along the way to meet their host. When the world was covered in water, most of the buildings were converted into ships, and Arthur finds himself picked up by what was once a counting house.

I liked the sea-covered world, and the setup of the characters. There was also a lot more with the Piper’s Children, and his Rats, and Wednesday’s Dawn is the first of the Morrows’ representatives to actually feel like a real character. In addition, more is done with the Judeo-Christian symbolism the books are largely based around than in previous books, and there are some sendups to Arthurian legend, too.

Unfortunately, I have a major problem with this book.

( spoilers )

Mister Monday is the first book in a seven book series (each named, I believe, after the antagonist of the book, the antagonists being named after the days of the week). The writing is tighter here than in Sabriel, but closer to the quality ofd and ,em>Abhorsen. Which is not to knock Sabriel at all, but the writing does very much reveal it to be a first book at times.

Arthur Penhaligon is an asthmatic twelve-year-old. When he has an asthma attack at school, he sees what may be a hallucination of two men. One wants to give Arthur something called The Key because he’s the next in line for it, while the other, Mister Monday, doesn’t want to give the key to anyone, preferring to keep it for himself, despite his duty. He is assured, however, that Arthur is meant to die almost immediately, and so he grudgingly gives him the key. Arthur does not die, however, and soon starts seeing things that aren’t supposed to be there, such as strange dogmen and a huge house built in many styles. And then he realizes that he’s being hunted by people who want the key, and that it’s somehow connected to a plague that’s making people fall asleep and not wake up again.

I really like the strange, time-based mythology of this book that draws on various traditions, and I’m especially fond of the inclusion of Piper (presumably the Pied Piper) in it, and one of his children, Suzy, who helps Arthur in his quest. I also love the House, where most of the action takes place, and the oddity of Arthur’s opponents. I wish, though, that there had been more of Ed and Leaf, the two children Arthur befriended early in the book, and Arthur’s family. And I really like that, unlike so many of these twelve-year-old boy heroes, Arthur has a large family that he gets along with, doesn’t spend a lot of time angsting and/or complaining, and can make friends pretty normally. Which probably accounts for why I like him a lot more than I do a lot of angsty twelve-year-old boy heroes. But then, Nix does of a good job of making his characters seem fairly real to me, even when they’re annoying me. I can’t help but think, though, that I would have been more into Arthur and his story both if he’d been a little older. But I think that’s a hangup I have about kids going through bad things, even though I know they do in real life.

( spoilers )

I know that Across the Wall is a collection of short stories, at least one of which is set in the same world, but has anyone read Nix’s other series, or know if he plans to write anymore in this world? (Preferably about Ellimere or set later in Lirael’s life, but I accept that writers don’t get paid just to cater to me.)

Sabriel is a student in a boarding school in Ancelstierre, a country similar to 1920s England, but is actually from The Old Kingdom, a country to the north where magic works. Those in Ancelstierre who don’t live near the border, however, don’t believe this, nor do they believe that dangerous spirits ranging from zombies to free elementals run wild in The Old Kingdom. Sabriel knows they exist not only because she’s from there, but also because her father, Terciel, is Abhorsen, a hereditary position responsible for controlling these spirits that surround the Wall between the two countries. When her father is overcome by a new threat, he has his sword and bells sent to Sabriel so she can take up the position of Abhorsen. Sabriel, however, sets out to find her father, accompanied by Moggett, a Free Magic construct in the form of a talking cat who is bound to the Abhorsen-no matter who it is at the time, and is later joined by Touchstone, a young mage who is 200 ears out of his own time.

I liked it, and the characters, but I read the firs half with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. About midway through, I realized what it was: there’s never really any reason to worry about Sabriel. Yes, she goes through a number of difficulties, but there’s never any reason to worry whether or not she’ll come out of them OK. We as the reader know that, more often than not, good will vanquish evil, the lovers will find each other, the heroes will overcome their differences and band together, the detective will learn the identity of the killer, etc. We have a perconceived comfort zone that we adjust to what we think the author will do, and then it's up to the author to shake us out of it, or to give us hope. Sure, sometimes rocks fall and everybody dies, but you can usually tell those are coming. The job of the author is to make you wonder if the hero will make it in time, if s/he is up to the challenge, if the lovers will ever work things out, if the dodgy character will join the good guys or betray them, etc. We may know that there’s a 90% chance things will work out to some degree (the lovers die, but only after saving the world), but we need to worry that there’s a chance it won’t. This is why figuratively punching the reader in the gut isn’t always a bad thing.  (The above, of course, applies to fiction with a Threat. Light and fluffy things have different rules.)

There’s never any chance with Sabriel. She’s calm, confident and skilled. She has the magic weapons and the advisor almost from the start. At one point, Sabriel comments that her father never prepared her for her destiny of Abhorsen, but she never feels unprepared. She has to work throughout her journey, and she doesn’t have it easy, but there’s never a reason to worry about her.  Nix does play with that a bit near the end, but not enough for me. 

The end does, though, play a bit with a fictional trope that I don’t think gets used enough.

( spoilers )

Mind you, this series has been highly recced to me for about two years, so I’m likely subconsciously being more critical than I would be otherwise. In addition, the general consensus from the f-list seems to be that the other two books in the series will be more my thing.

Unrelated: I am so happy I saw a dozen “OMG LJ WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY PROFILE CHANGE IT BACK!” posts before looking at my profile. It’s not as bad when you expect something that will make your eyes bleed.