The Keys to the Kingdom: Mister Monday - Garth Nix

Much of my 'Non-work' reading is done in the car with Audio books. There'd be a lot of books I would have just ignore completely if they weren't available because I simply don't have the time for them all. My regular drives to Canberra also help in churning through a few Audio books.

All that said, I got myself a copy of Mister Monday because I had always intended to read this series, but had never found myself getting around to it. Now that book one is behind me, all I can do is chide myself I did't read these earlier when I would have had the time to sit and read them all in a row. I Loved it!

Admittedly (and I will get this out of the way before I go on) there were one or two voices of characters that irked me and kind of threw me out of the story, but over all Allan Corduner did a very good job of reading the story. This is the main problem with Audio books, if the reader's voice is annoying or pronounces words in an odd way, it can be very distracting and detract from the book itself. This wasn't the case with Mister Monday, but I have had this happen with other titles.

Now that the 'negative' part is out of the way, I can go on raving about this book.

Nix has built a brilliant fantasy world that is so thoroughly thought out and planned it all fits together perfectly - like clockwork as it were. But that does not make it burdensome for the reader. Keep in mind these books are aimed at 8-12 year olds, it would be a shame if they were unnecessarily complex. That said, reading them with an adult mind, I found them fascinating in thinking over all that is being alluded to or suggested by the constructs of this fantasy world.

Our universe is known as "The Secondary Realms" which were created by "The Architect" out of Nothing. She also created "The House" which sits between the Secondary Realms and Nothing and its purpose was to observe and record. When the Architect "went away" she left a Will to govern the house.

The custodians had other plans, and divided the Will, destroying it's power and assuming control of one part of The House and one day of the week. Seven days of the week mastered by seven illegitimate rulers, afflicted by Seven Deadly Sins. Mister Monday is impaired by Sloth and has let the Lower House fall into disrepair.

Enter the hero, a young boy who has severe asthma and nearly dies half way through the cross country run at his new school. Then he must go into The House and try to find a way to right the wrongs that Mister Monday has brought upon his friends and family.

I had so much fun with this book, and could strongly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in fantasy. Even adult readers shouldn't be put off by the age of it's target audience. As I know very well and I try to convince people of all the time: Children and Young Adult fiction is full of treasures for all ages.