The Maleficent Seven

Authors have been known to get it wrong on occasion. ‘Little’ things like which characters their readers really, really like. Luckily Derek Landy seems to understand – and possibly shares – our fascination with Tanith Low. So he wrote a whole extra book about her, while we wait for Skulduggery number eight.

And I for one am quite satisfied. We now know a lot more about Tanith and what made her the way she is (that’s before the Remnant took up residence in her). She’s a violent murderer, but she’s a nice one. I think.

In The Maleficent Seven Tanith collects a group of other bad types to steal some particularly deadly weapons, before a similar group of slightly more ‘good guys’ steal them. Each group wants them so the other group can’t do whatever they believe the others will do with the weapons.

The plot is a little complicated (for me) but there are satisfyingly many fights, and no one fights fair. Tanith wears a selection of alluring outfits, while some of her colleagues smell. Not all of them like killing, but death is unavoidable.

The dialogue is its usual fun and witty self, with plenty of puns, just the way we like it. And there’s romance. Lots of it!

We’ve met a few of these characters before, but I suspect Derek picked more low key people and new characters to keep this tale separate from the Skulduggery books. Presumably you could read the next one without having first read about Tanith’s maleficent seven, but why would you want to? You’re a fan. You’ll want to read this.

More authors should consider bonus books about their most loveable creations.

Bookwitch bites #96

I’m afraid I don’t know who I am. Usually I can tell that people (children, generally, but children are also people) who contact me have been reading the Derek Landy interview or something about Jacqueline Wilson, and they are under the impression I am them.

This week I heard from a charming young man who loves my books and he is doing a profile on me for school and the school would like me to visit them. Again. It seems I’ve already been. They will pick up any travelling costs I may have, although my fan might be wrong on that.

My research tells me the school is in Nova Scotia. I’m really looking forward to it.

Someone who might be in Notting Hill – or she might not – is SH, who contacted me (see, I’m really very popular) and said she felt like applying for that job in Notting Hill. I wished her good luck.

I’ve not heard from her since.

Nor have we had any more contact with dear Clecky…

To end on a happier note, above is the winning book from the Salford Children’s Book Award, Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis.

Bookwitch bites #92

Thank goodness for these bites where I can complain on a variety of subjects almost every week. Occasionally I have lovely news as well. Let’s see if I can find some.

I don’t often (like never, obviously) receive invitations from the Canadian High Commission in London, but this week I had to make myself say ‘no thanks’ to them. But as Disney’s Cinderella says, what could possibly be nice about a visit to Canada House? (Only all of it…)

Came across the programme for Book Week Scotland at the end of November. Can’t go, even though I can be found north of the border that very week. So no Frank Cottrell Boyce. No Debi Gliori and no Steve Cole. Nobody.

Offspring are my reasons for travelling, and Son had some news this week, relating to the literal translation he did earlier this year. We are finally able to say it was Strindberg, for the Donmar at Trafalgar Studios. The Dance of Death. Will get back to you on that.

Before leaving Scotland, let me just mention the Grampian Children’s Book Award 2013. Apart from Patrick Ness who is on every single shortlist these days, the shortlisted authors are Barry Hutchison, Cathy MacPhail, Mark Lowery, Dave Cousins and Annabel Pitcher. Tough competition.

South to Newcastle, where the good news is that Seven Stories can call themselves National Centre for Children’s Books, as the only ‘national’ place in the Northeast. Well done to a special place!

Actually, I am coping with the happy business, after all. We’ll finish with a decisive jump across the water to Ireland, where they have The Irish Book Awards. You can vote, but you might want to follow my example and only vote in categories (they have so many!) where you have read the books. Luckily I didn’t have to choose between Declan Burke and Adrian McKinty. Not quite so lucky with Eoin Colfer and Derek Landy, though.

A witch can always flip a coin.

Bookwitch bites #88

As I was hinting in yesterday’s review, authors really can’t make their minds up, can they? Eva Ibbotson has very sweet, vegetarian abominable snowmen. Derek Landy’s version are the worst possible. They tried to… (oops, spoiler)

Never mind.

And then there is that J K Rowling who has a new book out that dares not to be about wizards. I like that. It’s not even about vampires. And I gather the only dystopia is our own. As it already is, and all that. I’m supposed to be getting a copy. Hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll let you know. Do you reckon after Harry and Barry, the next hero will be called, erm, Larry?

I could kill that Ian Rankin for spreading rumours J K was writing a crime novel. He should stick to balls in BSL.

Although, sticking to things aren’t always for the best. Stephen and Lucy Hawking have new covers for the George trilogy, and for such a stick-in-the-mud, I do like the new covers better than the old ones.

Aren’t they cool? Surely any child would want to read these? I would almost want to be a child again. Almost.

Whenever I receive information as a member of the Jacqueline Wilson fan club (yes, really) I do feel quite young. The message from Dame JW herself in celebration of the newly re-designed website makes me want to worship at her knee.

And there is Emerald Star still to enjoy. It was published this week, but whereas super fan Daughter has read it, I had to stand in queue and will get to it shortly. Time she grew up and let me be the child. After all, I am the shortest.

Skulduggery Pleasant – Kingdom of the Wicked

The good thing about fantasy is that the author can bring back dead characters.

The bad thing about fantasy is that the author can bring back dead characters.

So basically, you’re only as dead as Derek Landy wants you to be. In Skulduggery Pleasant, Kingdom of the Wicked, Derek kills and revives his characters at an astonishing speed, even for him.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery have their work cut out, when lots of people suddenly find they have magic powers. That is not good. Colleagues overseas don’t think what is happening in Ireland is terribly good, either. And Valkyrie really would like to spend more time with her family (before she, as Darquesse, kills them), but she is needed elsewhere.

Heads roll. People come back. Skulduggery and Valkyrie do that humourous banter thing they always do. There is more than one reality. (And I really do wish authors could agree on whether abominable snowmen are good or bad!) This is gruesome stuff. Whether it’s worse than normal, or if I just never noticed quite how gory before, I don’t know. But I love it!

I shouldn’t, though. There is absolutely nothing about the book that would tempt me – in my role as an old woman –  if I came to it now. I don’t particularly like the cover (I used to) and the blurb is like any other fantasy blurb. Even the old trick of reading the first chapter wouldn’t do it for me. If I wasn’t already a fan, obviously. Perhaps we need an adult cover, like HP?

But I do like the dedication. That alone would sell the book. Derek has dedicated Kingdom of the Wicked to the publisher’s PR department. I know most of them. He has a little personal bit for each and every one. It’s very nice, done with just the right level of love and humour.

(But dearest Derek, there is no such thing as the wrong train for you to get on. If you’re on it, how can it be the wrong train?)

Ending with a cliffhanger, this is worse even than when we ‘lost’ Tanith. That thing I’d been concerned about for some time, really happens. And after kind, sweet Derek had lulled me into a false sense of security, too.

How could you?

Bookwitch bites #74

Because I can. Rather like the annoying DiNozzo in NCIS, except he does bad things ‘because he can.’ Here I will present you with things I’ve got up to because it was possible, or because I was lucky. And cheeky enough to ask.

I hinted earlier in the week that you’d see more of James Draper’s socks. Here they are, in all their froggy, Kermit-y glory. It’s the power of being able to say to someone ‘show me your socks!’… Any sensible person would say no, whereas Manchester Children’s Book Festival organiser James is just nice. The shoes are nice, too.

‘Oh crikey you live in Stockport’ comes under the heading ‘favourite subject lines’ in my inbox. I correspond intermittently with one of my wonderful blog readers, and didn’t mind in the least when this reader said something rude about my home town some months ago. But his/her awakening was fun. At least for me. (There was really no need to apologise.) And then came the irregularly addressed Christmas card, as seen below. (I’ll never receive another one after this.)

My most popular interview (hits wise) is the Derek Landy one. And I am still not him. Someone who seemed to realise this, when she read Derek’s guest post in October, still thought it’d be nice if Derek could read her very enthusiastic fan gushings on Bookwitch. So I half offered to ask him. She more than half asked me to actually do so. And the lovely man did, and for a few minutes away from his Skulduggery-ing, Derek wrote her a reply. I can never ask anyone to do so again.

And – this must be an Irish thing – my Cynical reader sent me a message to tell Michael Grant ‘in no uncertain terms’ not to kill Edilio or Dekka, but that he ‘can do what he wants with Astrid.’ Michael took this in the good natured way it was intended (it was, wasn’t it?), and consented to a photographical hello to his Cynical fan.

It wasn’t my first time. But I suppose my luck could be running out and I need to think of new ways to embarrass people and myself. Before they run away when I turn up. (Actually, many of them already do.)

Haunted

Would you rather sleep well? If so, don’t do what I did. I read a short story every evening before going to bed. I thought it’d be a good way of enjoying this new anthology – Haunted – for Halloween. How wrong I was.

The stories aren’t bad. Not at all. Most of them do exactly what they are meant to do. Scare you, and make you think of ghosts, and possibly even make your pulse go a wee bit faster.

Who’d have thought there could be so many ghosts? There are bad ones and small ones and sweet ones (I think so, anyway) and funny ones and ones you wouldn’t want to meet in your friendly neighbourhood graveyard. Even in daylight.

Some stories end well (ish). Others don’t.

As I might have mentioned when Derek Landy guest blogged here the other day, his story is very funny. Doesn’t mean people don’t die.

And if you look in the mirror, is there someone there? Apart from your good self, I mean. Also, whatever possesses people – children – to go out late at night to some dark and haunted place? On their own. It’s just asking for trouble.

I have to take issue with Matt Haig over giftshops. At first I thought he’s a really enlightened man. Then I realised he’d got it all wrong. He could have done the umbrellas even by doing the giftshop the other way round.

It’s not just dark dungeons that are haunted. Sunny beaches aren’t necessarily any better. Sunnier, but not safer. And what are you most scared of; computers or dogs?

Anyway, don’t let me put you off. Joseph Delaney, Susan Cooper, Mal Peet, Jamila Gavin, Eleanor Updale, Derek Landy, Robin Jarvis, Sam Llewellyn, Matt Haig, Philip Reeve and Berlie Doherty have come up with some good stories. Best enjoyed with your elevenses, than with your bedtime snack, though.

The Haunted tour…

The ever work-shy witch has today been replaced by some Irishman. I believe he’s eminently suited to visit us here on this blog tour for a new anthology titled Haunted (how Halloween is that?), since his usual main character is a skeleton. So, even on a normal day, he’s halfway to some perpetual Halloween existence.

Here’s the one and only Derek Landy to tell you about the great ‘failure’ of planning his writing career. (Well, he’s Irish…)

‘When Skulduggery Pleasant was first published, I had a plan.

The plan was simple: in between every Skulduggery book, I would come out with a brand new book, something completely different. These brand new books could be for younger readers, or for adults, they could be horror or fantasy or crime, they could be comedies or tragedies… they could be whatever I wanted them to be. It was a wonderful plan, a magnificent plan, just the kind of plan that would ensure that I wasn’t going to get to the end of the Skulduggery series and then have a mild panic attack while I tried to figure out how to top a skeleton detective as a central character.

But, like most of my plans, it kind of drifted to the side a little once I realised the enormity of what I was doing with Skulduggery. This was a nine book series, after all, with one book released per year (the exception being 2010, when we released both Dark Days and Mortal Coil. Now that was hectic).

So flash-forward to 2011 and I still don’t have a non-Skulduggery book out. Does this worry me? Well no, quite frankly, because I’m not the type to get worried. But I did get annoyed – annoyed at how easily my wonderful plan fell apart when confronted with the realities of a writer’s life.

And then Haunted came along…

It was a simple phone call from my agent, telling me about a collection of short stories about ghosts. She asked me if I’d be interested in contributing. I started to grin, thinking of all the delicious possibilities.

But actually, writing a short story is hard. Sure, it takes considerably less time to do than writing a book, but it’s a whole other discipline. The pacing is different. The execution is different. You don’t have the luxury of time to build up your characters so you really have to focus, zero in on who these people are and figure out a way to convey that in as short an amount of time as possible. Then you’ve got to condense your story, give it a beginning, a middle and – if you’re feeling generous – even an end.

Did I manage it? Of course I did. Did I get to tell a story that I wouldn’t normally have been able to tell? Yes indeed. Did I succeed in fitting in as many jokes as humanly possible? Oh hell, yeah.

So, finally, my first non-Skulduggery story has seen print. It’s not a book, but it’s a first step. It’s called Songs The Dead Sing, and it’s but one of a multitude of great ghost stories in Haunted.’

Well done, my boy! That story of yours isn’t half bad. (In fact, I quite like it.) Though I did get a wee bit worried about this ‘topping’ of the skeleton. For a brief moment I thought Skulduggery was about to be killed, however impossible that might be. But now I realise it’s just a case of finding someone even better than Detective Pleasant. (Impossible.)

I apologise for the swearing, btw. (Derek’s Irish.) And more about the book another day… Avoid graveyards this week. Just to be sure.

Death Bringer

It is still September, isn’t it? (Just checking.)

There is only one thing wrong with Derek Landy’s Death Bringer (or any of his other Skulduggery Pleasant books). It’s big. Taller than all other novels in my collection, and so heavy it’s a struggle for little old ladies to hold and read at the same time. But we suffer this gladly because the gore and the violence and the humour is very more-ish. As all of Derek’s fans would say, we wouldn’t mind some more Skulduggery, right now!

Valkyrie’s relationships aren’t going well. How many friends and boyfriends can a girl fall out with in a week? And how easy it would be to kill those nearest and dearest to you. Though to be perfectly honest, Valkyrie is getting rather full of herself. Beautiful and powerful and with no idea of what modesty is.

But on the other hand, why should a girl character not have personality flaws?Just because she is a girl doesn’t mean we can only like her if she is truly good. And modest.

The Necromancers have finally found – or created – their Death Bringer. Have they got it right? Someone whose task is to usher in death is not good news. The Death Bringer will need to be stopped.

The reflection was beginning to creep me out in this book. Actually, I think I began worrying about her earlier, but here I really did think she overstepped her looking-glass boundaries. Perhaps she takes after Valkyrie even more than intended. Or maybe we do want the reflection to take matters into her own (are they really?) hands. Interesting dilemma. It’s like having a nanny and going out to work and becoming a stranger to your child.

And speaking of babies, Valkyrie has a baby sister. It seems Derek was inspired by his new and plentiful nieces, to whom this book is dedicated. As dedications go, it’s a good one.

And speaking of families, I had at least two ‘aunt Petunia’ moments re various members of the Edgley family, and I don’t mean the twins. Let’s hope Derek will make more – and interesting – use of these hints.

As to the plot. Well, what can I say? Valkyrie and Skulduggery go round doing what they do best, saving the world and stuff like that. China is having trouble of her own, and Ghastly is still sad over Tanith, who does not turn up at all in this one. (Bring her back!)

Geoffrey Scrutinous does his bit, and I’m still disproportionately proud of all he does. But the ‘paparazzi’ are getting closer.

The dialogue reaches the usual levels of excellence, which is good, because that’s why I come here. ‘I have to admit,’ he said, ‘I did not think that sentence was going to end where it ended.’ I do like that kind of thing.

(My fifth book in the Ireland Reading Challenge. Not that this was a challenge at all. Apart from size. And September growing unusually long, even for me.)

I am not Derek Landy

No giggling at the back, please!

There are similarities. We are both people. We both speak English. Sort of. We are neither of us incredibly tall. And I’ve begun wearing a lot more black.

But I don’t have red hair, and I have more hair than Derek. No freckles. And I don’t write bestsellers. Unfortunately. The money would have been nice.

It could be that I’ve mentioned before that ‘my’ interview (which was three and a half years ago) with him is the most read piece on this blog. Derek overtook Jacqueline Wilson a couple of years ago, and he’s never looked back, so to speak. Where the readers come from I haven’t the faintest. I tried googling the interview and got nowhere. But come they do.

And he has such fervent fans. All the girls look exactly like Valkyrie and simply must play her in the film. They argue about it in the comments column. Quite a while ago I asked Derek if he could deny or confirm this film business, and then I reported back on what he said. ‘No film plans.’ Do they take any notice? No.

Some of them ask for Derek’s contact details, which I wouldn’t dream of passing on. We would quite like the remaining Skulduggery Pleasant books to be written, which is why he can’t afford the time to reply to all his fans.

They write and tell me how much they like my books. They ask me to write back. I don’t know how they can think this is Derek’s domain/blog/whatever. Does he strike them as a witch?

Or maybe I really am Derek Landy and never noticed?

(Deep down I’m grateful they read my books and like them so much.)