Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

"There's no such thing as winning or losing. There is won and there is lost; there is victory and defeat. There are absolutes. Everything in between is still left to fight for."

Hmm, a quote to start off, I like it.

Since I last read and reviewed a book I've read quite a few more but been thoroughly displeased with any efforts to review them so I'm going for something I first read quite some time ago, have now read several times and so should be able to remember enough to write a half-decent review. This was pretty much an impulse buy, the book had just come out and I must've been lured by the pretty display material. In essence it's a book aimed at the early teen market but it seemed cool enough to me so I went for it and really didn't regret it. I'm not 100% sure what it is that makes it readable by 'adults' but I wasn't regularly reading parts with an arched eyebrow thinking "Really? That's where we're going?" before reminding myself that it's aimed at a younger audience than myself. I've had that problem with other books but no such issues here, you're not constantly being reminded that it's not technically being aimed at you. This is good. I'm repeating myself. I'll move on.

Here's some blurb: "Stephanie's uncle Gordon wrote horror fiction. At least that's what Stephanie thought - until he died and left her his estate. The she discovered that though his books may have horror, they wern't exactly...fiction.

Plunged into a terrifying world of vampires, evil villains and Hollow Men, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source: Skulduggery Pleasant, the wise-cracking skeleton of a dead magician. When all hell breaks loose it's lucky for Stephanie that she's not your average twelve-year-old girl - and it's lucky for Skulduggery that he's already dead.

Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to save the world? One thing's for sure: the bad guys won't know what's hit them."

To try and stop myself from repeating what I'm saying a lot I'll go right into my scoring thing:

The Story

It was probably more the way it looked that drew me in. Skeleton summoning a fireball? How cool is that?! AND he drives a Bentley. I don't think the blurb does the story justice but I guess one thing kind of flows from another so it's difficult to go into detail from the outset without giving things away. It's an interesting story, not as straightforward as it might seem at first with a few little twists and turns here and there and there's a lot of action along the way. Really, these people get into a serious amount of fights. I don't think it's the strongest aspect of the book but it far from drags it down. Story gains 7/10.

The Characters

Stephanie and Skulduggery make this book what it is. Their interaction I think is what makes it fun to read, not the only thing to do so, but the main thing. Warner Bros until recently had the rights to the film and if/when it does get made they have to get the casting of these two spot on. The supporting cast are good too, Landy immediately has you either liking or disliking his characters with the exception of China Sorrows probably but she's supposed to be like that. I'm terrible sometimes when it comes to skimming descriptions of people so I can struggle to picture characters well but these guys all have images in my head of how they look and act so Mr Landy must be doing something right. Although I do kind of picture China Sorrows as the old WWF wrestler China which probably isn't fitting. 8.5/10.

Other Stuff

I've actually got a fair bit here. I like the two schools of magic idea and the power of names, it's an interesting concept and it all adds to the world Derek Landy has built. It's a fast-paced read, there's a lot of things that happen and it rarely slows down. It doesn't feel rushed at all it's just non-stop action which makes for an enjoyable read. Finally and possibly most importantly, Skulduggery Pleasant (both the character and the book in general) brings the funny. There's a lot of humourous little exchanges between characters and plenty of little quips from Skulduggery from start to finish which for me make the book fun and easy to read. 9.5/10!

And my stupidly complex scoring system gives us an overall score of...8.1/10.

I've read the book 3 or 4 times now, recommended it to a couple of people who have gone on to read the rest of the series too and I even wrote a little review that was on the shelf at a bookshop and ended how I shall also end this: What could be cooler than a skeleton detective who can conjure fireballs and drives a Bentley?

Derek Landy can be found having his blog posts horrifically spammed in the comments section here.

Legalize Denner!

The Name Of The Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

So this is pretty much my favourite book ever, I was made aware of it by my friend Mell's review of it, you should read it because it's no doubt more amusing than anything I'll write.

The blurb doesn't give a whole lot away but in my mind would make the perfect narrative for a film trailer: "I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me.

Sounds like a raging egomaniac no? I don't think he's actually as bad as he comes across there but he certainly does have self-belief.

So what's it actually about? Well Kvothe, basically. But for the occasional interlude snapping us back to the present day the book is Kvothe recounting the story of his life or part of it at least, this is the Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One so this is just a beginning, a long one at that coming in at 650 pages.

There's a danger now I'll spend a long time drooling over this book so if you don't want to read that I'll give you the short version; this is a fantastic book, buy it and love it.

I've warned you so don't blame me if you read on and then sit there thinking "Jeez why doesn't he just go marry Pat Rothfuss and have his babies, that'd be less of a show of love than this."

I'll throw you a curveball now and actually go through what I didn't like first. I'm struggling and nit-picking and this is something Mell's review picked up on and that's Kvothe's ridiculous explanations of being underground and being poor; he makes the irritating habit of starting sentences with "If you haven't been xxx I don't expect you to understand..." It's like, okay maybe I haven't been destitute, maybe I haven't been 50 feet underground but I'm pretty sure if you describe it to me I can manage some basic grasp of what it's like, not being a complete idiot.
I don't know if Mr Rothfuss consciously decided to make Kvothe so condescending but it rankles somewhat with me.

That's all I can think of and that's nothing to do with the book so much as the character and even that's just a couple of lines. Oh I have something! I have this in paperback, the next book, due out in March 2011 (for the moment), I assume will be in hardback. I can't have one book in paperback and one in hardback on my shelf, it will look stupid but do you really think I can
wait for it to be released in paperback? This is my biggest problem in life right now...well okay perhaps but it's going to irritate me come March next year.

Let's move on to more positive things; I love the character building in this, some people think Kvothe a bit of a "titbox" but personally I really like him. I think it's common place in stories to have a 'reluctant' hero, someone who clamours for the quiet life and avoids trouble. Our Kvothe on the other hand turns around and takes it head on. You could say he's reckless and hot-headed which he quite possibly is but I found it both refreshing and enjoyable to have a protagonist who refuses to back down and generally goes around kicking ass. That's not to say he's some Jack Bauer-esque invincible who always comes out on top because he doesn't but how many times did you want Harry Potter to just punch that Malfoy square in the face, we have these rivals and nemeses built up and we dislike them just as much as the characters they bully and cause trouble for but they so often get away with it. I am going to make a strange reference here and compare Kvothe to Ace Rimmer (if you've not seen Red Dwarf he's this James Bond type all action hero...what a guy.) Ace Rimmer is kept back a year at school and it's what makes him knuckle down and fight back (and he's been fighting back ever since!) and Kvothe is similar in that he becomes someone who doesn't take anything lying down.

The story itself is excellent too. You could argue that it's a little generic in what happens to Kvothe in the beginning but even with that there's something a whole lot more, the story of The Chandrian and their origins and motives...I'm trying to avoid giving anything away here...basically even if the general events are standard fantasy stuff there's much more complex things at work.

One thing I'm left wondering having read this is how many books there are going to be. As I said it's Kingkiller Chronicle Day One but there's also a story evolving in the 'present day' outside of Kvothe's tale but it doesn't receive much more than 2 or 3 paragraphs so unless that changes in the following books, which would probably get quite confusing, I think there's too much there that needs to be addressed so I'm hoping that when Kvothe is done resting on his laurels spinning stories for pennies (that thieving bloody Ruh) he'll get up and do something in the real world too. Perhaps I just want more books, which I do but I feel like we only get a tiny piece of the world Rothfuss has created in this book and there's a lot more mileage in it than just Kvothe's story.

The thing that makes me hold this book in such high esteem I think is that when I got towards the end I was in two minds; I was engrossed in the story, immersed in the world and wanted to know what happened next but at the same time I didn't want to carry on reading because I knew I was coming to the end and then it would be over. Obviously if I had the next book it wouldn't have been an issue but I don't think I've ever been that into a book. It's something I really want to be able to do; lose myself in a story, something I think is especially important with a fantasy novel. This book ticks that box without a doubt.

I will give this a quantitative rating once I've worked out how I'm going to do it but until then assume it gets full marks, because it's a pretty safe bet that will do. I recommend this book to as many people as I can and I am doing so to you now.