The Book Zone: derek landy

Showing posts with label derek landy. Show all posts

Monday, 31 October 2016

Competition: WIN The Demon Road Trilogy by Derek Landy

This competition has now closed and the winner has been notified. Thank you to all who entered.

Happy Hallowe'en!

I wrote yesterday about how much I enjoyed Derek Landy's, dark and bloody Demon Road trilogy.

Now you have the chance to win the trilogy, simply by filling in your details in the form below. Thanks to the generosity of HerperCollins I have a set of the three books to give away.

The first name drawn at random after the closing date will win a set of books. The deadline for entries is 7pm GMT Friday 4th November. This competition is open to UK residents only.

Contest open to UK residents only.
Neither the publisher or I will be held responsible for items lost in the mail.
I hold the right to end a contest before its original deadline without any prior notice.
I hold the right to disqualify any entry as I see fit.
I will contact winning entrants for their postal address following the close of the competition. Winners have 48 hours to reply. Failure to do so in this time will result in another winner being randomly selected.

Sunday, 8 September 2013

Review: Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men by Derek Landy

War has finally come.

But it's not a war between good and evil, or light and dark – it's a war between Sanctuaries. For too long, the Irish Sanctuary has teetered on the brink of world-ending disaster, and the other Sanctuaries around the world have had enough. Allies turn to enemies, friends turn to foes, and Skulduggery and Valkyrie must team up with the rest of the Dead Men if they're going to have any chance at all of maintaining the balance of power and getting to the root of a vast conspiracy that has been years in the making.

But while this war is only beginning, another war rages within Valkyrie herself. Her own dark side, the insanely powerful being known as Darquesse, is on the verge of rising to the surface. And if Valkyrie slips, even for a moment, then Darquesse will burn the world and everyone in it.

I appreciate that there are some people who visit The Book Zone and other blogs because they want to find out more about a book's storyline. I'm sorry, but in this instance I am afraid you are going to have to look elsewhere if you want detail and I am not going to give anything away. Derek Landy has stated that he hates spoilers, even minor ones like "You won't believe what happens to xxx" or "You really won't guess the massive plot twist that happens xx chapters before the end", and as this is the eighth and penultimate book in this fantastic series (okay - ninth if you include The Maleficent Seven) then you really should be reading it to find out what happens next for yourself.

All I will say is that this is the game changer of the series, when everything starts to come together. Fans of this series will take great delight as Landy starts to weave together a multitude of plot threads, some of which may have originated as far back as the first book in the series, or were so subtle at the time that they were easily ignored or consigned to the depths of memory, never to be required again. I really wish I had the time to re-read this whole series from the beginning as I am sure some die hard fans will, but sadly this may have to wait until I win the lottery and can live a life of leisure.

If you're a fan of this series then you really don't need me to tell you to get your hands on a copy asap and don't do anything else until you have finished reading it. If you have not yet read any of this series DO NOT start with this book - this is not a series you can pick up anywhere, YOU MUST start with the first book in the series.

Some readers may find Last Stand of Dead Men lacks the natural flow that previous installments enjoyed, but that is because of the nature of the story. This book is all about the war that has been brewing for so long (since the very first book, no less) and as such the narrative jumps around a lot, following different characters in different parts of the world as the action ramps up. As a result there are probably a good deal more action scenes in this volume that in its predecessors, but have no fear, all the other Landy trademarks are there, and the dialogue/banter between characters is as funny and engaging as ever, even at the darkest moments. In fact, the very first chapter contains some of the funniest banter that Derek Landy has written to date.

One warning - do not expect a nice, tidy conclusion at the end of this book. This is very much about the war between the Sanctuaries, whilst also setting things up for the final episode in this epic series.

I'm sorry I can't reveal more but I really do not want to create any kind of spoiler, however minor. I'm sure if you hunt hard you will find less considerate reviewers out there if you really want to know what happens in this book.

My thanks go to the ever lovely people at HarperCollins for sending me a copy to review.

Friday, 5 April 2013

Review: Tanith Low in The Maleficent Seven by Derek Landy

Tanith Low, now possessed by a remnant, recruits a gang of villains – many of whom will be familiar from previous Skulduggery adventures – in order to track down and steal the four God-Killer level weapons that could hurt Darquesse when she eventually emerges. Also on the trail of the weapons is a secret group of Sanctuary sorcerers, and doing his best to keep up and keep Tanith alive is one Mister Ghastly Bespoke.

When the villains around her are lying and scheming and plotting, Tanith needs to stay two steps ahead of her teammates and her enemies. After all, she's got her own double-crosses to plan – and she’s a villain herself…

Much as I totally loved the more recent Skulduggery Pleasant books, they were sadly lacking one very important element: Tanith Low! She has always been my favourite Skulduggery character and with each new volume I hoped for her return, only to be disappointed However, Derek Landy has now made amends for this by writing a whole novella devoted entirely to bad Tanith and I am happy to report that it is more kick-ass than a box set of Buffy.

Remnant-possessed Tanith is determined that Darquesse will be successful in bringing an end to the world. However, she knows that the forces of good (aka Skulduggery, Val and friends) will do everything in their power to prevent this, and this could mean using any of the four God-Killer weapons. With the aid of her lover, the sadistic hitman Billy Ray Sanguine, she recruits a team of villains, each with their own special attributes. How does she get such reprobates on board? Simple - she promises to give them the things that they each desire over anything else. This gang becomes her Maleficent Seven - obviously a play on the classic western film, though given their nastiness the group have more in common with the Dirty Dozen.

Unfortunately for Tanith (but fortunately for the rest of the world), the forces of good are on to her plan, and they assemble their own team to try to recover the God-Killer weapons before she can destroy them. Readers should not expect this Seven to contain Skulduggery and Valkyrie though: although the book is a must-read and acts as a fill-in between Kingdom of the Wicked and the (at time of writing this review) untitled Book 8, this is not part of their story and they do not make any kind of appearance.

This book shows us a Tanith we haven't seen before. Fans of the series will know that she is a master of combat, but in this book we also see her to be a master tactician and planner, although with the remnant in control she is not a force for good. In fact, she is conniving and devious, and not to be trusted at all, even by the despicable members of her gang, if they know what's good for them.

As well as the main story, Derek landy also includes some back history for one of his characters (no prizes for guessing which one), scattered throughout the book as mini-chapters. We see a young girl, deserted by her parents as they leave her in the hands of the man who is to be her mentor and trainer. As the book progresses we watch the girl go through a brutal training regime, make her first kill, and then eventually see her released back into the world as a fully trained assassin. These interludes do distract slightly from the plot, but they make up for this by giving us a long waited for insight into the back history of this great character.

Despite the absence of his two main characters, this book has everything else that readers have come to expect from a Derek Landy book: it's full of action, humour and, of course, scintillating dialogue. I have always felt that Landy does dialogue better than Tarantino and this book is overflowing with banter that is better than you will find in many of the classic buddy movies.

The Maleficent Seven was published in hardback at the end of last month and it's a great addition to the Skulduggery Pleasant series. However, I do have one small gripe - it simply isn't long enough and come the final page I just wanted more. At just over 280 pages it is significantly shorter than the last few Skulduggery Pleasant books and I felt it could easily have worked with another hundred pages or so.

My thanks go to the lovely people at HarperCollins for sending me a copy of the book.

Thursday, 30 August 2012

*** Competition: WIN a signed copy of Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked

Last week I posted a review for Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked, the latest book in Derek Landy's brilliant series.

Now, thanks to the generous people at HarperCollins you have the chance to win a signed copy of the book, simply by filling in your details in the form below.

The first name drawn at random after the closing date will win a copy of the book. The deadline for entries is 7pm BST Thursday 6th September. This competition is open to UK residents only.

Sunday, 9 October 2011

Review: Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer by Derek Landy

The sixth instalment in the historic, hysterical and horrific Skulduggery Pleasant series. 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…

I have spent some time agonising over how to write this review without giving away any spoilers, and the only thing I can think of is to make it shorter than most of my reviews. There is just so much happening in this book that it is nigh impossible to say much at all about the story without giving something away that may spoil the book for the few die-hard fans out there who have not yet read it. I will do my utmost however, although if you have not yet read Mortal Coil, the fifth book in the series, then I suggest you navigate away from this page now.

Mortal Coil was an incredibly dark book, and as I mentioned in my review last year, one of my favourite in the series so far. There were so many great revelations, and the climactic scenes had me gasping for breath, especially regarding the fate of one of my favourite characters, Tanith Low. However, Death Bringer may have just usurped Mortal Coil and could now be my favourite book in the series, although the complete absence of Tanith from the story was a slight disappointment. So what makes it so good? I think the best way of doing this without giving away spoilers is in list form, so in no particular order:

The dialogue. It's brilliant, and there seems to be so much more of it in this book. In fact, I think the increased dialogue between Sulduggery and Valkyrie is possibly the main contributing factor to the book's length. Derek Landy has created so many great characters, but what makes them stand out so much is the banter between them, and especially between his two main protagonists. It is consistently funny, occasionally poignant, and shows the deep bond that has grown between these two over the course of their adventures together.
The action. There are some amazing action scenes in this book, and they are some of the best we have seen from the author. There was one scene where I suddenly started choking as I had not realised that I had been holding my breath and my lungs need to breath suddenly caught up with my brain's fixation on the story I was reading.
More character development. Some of Landy's characters have remained pretty much on the sidelines of the main plot so far in the series, and although ever present we still do not know a great deal about them. One such characters is China Sorrows, and in Death Bringer we find out a great deal more about her history, and it is far from being good.
More revelations. I don't think I am particularly stupid so I hope I wasn't the only one who did not see one particular revelation about Skulduggery coming. In fact, I was so surprised that I think my brain went into shut down, and I spent a good five minutes just staring at the page in shock.
I've saved the best until last..... Valkyrie and Skulduggery. There will be moments in this book when you may actually find yourself disliking these two, and Val in particular. It is easy to forget that she is just a teenager, and yet she has achieved so much and seen so many horrors at such a young age. What kind of effect would that have on a teenager? In Death Bringer we really start to find out. We see her ego, her selfishness, her betrayal of trust, her moodiness - at times she becomes a thoroughly unlikeable young lady, and the story is all the better for it.

Another great addition to the Skulduggery series, and it continues to be one of my favourite series around at the moment. It is just a pity that we will probably have to wait another year for Book Seven in the series. However, SP fans, make sure you hit the book stores in March 2012 as Derek Landy is contributing a Skulduggery Pleasant novelette for World Book Day, called The End of the World. This book will be set after the events of Death Bringer, but whether Tanith will feature I do not know. Whatever the outcome, I have a feeling that she will feature quite heavily in Skulduggery Pleasant Book Seven, and I am sure it won't be good for Valkyrie or Skulduggery.

Sunday, 29 August 2010

Review: Skulduggery Pleasant - Mortal Coil by Derek Landy

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.

In preparation for writing this review I have just looked back at what I wrote about Dark Days, the previous book in this hugely entertaining series. At the time I really struggled to write a detailed review that did not contain any spoilers, and I'm now having that Groundhog Day feeling. Please do not feel let down if this review is not as detailed as some of my others but given the recent backlash on blogs and Twitter about certain nasty reviewers peppering their Mockingjay reviews with spoilers I want to be extra careful with this.

This is the thickest Skulduggery Pleasant book so far, weighing in at a hefty 572 pages; Derek Landy has obviously been on something of a writing roll given that Dark Days was released a mere five months ago. I enjoyed Dark Days but I had some reservations about how certain villains could have been developed more and a couple of the scenes seemed slightly superfluous. You will be glad to hear that I have no such criticisms about this book at all - I loved it and I think it has possibly become one of my favourite of the series so far.

Dark Days ended with less of a cliffhanger than its predecessor The Faceless Ones, although the final revelation about Darquesse was more than enough to get Skulduggery fans speculating wildly on fan forums and Facebook. Mortal Coil will not answer all of the questions that have been asked over the last five months, but the plot does have a number of deeply pleasing revelations. However, at the same time it also creates even more questions regarding Valkyrie, Darquesse et al so expect those forums to be buzzing noisily over the next few months as well.

The plot of Dark Days relied partly on the villains' use of a Remnant - a body-snatching wraith-like entity that can take over and use a human body without others realising. In Mortal Coil the Remnants play much more than a cameo role - the plot very much focuses on these creatures as they are released from their prison in the Midnight Hotel with devastating consequences for our team of heroes and the local 'normal' population. Yes.... people die in this book (and not just nameless mortals either), and sometimes pretty nastily, although Derek Landy rarely resorts to giving us graphic descriptions of this as he much prefers his readers to use their imaginations to fill in all the gory details. However, there is one wonderful scene where Valkyrie takes herself off to be 'treated' (any other word would give too much away) and the description of her experience is certainly not for the faint hearted!

Much of this book focuses on how Valkyrie is coming to terms with the revelations at the end of Dark Days, especially with regards to issues of trust. In her mind, despite being very close to Skulduggery, Tanith, Fletcher and the others, she is really not sure she trusts any of them enough to help her in this case. This leads to her putting her life in mortal peril, without any of them aware, and then, just as she feels she is able to confide a little more in her friends along come the Remnants and suddenly no-one knows who can they trust. Once the Remnants appear en masse the reader is kept guessing for the rest of the book as to just who has, or hasn't, been taken over and Derek Landy treats us to more nail biting scene after nail biting scene, some of which had me completely stumped as to how our heroes would escape death, or something worse, and as for the final climactic scene....... you will just have to read it for yourself, but I have a very strong feeling it will shock you.

My thanks go to the generous people at HarperCollins who sent me a copy of Mortal Coil to review. The book's official release date is 2nd September, but a number of sneaky book stores already have copies on their shelves if you go hunting.

Friday, 2 April 2010

Review: Skulduggery Pleasant - Dark Days by Derek Landy

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 possible survive? (Yes, all right, he's already dead. But still.) What can we say, without giving too much away? Not much, is the answer. But what we CAN say is that this book is hilarious, it's tense, and it's packed with all the eye-popping action, crackling one liners and imaginative set pieces you've come to expect. There's a new threat to our plucky heroine, of course. But that's not all. There's also the little fact of the Big Bad, the uber-baddy who's going to come along and really, really destroy the world. (Really.) And what we learn about that villain in this book will literally make your jaw fall off and your hair go white with shock. (Not really.) Will Skulduggery make it out of the Faceless Ones' dimension? Who knows. The problem is, he may not have much to come back to!

Valkyrie Cain is back, but this time she is alone. Skulduggery Pleasant, her mentor and friend, is trapped in the world of the Faceless Ones after being dragged through the portal at the end of Book Three. However, there is hope - if Valkyrie and her team can get their hands on Skulduggery's original skull there just may be a chance to launch a rescue mission by reopening the portal and.............. and perhaps I should end my review there, as I am going to have to tread very carefully from here on so as not to give away too many spoilers.

Thirty minutes later.........

Hmmm.... I have been sitting at my laptop for sometime now and I still have no idea how to write this review without creating those spoilers. You just have to read through the various Twitter feeds and Facebook pages to see how hotly anticipated this book is, espcially after that monumental cliffhanger at the end of the third book. Derek Landy has built up quite a worldwide fanbase since the publication of the first Skulduggery Pleasant series. The Faceless Ones shot into the Top 10 on launch, selling 28,000 copies in its first two months, so the last thing I want to do is upset his legion of fans by giving away the many delicious plot revelations that this book holds.

So.... Skulduggery fans everywhere let me start by telling you that you will not be disappointed. Whilst, in my humble opinion, this is not the best book in the series so far it is still one hell of a read. Despite the huge cliffhanger at its end The Faceless Ones still holds the Number 1 slot for me, and although I really enjoyed Dark Days and read it in almost one sitting, it just didn't quite match up to the thrill I got from reading its predecessor. It contains all of the Derek Landy trademarks that we have come to love so much - great characters, both good and evil; tense action scenes that will have your heart beating so fast you will think it is about to explode; great dialogue laced with the scintillating banter that we have to come love so much; and, of course, many many moments of spine-tingling horror.

The threat facing our heroes this time is not the invasion of earth by a hoarde of ancient demons; this time they are up against a cartel of old enemies, brought together with one thing in mind - vengeance. Springheeled Jack, Remus Crux, Billy-Ray Sanguine, Vaurien Scapegrace, and the vampiric Dusk are all present, each with their own motives. Revenge against the Sanctuary, revenge against Valkyie, revenge against Thurid Guild, revenge against Tanith Low - as the story progresses we gradually discover the lengths each of these characters is willing to go to in order to satisfy their vengeful urges, and with the diabolical and twisted mind of new character Dreylan Scarab driving these urges Mr Landy has us believing that this time they just might be successful. In fact I spent most of the book fearing that we might witness the demise of a key character at some point in the story. Were my fears justified? I will leave that for you to find out.

As I said before, this is not my favourite book of the series so far, and there are several reasons for this. Firstly, there is one key plot thread that is so transparent I saw it coming halfway through the book, so its final revelation was something of a disappointment as I had really hoped that there would be a twist that would prove me wrong. Sadly no twist, well not for me anyway but my wife often tells me that I am too good at spotting these things (usually after I have impaired her enjoyment of The Bill by accurately second-guessing the plot). Secondly, although the villains are really given a chance to shine in this story I felt that some of them, namely Dusk and Spring Heeled Jack, had so much more to offer but were instead relegated to the sidelines for much of the story, only appearing when required and then quickly forgotten again. I would have preferred more time spent developing these characters further instead of the one or two superfluous scenes that seemed shoe-horned in for the sake of it (for example, Valkyrie makes an unnecessary visit to talk to her Uncle Gordon with the Echo Stone).

These minor gripes aside this is still a hugely enjoyable and exciting, fast-paced story riddled with great humour and moments of extreme horror. The story's climax at ######## (location hidden to avoid spoilers) with the Desolation Engine is one of the best scenes that Derek Lundy has produced so far, and is the kind of scene for which the oft used phrases "edge of your seat" and "heart in your mouth" were created.

However, I have saved the best news until last. In the past Skulduggery fans have had to wait approximately a year between episodes but in 2010 we are in for one hell of a treat - Book Five will be released in September 2010 so only just over six months to wait to find out what happens next.

Skulduggery Pleasant - Dark Days is published as a hardback edition by HarperCollins and is in stores now. Thank you to the kind people at HarperCollins for sending me an early copy to read.

Pages