Warhammer 40K, Star Wars and Lord Sunday

Outside it is definitely looking Septemberish. Also Reeve has voted that it's getting colder as he's on the bed rather than his box.

I'll shortly be off to Northern Ireland for a visit (via Heathrow). I'll just miss the duo as they're coming home today from Cambridge. Instead I'll see them around bedtime tomorrow when I get back. I'm not particularly keen to go this time, I've had my fill of airports already this year, but it's part of my job.

The last couple of weekends have seen roleplaying sessions:

• Star Wars - This session divided into two halves both of which moved slowly because of the six-people-doing-combat issue. The first was finishing our mission from Darth Atrium (who the GM firmly named Lord Slithe to stop us calling him that) and recovering the crystal-held former Sith Emperor. Whereupon our party Sith started up a series of private mind-communicated conversations. The second half of the session was spent dealing with a religious war on a planet as we were drafted in to "help" by one side (both sides being controlled by Sith Lords). We actually got out of that one quite well - we got paid and everything.
• Warhammer 40K - This was the Vibius group of Tech Priest Roth (chrestomancy), Imperial Guard Tiberius Locke (ao_lai) and pious assassin Urlban (bateleur). They investigated a shuttle that had come down in the southern half of the planet. This involved visiting an estate of the Church run by a rather mad old lady and wandering through an underground/underwater Armada of ships that should have been in orbit. There's definitely heresy going on; the only question appears to be who to arrest/shoot first.

Over the last couple of weeks of commuting, I have re-read my first six Keys to the Kingdom books and then read Lord Sunday for the first time. I found I needed the re-reading in order to remind myself what was going on as I first read the books over several years. Overall, I enjoyed the series and felt it had a fitting ending. I did not like it as much as the Old Kingdom though which was my introduction to Garth Nix. I found Keys to the Kingdom was rather more concept-y and had some clever references in it (such as to the seven deadly sins), but I found it less engrossing as a series. That said, it's still a lovely piece of work, but it has heavy competition from his earlier series.