Book Review - Armageddon Outta Here

Armageddon Outta Here
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #8.5 (Series Novellas)
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 3rd July 2014
Publishers: HarperCollins
No. Pages: 411
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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One amazing new novella.
Three gripping new stories.
The ultimate story collection.

We all know that doors are for people with no imagination so smash the glass, climb through the window and enter the awesome world of Skulduggery Pleasant with this ultimate story collection. For the first time, every Skulduggery Pleasant short story – plus The End of the World, the World Book Day novelette – is collected into one magnificent volume. But that's not all..

Written specially for this collection, there is an entirely new novella that will drag you into a nail-biting American horror story, Skulduggery-style, and three brand-spanking-new stories spanning the last 150 years. Join Gordon Edgley as he parties like it's 1985, watch Valkyrie Cain face a vampire in a fight to the death, and see the Dead Men as you've never seen them before.

Introduced by Derek, this is the hidden history of the skeleton who saves the world..
and the girl who's destined to destroy it.

Book Review - Skulduggery Pleasant

Skulduggery Pleasant
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #1
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 30th September 2007
Publishers: HarperCollins
No. Pages: 368
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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Meet Skulduggery Pleasant. Sure, he may lose his head now and again (in fact, he won his current skull in a poker match), but he is much more than he appears to be - which is good, considering that he is, basically, a skeleton. Skulduggery may be long dead, but he is also a mage who dodged the grave so that he could save the world from an ancient evil. But to defeat it, he'll need the help of a new partner: a not so innocent twelve-year-old girl named Stephanie. That's right, they're the heroes.

Stephanie and Skulduggery are quickly caught up in a battle to stop evil forces from acquiring her recently deceased uncle's most prized possession -the Sceptre of the Ancients. The Ancients were the good guys, an extinct race of uber-magicians from the early days of the earth, and the scepter is their most dangerous weapon, one capable of killing anyone and destroying anything. Back in the day, they used it to banish the bad guys, the evil Faceless Ones. Unfortunately, in the way of bad guys everywhere, the Faceless Ones are staging a comeback and no one besides our two heroes believes in the Faceless Ones, or even that the Sceptre is real.

So Stephanie and Skulduggery set off to find the Sceptre, fend off the minions of the bad guys, beat down vampires and the undead, prove the existence of the Ancients and the Faceless Ones, all while trading snappy, snippy banter worthy of the best screwball comedies.

Book Review - Dying of the Light

Dying of the Light
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #9
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 28th August 2014
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 604
Source: Purchased
Rating: 
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The War of the Sanctuaries has been won, but it was not without its casualties..

Following the loss of Valkyrie Cain, Skulduggery Pleasant must use any and all means to track down and stop Darquesse 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 reflection.

The war may be over, but the final battle is about to begin. And not everyone gets out of here alive..

Book Review - Last Stand of Dead Men

Last Stand of Dead Men
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #8
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 29th August 2013
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 604
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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War has finally come. Not a war between good and evil, or light and dark, but a war between Sanctuaries. Skulduggery and Valkyrie must team up with the rest of Dead Men if they're to have any chance of maintaining the balance of power and getting to the root of a vast conspiracy that has been years in the making.

And at the same time, another war rages within Valkyrie herself, as Darquesse is on the verge to rising - and if Valkyrie slips, even for a moment, Darquesse will burn the world and everyone in it..

Book Review - Kingdom of the Wicked

Kingdom of the Wicked
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #7
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 30th August 2012
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 607
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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Magic is a disease.

Across the land, normal people are suddenly developing wild and unstable powers. Infected by a rare strain of magic, they are unwittingly endangering their own lives and the lives of the people around them. Terrified and confused, their only hope lies with the Sanctuary. Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are needed now more than ever. And then there's the small matter of Kitana. A normal teenage girl who, along with her normal teenage friends, becomes infected. Becomes powerful. Becomes corrupted. Wielding the magic of gods, they're set to tear the city apart unless someone stands up against them.

Looks like it's going to be another one of those days..

Book Reviews - Death Bringer/The End of the World

Death Bringer
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #6
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 1st September 2011
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 603
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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Think you've seen anything yet? You haven’t. Because the Death Bringer is about to rise..

The Necromancers no longer need Valkyrie to be their Death Bringer, and that’s a good thing. There’s just one catch. There’s a reason the Necromancers don’t need her any more. And that’s because they've found their Death Bringer already, the person who will dissolve the doors between life and death. And that’s a very, very bad thing..

Book Review - Mortal Coil

Mortal Coil
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #2
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 2nd September 2010
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 572
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are back - just in time to see their whole world get turned upside down! While they struggle to protect a known killer from an unstoppable assassin, Valkyrie is on a secret mission of her own. This quest, to prevent her dark and murderous destiny, threatens to take her to the brink of death and beyond. And then the body-snatching Remnants get loose, thousands of twisted souls who possess the living like puppets, and they begin their search for a being powerful enough to lead them.

Facing such insurmountable odds, Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Ghastly and Tanith can trust no one.
Not even each other!

Book Review - Dark Days

Dark Days
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #4
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 1st March 2010
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 415
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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It's the fourth Skulduggery Pleasant adventure! Only, Skulduggery Pleasant himself is lost on the other side of a portal, with only some evil gods for company. Can he possibly survive? (Yes, all right, he's already dead. But still.)

Skulduggery Pleasant is gone, sucked into a parallel dimension overrun by the Faceless Ones. If his bones haven't already been turned to dust, chances are he's insane, driven out of his mind by the horror of the ancient gods. There is no official, Sanctuary-approved rescue mission. There is no official plan to save him. But Valkyrie's never had much time for plans. The problem is, even if she can get Skulduggery back, there might not be much left for him to return to.

There's a gang of villains bent on destroying the Sanctuary, there are some very powerful people who want Valkyrie dead, and as if all that wasn't enough it looks very likely that a sorcerer named Darquesse is going to kill the world and everyone on it. Skulduggery is gone. All our hopes rest with Valkyrie. The world's weight is on her shoulders, and its fate is in her hands.

These are dark days indeed.

Book Review - The Faceless Ones

The Faceless Ones
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #3
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 6th April 2009
Publishers: Harper Collins
Pages: 395
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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If you've read the previous Skulduggery books then you know what the Faceless Ones are - and if you know what the Faceless Ones are, then you can probably take a wild guess that things in this book are going to get AWFULLY sticky for our skeletal hero and his young sidekick. If you haven't read the previous Skulduggery books then what are you doing reading this? Go and read them right now, so that you know what all that stuff in the previous paragraph was about. Done? Good. So now you’re on tenterhooks too, desperately awaiting the answers to all your questions, and instead you're going to have to wait to read the book. Sorry about that.

Book Review - Playing With Fire

Playing With Fire
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #2
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 28th April 2008
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 351
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
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Valkyrie Cain - once known to the world as twelve-year-old Stephanie Edgley - has learned a great deal since beginning her apprenticeship to Skulduggery Pleasant, the well-dressed, living-dead wizard-detective. But she hasn't learned nearly enough to defeat the horrors massing against her and her friends: An old foe of Skulduggery's, Baron Vengeous, is bent on bringing back to life the horrible Grotesquery - an unkillable monster assembled from the most fearsome beasts of legend.

It's up to the ingenious, fearless, and quick-witted Valkyrie and Skulduggery to stop the Grotesquery from coming fully to life. Because once the thing is alive, it will call to its masters, the evil Faceless Ones who return will mean the end of the world.

Book Review - Skulduggery Pleasant

Skulduggery Pleasant
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #1
Genres: Fantasy | Childrens, Young Adult
Release Date: 30th September 2007
Publishers: Harper Collins
No. Pages: 368
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Meet Skulduggery Pleasant. Sure, he may lose his head now and again (in fact, he won his current skull in a poker match), but he is much more than he appears to be - which is good, considering that he is, basically, a skeleton. Skulduggery may be long dead, but he is also a mage who dodged the grave so that he could save the world from an ancient evil. But to defeat it, he'll need the help of a new partner: a not so innocent twelve-year-old girl named Stephanie. That's right, they're the heroes.

Stephanie and Skulduggery are quickly caught up in a battle to stop evil forces from acquiring her recently deceased uncle's most prized possession -the Sceptre of the Ancients. The Ancients were the good guys, an extinct race of uber-magicians from the early days of the earth, and the scepter is their most dangerous weapon, one capable of killing anyone and destroying anything. Back in the day, they used it to banish the bad guys, the evil Faceless Ones. Unfortunately, in the way of bad guys everywhere, the Faceless Ones are staging a comeback and no one besides our two heroes believes in the Faceless Ones, or even that the Sceptre is real.

So Stephanie and Skulduggery set off to find the Sceptre, fend off the minions of the bad guys, beat down vampires and the undead, prove the existence of the Ancients and the Faceless Ones, all while trading snappy, snippy banter worthy of the best screwball comedies.