Imagine a world just beneath our own—a world where ancient magic pulses through forgotten alleyways, secret organizations wage silent wars, and the only thing standing between humanity and chaos is a trench-coated skeleton with a razor-sharp wit. That’s the stormy heart of Skulduggery Pleasant, a genre-bending fantasy series that smashes together dark magic, quickfire dialogue, and the kind of world-building that lingers long after the last page.

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Skulduggery Pleasant consists of seventeen primary books, and includes four additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.

not yet rated
  ★ 7.62 / 27
  ★ 7.36 / 19
  ★ 7.50 / 16
  ★ 8.00 / 5
  ★ 8.28 / 14
  ★ 7.80 / 5
  ★ 6.00 / 1
  ★ 7.60 / 5
  ★ 8.00 / 1
  ★ 8.50 / 2
  ★ 9.00 / 1
  ★ 8.50 / 2
  ★ 8.00 / 1
  ★ 8.00 / 1
  ★ 8.00 / 1
  ★ 8.00 / 1
  ★ 8.00 / 2
not yet rated
  ★ 9.76 / 4
  ⧗ 9.40 / 5
  ⧗ 9.00 / 2

Book Reviews

08/20/2015
Tim avatar
Tim
566 books, 34 reviews
★★★★★★★★★☆ 9 / 10

[Note: This is a review for the entire "Skulduggery Pleasant" series, from Book 1-9 and all the short stories, spin-offs and novellas.] In total, the entire series about the living skeleton and his student/partner is more than 5000 pages long. That's an awful lot. Derek Landy is probably one of very few YA authors who actually succeeds in getting about ten different genres in one single book. Not imagine what he does with about ten books. It's amazing, really. There aren't many authors who can do what he does, and actually pull it off. 5000 pages of text mean a lot happens. When you've finished the series (I succeeded in reading it in one week) you'll probably have forgotten about half of what happened in the first books. The list of characters keeps on developing until right at the end - if anyone would count them, they'd probably strand someone above one hundred, I guess. And those characters have enough time to develop, which means there's always something happening. Certainly since Landy has a lot up his sleeve and you can never be entirely sure when someone is really dead or not. When he starts with gods, portals, human-possessing 'things' and parallel worlds, anything becomes possible - especially with Landy's own, personal writing style. It's virtually impossible to say anything about it without spoiling, so you'll just have to read it. It's really worth it - I doubt I've ever read anything like it. I'll just say this - it's a good ending. It really is. I was afraid of it, but there's no need to be.

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