Until the End

You should probably pay attention to the title of Derek Landy’s latest, or even last, Skulduggery Pleasant offering. Although, I have reviewed the ‘last’ book more than once. Or so it feels. First it was nine. Then 12. This is the 15th. And of course it’s not the last! There is a prequel coming. Soon.

Things are dire, and Valkyrie Cain has sided with the bad guys. But then the good people do that, from time to time, and then they see sense again. Unless they die. Even when they die. And some people do die. What am I saying? Loads of people die.

I enjoyed this one even more than some in the past. I was clearly ready for some dismemberment of skeletons. And they are so polite! Must be an Irish thing.

Have mentioned this in the past, but I do like Omen Darkly. That boy really rises to the occasion and grows, in more ways than one.

Until the End is last year’s Skulduggery Pleasant. I had not been keeping up. But it seems this prequel that is coming – soon – needs you to have read all of the series. So that could keep you busy.

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Skulduggery Pleasant – Dead or Alive

Huh, so this wasn’t the end, either. I’m beginning to suspect that Derek Landy can go on and on, and will go on and on. Which is fine by me. I enjoyed Dead or Alive as much as I liked the other umpteen Skulduggery Pleasant novels. They’re fun. A bit violent, yes. Unlikely. But fun.

And most of the characters are either dead or alive, sometimes both, either simultaneously or one after the other, and possibly back again.

I do like Omen Darkly. That boy has grown up to be a real asset, even if he does make mistakes a lot of the time. And like Omen, I like Valkyrie Cain and Detective Pleasant. Their relationship might have been a bit questionable to begin with, as is pointed out in Dead or Alive, but we didn’t notice it back then. Now it’s mostly old and comfortable.

And many of the characters from the older books are back, sometimes on the right side, but not necessarily. It’s just nice to see them.

I might have mentioned this before, but it’s also quite good to find that current politics can find a way into Irish magic fantasy. A turncoat is always a turncoat.

No, I have no idea what I meant there.

Next time I must remember to buy the ebook. The 600 pages always threaten to take my arm off. A little like poor Detective Pleasant.

Skulduggery Pleasant – Apocalypse Kings

This made me quite happy. It’s the World Book Day offering from Derek Landy; a short story within the world of Skulduggery Pleasant. Judging by Valkyrie Cain, it was set a few years ago. But that’s just fine. The world was a better place then. And he has dedicated the book – which I read as an ebook – to his pets, dead and alive, and among them Lorelai and Rory. Although he points out there are no pets in the story. Just as well.

We meet Adedayo, who until he was fourteen had no idea he was magic. And then he discovered a lot more than he might have bargained for. Like, he had to save the world.

But at least he also gets to meet Valkyrie and Skulduggery. Plus some fairly unsavoury characters who just want to end the world. Thanks to his soon to be dead Nigerian grandmother he has learned a few useful things, although if he spoke Yoruba it would have helped a great deal. He’d have known what she was trying to tell him, for one thing.

Apart from all this, Apocalypse Kings is a pretty standard school story, with the added characters he meets so suddenly, not to mention unwisely.

By standard, I mean that it is fun. As much fun as you can expect for 75p, or however much I paid.

Getting past the first

I had cause to think about a first book the other day. I read it, reasonably enjoyed it, but felt no need at all to read the subsequent ones in the series. This happens every now and again.

But then a thought struck me (not nearly as painful as it sounds); what if the series gets better? Maybe I was wrong to judge the as yet unpublished books on the basis of the first one? Especially if I sort of liked number one, a little. Or more than a little. Just without any urge to carry on.

Because there have been books like that, where you will find no bigger fan than the witch, once the next instalments have been adopted. Take Artemis Fowl. Yes, take him. The first book was amusing, but Artemis was such a bad boy. I reckoned it would be enough to know what the books were like, as seen from the beginning.

But then I found myself standing there in the children’s bit of whatever the then current name of that bookshop was. It was close to Christmas and I thought, maybe I should just get the second book too. Make it some sort of tradition.

And here I am, twenty years on, or however long it has been.

Or Skulduggery Pleasant. It was pleasant enough, but I didn’t need to read the other eight books that were coming. Except when the second turned up on my doorstep I allowed it to come in. Same story – I mean my reading, not that Eoin and Derek write the same books – and thirteen years and thirteen Skulduggeries later I have no immediate plans to stop.

So, what if the series I had just been thinking about were to turn out like them? I’d be an idiot not to have another go, wouldn’t I?

Skulduggery Pleasant – Seasons of War

I don’t think we’re done. 😮

With Skulduggery Pleasant, I mean. Seasons of War is the, let me see, thirteenth book, not counting the one without Detective Pleasant. But I am not com-plaining. I’m really not. I like this world with all the double-crossings and the magic and the hastily cut off limbs and the humour and all the rest.

Valkyrie Cain makes friends with the oddest people, as well as unfriends with some you’d not expect. Along with Tanith Low we have a formidable pair of women heroes, in many cases fighting better than the rest.

Omen Darkly is proving himself, and I have hight hopes of him. Even if he didn’t in the end do that thing, you know, which I had been expecting.

I’ve remarked before on how confusing, not to mention convenient, it can be when dead people stop being dead, and when they become your enemies instead of your friends. In Seasons of War we see a lot of the other world, where they also have a copy of every person, and they’re not necessarily the same, like dead, or friend, or foe.

So a lot gets sorted out in this thirteenth book, but some doesn’t. And there is new stuff that will need sorting.

It’s fun. And interesting.

Skulduggery Pleasant – Bedlam

I’m late. Sorry. But I had to buy Derek Landy’s latest Skulduggery Pleasant book Bedlam myself. And then I had to find the strength to carry it home. No, I didn’t. The postman did. After which it suffered because of its sheer size when I couldn’t take it out with me.

It’s the end. Or is it? Well, actually, not only are a few of the characters still alive on the last page, and I daresay others could be revived a little, but I cheated and looked online and there seems to be another book coming. Soon. Just as well I read this one now.

Bedlam. Where shall I start? As usual, I wasn’t sure who was still alive and who was friends with whom, because this keeps changing so much. But basically, Valkyrie needs to make her younger sister unhappy again. Can’t have a child so content, despite the dead hamster and all that.

And then there’s all the rest, fighting between the magic world and the ‘normal’ one, and fighting within these worlds, and being stabbed in the back by your best friend, both literally and figuratively. It’s exciting and it’s funny.

What also makes the Skulduggery books stand out is that Derek has so many female characters who fight and are strong, as well as being sexy and good looking, and it feels so much more equal. None of this one token female and then lots of guys. Valkyrie rules, or maybe it’s China who does. Or Abyssinia. Serafina is powerful, as is Solace, and there is no getting away from Tanith. We like Tanith.

In fact, among the males we have a dead [obviously] skeleton and various scarred men, vampires and ghosts. Plus we have Omen Darkly, who continues being seemingly mostly useless and kind. But sometimes that’s the best person to be.

Anyway, as I might have been saying, much gets sorted towards the end. Some not. And with a few characters a little bit alive, we need more of the same. Which, according to Wikipedia, we will get.

I will alert the postman.

Skulduggery Pleasant – Midnight

It looks like Derek Landy’s planning to go on. I’d had a notion that Midnight, the 11th Skulduggery Pleasant novel, was going to be the end. The second end, after Derek resurrected Skulduggery in, erm, Resurrection. If you can do that with a skeleton.

Anyway, in Midnight our favourite skeleton detective is alive, sort of, and well and kicking. There is a stream of mortal refugees coming into Roarhaven, and China Sorrows is nowhere to be seen, when Arbiters Pleasant and Cain seek her. So there’s that.

Poor Omen Darkly is back at school, feeling bored and hoping for a new adventure with his heroes. Friendless and in love, he can’t concentrate on his exams, and that call from Valkyrie doesn’t come until, well, until it comes, and his task is not a nice one…

In other parts of the magic world Skulduggery’s old flame Abyssinia is causing trouble, as is Cadaverous Gant, and the Plague Doctor and his little group.

I reckon Derek can keep writing these books for a long time. ‘Normal’ life can be incorporated into magic Ireland. For instance, he didn’t have to have refugees coming, but it’s good to see this nod to our world. And as long as there is a madman in the Oval Office, Skulduggery and Valkyrie have to keep going.

And so do we.

These books are still magic, and very funny, barring the odd gruesome death or injury to people who I am sure deserved it.

By the way, Valkyrie’s little sister Alice is a most interesting girl.

Resurrection

Thank god for authors like Derek Landy who change their minds! Resurrection is the tenth – of nine – books about Skulduggery Pleasant (not counting the extra book), and I am really grateful it’s here. I’d not understood how much you can miss a witty, and occasionally unrelieable, skeleton detective.

But you can. I mean, I can.

And here he is, back from where we left him, and well, I don’t know, but I can see more books where this one came from. I can, can’t I? Derek?

The best thing for people like me who don’t always remember where we left things, by which I mean who lived and who died and who was your friend, or who was your enemy, is that it doesn’t matter. Characters change allegiance faster than they do hats, and when the dead can rise again, death means very little.

Valkyrie isn’t feeling so good. Guilt does that to a person and being responsible for so many deaths – even by proxy – isn’t much fun. But hey, we have Skulduggery and we have a whole host of new young things, good ones and bad ones.

Omen Darkly is one of them. Aged 14, he lives in the shadow of his brother, who is the Chosen One. I reckon Omen is really Derek. And/or really me. I have a lot in common with poor Omen. Brave Omen. Except I wouldn’t be brave. As Valkyrie says, ‘The world is a scary place, and it’s only getting scarier. The American president is a narcissistic psychopath. Fascism, racism, misogyny and homophobia are all on the rise…’ And let’s not mention any more cheerful facts about our world just now.

Resurrection is a fantastic return to the magic Ireland we love. Please let there be more! After all, by reviving people, it’s not as if we are running out of characters. Trust no one.

Series – to abandon or not to abandon

That is the question.

As has become clear over the Bloody Scotland weekend, there are series everywhere. Not only do the long – and medium – established writers have series. The debut authors are also planning several books. Even the unpublished ones pitching their first novel, spoke of series.

If you are free to read whatever you like, whenever you can, with no blog commitments, you can probably keep up with lots of series.

I no longer know what to do. I tend to wait and see what happens. Because I can’t actually make the decision. It has to be made for me. I will – temporarily – abandon a series of books I love, if there is something else, equally loveable out there. Maybe something that is noisier when looking for attention.

And that first abandoning was never intentional. It just happened. It’s not you; it’s me.

In the last maybe fifteen years I have read and thoroughly enjoyed the crime novels by Kate Ellis and Stephen Booth. I read every one up to a certain point. I read about Mma Ramotswe. I read these usually in the right order, moving backwards to catch the odd earlier book, and then waited in real time for the next one to be published. It seemed like a long wait, until it wasn’t so bad, and then until the next two books were here and I didn’t know how to fit them in.

I discovered Sara Paretsky, whose books I still read when a new one comes along, and slowly reading the older ones.

Among my new people, as you know, are James Oswald and Vaseem Khan. I don’t know how long I can keep going. I want to. But I wanted to with the others as well.

With Sophie Hannah I grew too scared to continue, so that was an easier decison to make. And thankfully we have the new Poirots.

Or there is Harry Potter, but we knew how many books to expect. Knew there would be an end. As we did with Skulduggery Pleasant, at least until Derek Landy decided to keep going a bit longer. With Lockwood you might not have known for certain, but unless something changed, the characters would eventually be unable to do what they did because of their [lack of] years.

Which books do you keep? Will I ever reread the abandoned series? Will I restart one day? Which ones will I regret once I have ditched my copies? When we moved, we parted with about half our Dorothy Sayers. That seemed OK. Many of Agatha Christie’s books I’ve never owned as I borrowed them from the library.

And then I looked at my shelves for inspiration, and considered Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh. Those books I read slowly over a long time, and I don’t claim to have read all. But the thought that I might get rid of the books made me want to cry. They are staying. Campion is like a crazy older brother, and Alleyn some benevolent uncle. Yes, I know I have now bypassed them in age, as far as most of the stories are concerned.

So what to do about those just starting out? Not read at all, just in case? Read one and be hooked? Have nervous breakdown?

Harry hole

I almost sat up in bed in the middle of the night. I’d remembered a few more book suggestions I could make.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am always on the lookout for more child readers. They grow up so fast, and I need more recipients to give books to. I found an eleven-year-old whose grandfather lives in the flat above the Grandmother’s, and have been lobbing bags of books in her direction for some time. She’s a keen reader, and I went so far as to ask for a list of what she normally reads, the better to choose books for her.

Then I thought to make a list of suggestions for her, for books I like so much I wouldn’t dream of parting with them. It was this list I suddenly thought of new additions to, mid-sleep. (Since you ask, Che Golden, Kate Thompson, among others.)

The list already has Philip Pullman and Derek Landy and Debi Gliori on it, along with several other great writers.

And then I had another thought. (Yes, I know. That’s awfully many thoughts for one night.) I take it as read (!) that everyone has read Harry Potter. You can’t not have heard of him. But is eleven too young? Was Harry not on the list because he’s obvious, or because this girl hasn’t actually read the books yet? Or tried them and gave up.

Are we now so far removed from Harry hysteria that not ‘every’ child will read about witches and wizards? Would I be an idiot if I suggested it? Or would I be more of an idiot if I don’t?