“I woke up, a bag of bones. Literally. They had gathered up my bones and put them in a bag and thrown the bag into a river.”
“Cheer up everyone,” he said, a new brightness to his voice. “Since we’re all going to die horribly anyway, what’s there to be worried about?”
“Right, well, we’ve got to work out what we need. We’ve got to work out what we need, how we get it, and what we need to get to get what we need.”
These are all quotes from the first book in the best-selling series, “Skullduggery Pleasant.”
The book series written by Best Selling Author Derek Landy has been praised for its fantastic story and world-building. Being able to have an original fantasy story is incredibly difficult nowadays. With book series like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Land of Stories, and Percy Jackson it’s hard to set yourself apart. However, Landy has managed to do just that. His world-building of names being magical, magic causing sorcerers to live for 100s of years, the biology of magic, and the history of sorcerers have all made “Skullduggery Pleasent” stand out.
Set in a world of magic, long-living sorcerers, monsters, old gods, names, and Ireland. The first book in the 15-book series is the first adventure of Stephanie Edgley and the skeleton detective Skullduggery Pleasent. After Stephanie’s famous author Uncle Gordan dies, she meets Skullduggery and learns that everything Gordon wrote about in his books was real. She also learns that Skullduggery is investigating Gordon’s death, and suspects he was murdered. Stephanie proceeds to plunge head-first into the magical world and make herself Skullduggery’s partner.
This first book, while not being the best in the series, is still a fantastic beginning and introduction to the world and characters. It introduces not only the flawed protagonists of the series but also Derek Landry’s style of writing. While his actual writing is not all the different from other accomplished authors, it’s the way he formats his books that elevates his storytelling. He will include chapters in italics from the villain’s perspective, offering insight into the antagonist. He will include chapters from the perspective of other protagonists to flesh out the world and allow the reader to understand that it’s not only up to two people to save the world.
The book expertly sets up important plot threads and introduces important concepts through the lens of the primary protagonist Stephanie. She is just getting introduced to the world while being surrounded and mentored by people who have lived in it for hundreds of years. It establishes key aspects of the world such as the history of sorcerers, the importance of names, the magical government, the goals of the primary antagonists, and how the magical world and the normal world interact.
Stephanie is also immediately introduced as a flawed protagonist. Though only 12 years old during the first book’s story, these traits set up her character arc for the next 8 books. She is judgemental, argumentative, hardheaded, and naive. This book establishes these traits while underscoring them with how compassionate and selfless she is. The reader experiences the world through her eyes and experiences the world with the same feelings and flaws as Stephanie. There are few occasions when a chapter is given to another character’s perspective, weather that be an antagonist or another protagonist, and it only serves to heighten the story by allowing the reader to experience the world with different feelings.
Until next time, I’ll leave you with this advice from the book, “Doors are for people with no imagination.”
