Skulduggery Pleasant


Skulduggery Pleasant is a series of fantasy novels written by Irish author Derek Landy. The books revolve around the adventures of the skeleton detective, Skulduggery Pleasant, his protegé, Valkyrie Cain, along with other friends. The central story arc concerns Valkyrie's struggle to stop evil forces threatening the world and her internal struggle to resist the darkness within.
Since the release of the first novel in 2007, Skulduggery Pleasant, the series has been praised by both readers and critics. The following novels were released each year afterward, with the exception of the fourth and fifth novels, Dark Days and Mortal Coil, which were both released in 2010. Landy was initially contracted to write three books, with any further books depending on how well the first trilogy sold. The success of the first novels ensured that the deal was extended first to six books and in 2011, HarperCollins signed the deal for the final trilogy.
In July 2016, Derek Landy announced via a video blog that although the Skulduggery Pleasant series was complete, the series as a whole was still set to continue with a sequel series, the first book of which was released on 1 June 2017, titled Resurrection. On 2 April 2020, Seasons of War, the fourth book in the second series, was released. It is the beginning of the second trilogy of that series.

Summary

First series novels

''Skulduggery Pleasant''

Twelve-year-old Stephanie Edgley is tired of her boring and miserable life. But when a mysterious man breaks into her recently inherited uncle's house and tries to kill her, she is saved by a funny, arrogant, fireball-throwing, 400-year-old detective that goes by the name of Skulduggery Pleasant, who just so happens to be a walking, talking skeleton, and she is pulled with him to a secret world of danger, murder and magic. Later in the book, taking the new name of Valkyrie Cain, Stephanie partners up with Skulduggery to solve her uncle's murder, meeting all types of people along the way, 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 had the torso of a Faceless One, one of the dark gods that ruled the earth eons ago, and 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 number of teleporters are mysteriously murdered Valkyrie and Skulduggery learn that 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, 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 true name is Darquesse, a near deathly being that Sensitives have had terrifying apocalyptic visions of, in which she turns the 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 doesn't come out completely victorious.

''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.

''Last Stand of Dead Men''

The war between sanctuaries of the magical world that everyone has been expecting has finally come, with the Supreme Council making a desperate grab for the complete 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 Valkyrie's becoming of Darquesse, 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.

Second series novels

''Resurrection''

A lot has changed. Roarhaven is now a magical city, where sorcerers can live openly. Valkyrie Cain has been out of action for years, recovering from the war against her alter-ego Darquesse, which nearly destroyed her and everyone else. Some things never change, though: bad people still want to do bad things, and Skulduggery Pleasant is still there to stop them. When Skulduggery learns of a plot to resurrect a terrifying evil, he persuades Valkyrie to join him for just 24 hours. But they need someone else on their team, someone inconspicuous, someone who can go undercover: Omen Darkly, a student at the new Corrival Academy, a school for the magically gifted.

''Midnight''

Valkyrie has struggled to keep her family safe ever since she became a sorcerer, while she battled alongside Skulduggery and returned victorious every time. However, a killer kidnaps Alice, her little sister, to force Valkyrie into a final battle. Valkyrie is joined by Skulduggery and Omen Darkly, to find Alice within twelve hours, before it's too late.

''Bedlam''

Reeling from the aftermath of Alice's kidnapping, Valkyrie and Skulduggery have their hands full with new violent visions of the future, while Valkyrie works tirelessly to find her sister's soul, conspiracies in the American government, and tracking down old enemies while facing newer, greater threats than ever. With the King of the Darklands on the rise, and the Anti-sanctuary moving into their endgame, it will take Valkyrie, Skulduggery, the Darkly brothers, and all the allies they can muster to face what lies in store. If new secrets and revelations don't tear them apart first.

''Seasons of War''

War was coming. To avert catastrophe, Skulduggery was sent on a secret mission that took him away from everything he knew, to Dimension X. It was there that Valkyrie had to fight the hardest against the enemies who wanted her dead. It was only by crawling through darkness that she was able to once again stand in the light in another dimension. Skulduggery found that Mevolent's dimension was overrun by zombie like people who were infected by a disease called Draugar.
Spoiler: All the dead men die.
Seasons of War released on 2 April 2020, and is be the first novel in the final trilogy of the second series.

Short stories and novellas

''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's 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. 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.
The paperback contains three more short stories:
An additional short story was later published to the Skulduggery Pleasant website in 2018: Going Once, Going Twice: Set between Dark Days and Mortal Coil.

''Skulduggery Bites''

On 20 March 2020 Landy started posting a choose-your-adventure-type story to Twitter. It ended on 1 April 2020. It had readers vote in a poll at the end of each day he posted the tweets to decide something in the story.
The story follows Valkyrie and Skulduggery going to America to investigate a witch. It introduces the concept of "Horts", essentially people outside of the fictional universe who consume entertainment and have choices as to what happens.

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 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.
A movie adaption was in development under Warner Brothers but according to Derek Landy the script was "the worst thing ever read". In December 2010 Landy announced on his blog that the movie rights were back with him.