| Author | Derek Landy |
|---|---|
| Country | Republic of Ireland |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy, Children's literature , Teenage Fiction , Horror |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Published | Skulduggery Pleasant (2007) Playing With Fire (2008) The Faceless Ones (2009) Dark Days (2010) Mortal Coil (2010) Death Bringer (2011) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) Audiobook |
Skulduggery Pleasant is a series of fantasy novels written by Irish author Derek Landy. The books chronicle the adventures of the skeleton detective, Skulduggery Pleasant and a teenage girl, Stephanie Edgley (Valkyrie Cain) along with other friends. The central story arc concerns Valkyrie's struggle to stop evil forces threatening the world and to finally find justice for her late uncle's death.
Since the release of the first novel, Skulduggery Pleasant, in 2007, the books have achieved immense popularity among teenagers and young adults. The second novel, Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire, was released the following year, and the third, Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones, in 2009. The series has been praised by both readers and critics. On the 1st of April 2010 the fourth book Dark Days was released, followed by Mortal Coil on September 1st 2010. It is also known that the next book, a short story 'The end of the world' will come out in March.
Landy was initially contracted to write three books, with any further books depending on how well the first trilogy sold. Now, with an estimated 17 million copies of the novels sold, the author has indicated his contract has been extended into a 9-novel deal.
The unabridged audio versions of the books are available from Harper Collins Audio and are read by Rupert Degas.
Contents |
Stephanie Edgley's novelist uncle dies, leaving her his vast mansion and the royalties from his best-selling books. At the reading of the will, a strange man in a tan overcoat, a hat, sunglasses and a scarf is present, who is left a piece of advice, along with Fergus and Beryl, Stephanie's none-too-liked aunt and uncle. Stephanie's aunt and uncle are given something as well: a seemingly useless brooch, a boat, and a car, which they both do not want. Spending a night alone in the mansion, Stephanie is attacked by a strange man, demanding she gives him a "key". As the man attacks Stephanie, the mysterious man in the tan overcoat from Gordon's funeral, known as Skulduggery Pleasant, arrives and saves her, throwing a fireball and then shooting the attacker. Skulduggery's disguise of a hat, wig and sunglasses fall off to reveal that he is an undead wizard, made up of only a skeleton held together by magic. He takes Stephanie as his partner and races to save the world from the Sceptre of the Ancients, a mysterious staff located only in folklore. However, one of his old rivals has already retrieved it and Skulduggery may be too late to save the world, with or without Stephanie.
A year after the events of the first novel, Stephanie Edgley (now known as Valkyrie Cain) continues to work with Skulduggery Pleasant, a dead skeleton detective, capturing villains for The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is now ruled by Thurid Guild in a new location after the massacre in the previous Sanctuary.
Soon Baron Vengeous (one of the original three generals of Mevolent) escapes his prison and begins searching for the armor of Lord Vile, another one of Mevolent's Generals with which he will be able to resurrect The Grotesquery, a hybrid monster made from a Faceless One's remains with the power bring back the Faceless Ones. Arriving in Ireland, he meets an accomplice vampire named Dusk.
Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant are investigating the murders of four Teleporters. They go to tell Thurid Guild what they know. He refuses to rehire them and has hired Remus Crux instead, a bumbling detective that blindly follows Guild's orders in an attempt to impress him. After discovering the recent murders may have been linked to a Teleporter murder 50 years ago, Skulduggery and Valkyrie go and talk to the only Sea Hag that lives in a lake to see if they can get any information about the 50 year old murder. They discover a man named Batu killed the Teleporter and talk to the dead Teleporter whose body is lying at the bottom of the lake. After promising to bury him on dry land, the Sea Hag is enraged and tries to drown Valkyrie Cain. They also discover that an object called the Isthmus Anchor and a Teleporter would be able to open a gateway to the Faceless Ones allowing them to enslave the earth. With China Sorrows's help they locate a boy who is an unskilled Teleporter and save him from Billy-Ray Sanguine who is working for the Diablerie. Batu, the head of the Diablerie, wants to use the unskilled Teleporter, to open the portal. The Diablerie knows that experienced Teleporters, who are now dead, will not co-operate, and have the ability to close the portal so their only choice is to kill them. Sanguine talks with his mysterious boss and is given a new job.
Valkyrie is learning Necromancy and Skulduggery is gone. Valkyrie has been in search of the Isthmus Anchor (Skulduggery's real skull) which will open the portal to rescue Skulduggery. Dreylan Scarab, a man framed for the murder of Esryn Vanguard, is released from prison and is picked up by his son, Billy-Ray Sanguine. Meanwhile, Valkyrie is close to finding Skulduggery's head, but as she goes home, she is attacked in the night by the insane Remus Crux. Solomon Wreath (her teacher in Necromancy) saves her, but Valkyrie gets China to put symbols up around Haggard to alert China if anyone unwanted walks in. Valkyrie gets a meeting with a black market dealer but finds out the skull he gave her was a fake. But she steals the real one from the Sanctuary but gets arrested then beats her captors up and steals the real skull from Guilds office. Fletcher then reopens the portal. Valkyrie then enters, leaving China Sorrows and Fletcher to fend against the Sanctuary officials on the farm. Valkyrie looks for Skulduggery and finds him, however, Skulduggery is under the impression that Valkyrie is just an hallucination. The Faceless Ones come after Valkyrie and Skulduggery but the portal re-opens and both are pulled out just in time. They are back at Aranmore Farm and realise that China has been shot by a Sanctuary official. She is taken to Kenspeckle to be healed whilst Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Fletcher go to Skulduggery's house. He tells Fletcher he can leave them, so he goes. Skulduggery and Valkyrie return to the Sanctuary to rescue Ghastly and Tanith. All of them are trying to find clues about who they are up against. They find out that the 'Revenger's Club' is made up of Dreylan Scarab, Billy-Ray Sanguine, Dusk, Vaurien Scapegrace, Remus Crux and Springheeled Jack. Sanguine steals the Soul Catcher from the Necromancer Temple and plans to use it to catch a Remnant from the Midnight Hotel. Valkyrie and Skulduggery figure this out and go to the Midnight Hotel and find Sanguine checking in. Scapegrace arrives with a zombie hoard and Anton Shudder (owner of the Midnight Hotel), Valkyrie, Skulduggery, Sanguine and a couple of other sorcerers battle against the zombies. Sanguine escapes with a Remnant. The Revenger's Club capture Kenspeckle and put the Remnant into him. He then repairs the Desolation Engine (a bomb) and tortures Tanith by nailing her to a chair. Scarab plans to set the bomb of at a football match. At the stadium Valkyrie is bitten by Dusk. They defeat Scarab and Valkyrie saves Guild's family from Sanguine and he says to her that he is not going to kill her because he thinks worse things are to come. Davina Marr blows up the Sanctuary by controlling Myron Stray. Valkyrie realises her true name is Darquesse.
Skulduggery and Valkyrie find out about a powerful assassin named Tesseract, who is on a mission to kill Davina Marr, but are unable to save her from him. Valkyrie must seal her name, so that none can use it against her, by going to a banshee, who promises to organize an appointment with Doctor Nye. On Christmas day, she visits her mothers side of the family, then her fathers', where her cousins (Carol and Crystal) begin to warm up to her. Later, the Banshee calls and Valkyrie has to leave, and after a near death experience, she finds her name sealed with three intricate symbols carved on her heart. Afterwords, she spills the beans to Skulduggery and tells him she is Darquesse. A remnant gets away from Wreath when he tries to find what will happen to Valkyrie. The remnant finds out that Valkyrie, in fact will become Darquesse, and sets all the Remnants loose to search for Darquesse. When they find and possess her, Valkyrie turns into Darquesse briefly, killing many, but is stopped by Skulduggery. The Giant Soul Catcher is turned on and all but one Remnants are caught; one that bonds with Tanith Low forever. At the end Skulduggery tries to arrest Tesseract but is stopped when a Necromancer in armour attacks Tesseract and talks to Skulduggery,telling him that he will kill Valkyrie and the other Necromancers. The armoured Necromancer is revealed to be Lord Vile. Skulduggery befriends Tesseract in the moments before his death who tells him about how he will miss his cat when he is dead. He also asks Skulduggery if it was Lord Vile's Necromancy that brought him back to life, but Skulduggery does not answer. Tesseract dies facing the sun, killed by Lord Vile as he came back from Death.
Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer
In June 2011 Landy posted on his blog [1] that he would be writing a short story about Skulduggery called The End of the World. It will be released in March 2012 to coincide with World Book Day 2012. This is also stated in the back of his sixth Skulduggery Pleasant book, Death Bringer.
As of October 2010, a series of new covers are being released. The first book's cover will more or less be the back cover of the normal cover. The second cover is gold, the third is purple, and the fourth is red. Presumably Mortal Coil will be out in this style in Paperback edition. The new covers can be viewed at Waterstones.com.[2]
Skulduggery Pleasant won the Red House Children's Book Award,[3] the Bolton Children's Book Award[4] and the Staffordshire Young Teen Fiction Award.[5] The book was also recommended for confident readers (9+) by the Richard & Judy Children's Book Club in 2007. It also won the Portsmouth Book Awards in 2008, having been selected by school children in Portsmouth, as well as winning Irish book of the decade in 2010.[6] Also, in 2009 , it won the Kernow Youth and Grampian Book Awards by a majority vote. It has also been nominated for Young Reader's Choice Awards 2010 in North America.
As the first four novels released, immense popularity and positive reviews have been given to the novels. Many critics praised Derek Landy's way of writing due to his extremely huge gallery of characters. Some critics and their comments are below:
The immense popularity and extremely positive reviews of the first three novels have caught the attention of people worldwide. Warner Bros. also caught the attention and are currently in talks for film adaptions of the novels and currently the first novel's adaption is in the planning stage. Author Derek Landy has expressed interest and welcomed film adaptions for all of his novels. As of mid-2009, Warner Bros. owns the rights to the films.
However, Derek Landy commented "that the movie will probably not be coming out in 2010... we have a director and are working on the script...but if the movie's made, it will be live action."[11] Rumoured directors are along the lines of Steven Spielberg and Edgar Wright. Landy has expressed interest in Tim Burton for director, and a Warner Bros. executive has expressed interest in Johnny Depp, a frequent collaborator of Burton's, as Skulduggery.
The producers have been announced as Graham Broadbent and Peter Czernin, the producers of another Irish film, In Bruges.
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