Skulduggery Pleasant

Skulduggery Pleasant

Twelve-year-old Stephanie Edgley is tired of her boring life. But when a man breaks into her recently deceased uncle's house and tries to kill her, she is saved by a funny, arrogant, fireball-throwing, 400-year-old detective named Skulduggery Pleasant, who just so happens to be a walking skeleton, and she is thrust into a world of danger, murder and magic. Taking the new name of Valkyrie Cain, she partners up with Skulduggery to solve her uncle's murder, and to prevent the devious Nefarian Serpine from obtaining the Sceptre of Ancients, a mystical weapon that can slay gods. The sceptre is a powerful weapon which can be used to defeat and overcome the world and bring back the Faceless Ones.

Playing With Fire

Baron Vengeous, one of Mevolent's Three Generals, has escaped from prison, and he has big plans for the Grotesquery, a dark creature created from the remains of some of the most deadly creatures to ever walk the earth. Most worryingly of all, it has a torso of a Faceless One, one of the dark gods that ruled the earth eons ago, and the Baron plans to use this to bring back the rest of the Faceless Ones, so they may resume their reign of tyranny and torture, and to help him with this endeavour he has an army of vampires at his disposal. This will be Skulduggery and Valkyrie's toughest battle yet.

The Faceless Ones

As a string of murders whittles down the number of teleporters in the world at an alarming rate, it is quickly linked to a fanatical cult named the Diablerie, who worship horrific Dark gods known as the Faceless Ones, as they attempt to open a portal with the goal of returning the Faceless Ones to the world. With the assistance of a cocky young teleporter, Fletcher Renn, Valkyrie and Skulduggery have very little time to track down a mysterious man named Batu, stop the Diablerie, and prevent the Faceless ones from returning to earth, because if they don't, the world will burn. This one will have deadly consequences.

Dark Days

Following the events of The Faceless Ones, Valkyrie has tracked down Skulduggery's original skull, with which she can open another portal to the home dimension of the Faceless Ones and rescue Skulduggery. However, things do not go exactly as planned as Skulduggery has become unhinged thanks to his experiences with the Faceless Ones, but it is quickly revealed that they have much bigger problems to worry about: The Revengers Club, a group of criminals and murderers (and Scapegrace), who are out for revenge against those who wronged them in the way they know best: mass murder. And if that wasn't enough to deal with, sensitives all around the globe are having visions of a new threat, one that will bring the world to its knees: Darquesse.

Mortal Coil

Between the shocking revelation that her secret name is Darquesse, a near deathly being that sensitives have had terrifying apocalyptic visions of, in which she turns to world into a charred lifeless husk, an outbreak of at least 2000 vicious, soul possessing shadows known as Remnants who turn their hosts into murdering psychopaths with no remorse, and a prophecy which may make her the Death Bringer, a messiah to the necromancers who they believe will be their salvation, Valkyrie Cain has a lot to worry about. And this time, she might not make it.

Death Bringer

The Death Bringer has finally arrived, and she has brought with her an eagerness to end the world as we know it, and initiate the passage, a secretive ritual which necromancers refuse to explain to the rest of the magical community, only that it will 'tear down the barriers between life and death'. But when the horrific truth behind the passage is revealed, Valkyrie and Skulduggery are caught up in a hectic race against time to save half of the world's population from an untimely death, a race that will have both Skulduggery and Valkyrie facing their inner demons.

Kingdom of the Wicked

Mortals all throughout the world are inexplicably obtaining magical powers, and the trail seems to lead to Argeddion, a pacifistic, almost god like being, who, with the knowledge of his true name, hopes to bring magic to the masses, and lift the world into a new era of enlightenment and peace. The only problem with his seemingly idyllic plan: many of his test subjects are running wild, drunk on their newfound power, and are slaughtering innocent people and on the verge of exposing magic to the world. All of this poses a credible challenge to Skulduggery and Valkyrie. They also have the Supreme Council to deal with, an allied group of sanctuaries trying to convince the Irish to hand over control after the recent series of catastrophes. To make things worse, Valkyrie starts having uncontrollable trans-dimensional jaunts to a world controlled by sorcerers, where mortals live in terror and Mevolent still lives. So, just another usual day then.

Last Stand of Dead Men

The war between sanctuaries that everyone has been expecting has finally come, with the Supreme Council making a desperate grab for control of the cradle of magic, sparking a brutal war that will turn friend into enemy, and ally to foe. But even as the Dead Men make their final stand for their country and their freedom, there is another war raging, inside Valkyrie Cain herself, and it is much more important. Because if she loses, Darquesse will rise, the world will burn, and everyone she knows and loves will perish.

The Dying of the Light

The final book of the first series. The War of the Sanctuaries has been won, but it was not without its casualties. Rogue supercharged sorcerers from the battle of Roarhaven are running loose. Following Darquesse taking over the body of Valkyrie Cain, Skulduggery Pleasant must use any and all means to track down and stop Darquesse and hopefully free Valkyrie before she turns the world into a charred, lifeless cinder. And so he draws together a team of soldiers, monster hunters, killers, criminals, and Valkyrie's own murderous and sentient reflection.

Resurrection

The first book of the second series. Skulduggery and Valkyrie will team up with characters from the first series, alongside a new set of characters, including a new teen character named Omen Darkly. The adventure of the tenth book will take Skulduggery and Valkyrie to stakes of a global proportion, while answering questions that arose from the very first book.

The End of the World

In June 2011 Landy posted on his blog that he would be writing a short story about Skulduggery called The End of the World. It was released in late February 2012 to coincide with World Book Day 2012. The Australian release of this novella came with an additional short story titled Just Another Friday Night. Deleted scenes from Skulduggery Pleasant were included. It is set a few months after Death Bringer. It was included in the 2014 short story collection.

Tanith Low in... The Maleficent Seven

A novella featuring Tanith Low was published in 2013. The cover and title were released on 7 December 2012 after several delays. Landy stated it was his favourite book cover ever. The blog post revealing the cover and title is available here: http://dereklandy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-maleficent-seven.html. It was released on 28 March 2013 in the U.K & Ireland and 1 April in some other countries. The novella follows Tanith Low and Billy-Ray Sanguine as they form a team of villains, outcasts and monsters in order to collect the God-killer weapons, so that they may never be used against Darquesse, whilst Dexter Vex has recruited a team to collect the weapons with the exact opposite in mind: he wants to stockpile the weapons in order to be used against Darquesse. It's a good day to be a bad guy....

Armageddon Outta Here

Armageddon Outta Here is a collection of all the previous short stories and novellas published in the series along with 3 new short stories, 1 new novella and a sample chapter from the final book. It was released on 3 July 2014. The order below represents chronological order, as they as listed in the collection, as opposed to their original publication date.

Covers

As of October 2010, a series of new covers have been released. The first book's cover is more or less the back cover of the normal cover (only blue). The second cover is gold, the third is purple, the fourth is red, the fifth is green, the sixth is dark blue, the seventh is silver and the eighth is yellow. The new mass market paperback edition covers all feature Skulduggery on the front and Valkyrie on the back. Some were released with a short story set a few months after the plot of the novel. Landy stated on his blog that these stories will be gradually removed from the reprints of the books and instead published in a collection of short stories in early 2014.

Accolades

Skulduggery Pleasant won the Red House Children's Book Award, the Bolton Children's Book Award and the Staffordshire Young Teen Fiction Award. 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. Also, in 2009, it won the Kernow Youth and Grampian Book Awards by a majority vote. It had also been nominated for Young Reader's Choice Awards 2010 in North America and it won Irish book awards in 2009 and 2010.

Reception and reviews

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 large gallery of characters.

Film adaptation

In 2010, rumours began to circulate that the Skulduggery Pleasant series would be developed into a film. The film was initially planned for release with Warner Bros. in 2013, but Derek Landy didn't like the script and stated that no film would be released unless the script was written by him. Derek Landy has since decided to leave adapting his books into a screenplay until the completion of The Dying of the Light, the last book in the series.