Derek Landy author visit
Derek Landy, author of the popular Skulduggery Pleasant series of books, visited PCS on the morning of 27 April to talk to Y7s about himself and his books.
Derek gave a very entertaining and amusing talk which held the students engrossed and then answered a wide range of questions from his audience.
To find out more about Derek Landy and Skulduggery Pleasant visit:
http://www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk
This visit was arranged jointly with the East Sussex Library Service.
Praise for Skulduggery Pleasant
'Hugely enjoyable – a thrill-a-minute adventure.' - Jonathan Stroud
'It's exciting, pacy, nicely handled and fun. I sincerely hope Landy revisits these characters.' - Philip Ardagh, Guardian
'A gripping debut.' - Phil Hogan, Observer
'Skulduggery Pleasant serves up a thoroughly satisfying blend of humour, magic and adventure. Once you've met Stephanie and Skullduggery, you'll be clamouring for a sequel.' - Rick Riordan
'A remarkably accomplished debut with wonderful dialogue.' - Robert Dunbar, Irish Times
'[Landy's] fight scenes are perfectly pitched. His characters are exceptionally well drawn and delightfully colourful...Reading [this book] is like riding a rollercoaster.' - Irish Independent
'Landy's witty style will win him fans of all ages... With writing of this standard, a rattling plot and definite potential for cross-over appeal, it's a good job Harry's [Potter] resigning before he's forcibly retired.' - Irish Mail on Sunday
'Humour and magic combine in this thrilling adventure.' - Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'...people in the book world are raving about this book.' - Glasgow Herald
'It's pacy, it's funny, it's irreverent. The relationship between Skulduggery and Stephanie is tremendously strong. Stephanie is a splendid character - blunt, logical and outspoken... We enjoyed Skulduggery Pleasant. Muchly. Roll on volume two!' - The Book Bag
'A rip-roaring adventure.' - Irish Sunday Independent
'Full of black humour, super powers, mysteries, murder and mayhem.' Carousel
Skulduggery Pleasant - Dark Days
Derek's latest book is the fourth in the series, has just been published.
In which 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!
Skulduggery Pleasant - The Faceless One
The third bone-breaking, belly-busting adventure in the series that puts the "funny" back in, um, funny series. That didn't really work, did it?
If you've read the previous Skulduggery books then you know what the Faceless Ones are -- and if you know what the Faceless Ones are, then you can probably take a wild guess that things in this book are going to get AWFULLY sticky for our skeletal hero and his young sidekick.
If you haven't read the previous Skulduggery books then what are you doing reading this? Go and read them right now, so that you know what all that stuff in the previous paragraph was about. Done? Good. So now you're on tenterhooks too, desperately awaiting the answers to all your questions, and instead you're going to have to wait to read the book. Sorry about that.
Skulduggery Pleasant - Playing with Fire
Just when you think you've saved the world....
"You will kill her?" the Torment asked.
Skulduggery sagged. "Yes." He hesitated, then took his gun from his jacket. "I'm sorry, Valkyrie," he said softly.
"Don't talk to me," Valkyrie said. "Just do what you have to do."
Valkyrie parted her tunic, and Skulduggery pointed the gun at the vest beneath.
"Please forgive me," Skulduggery said, then aimed the gun at the girl and pulled the trigger.
With Serpine dead, the world is safe once more. At least, that's what Valkyrie and Skulduggery think, until the notorious Baron Vengeous makes a bloody escape from prison, and dead bodies and vampires start showing up all over Ireland. With Baron Vengeous after the deadly armour of Lord Vile, and pretty much everyone out to kill Valkyrie, the daring detective duo face their biggest challenge yet. But what if the greatest threat to Valkyrie is just a little closer to home…?
Skulduggery Pleasant
Wise cracking detective, powerful magician, master of dirty tricks and burglary (in the name of the greater good, of course), oh yeah, and dead!
If you can't wait to find out what happens next, here's a brief synopsis and a sample chapter...
Buffy meets Dr Who meets Ghostbusters in this thrilling new book you won't want to put down!
Stephanie's uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn't fiction.
Pursued by evil forces intent on recovering a mysterious key, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source – the wisecracking skeleton of a dead wizard.
When all hell breaks loose, it's lucky for Skulduggery that he's already dead. Though he's about to discover that being a skeleton doesn't stop you from being tortured, if the torturer is determined enough. And if there's anything Skulduggery hates, it's torture...
Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to stop it? One thing's for sure: evil won't know what's hit it.
Derek Landy Bio
Derek Landy lives near Dublin, Ireland. Before writing his children's story about a sharply dressed skeleton detective, he wrote the screenplays for a zombie movie and a slasher thriller in which everybody dies.
As a black belt in Kenpo Karate, he has taught countless children how to defend themselves, in the hopes of building his own private munchkin army. He firmly believes that they await his call to strike against his enemies (he doesn't actually have any enemies, but he's assuming they'll show up sooner or later).
The reason Derek writes his own biographical blurb is so that he can finally refer to himself in the third person without looking pompous or insane.
Derek Landy is far too modest to talk about any awards or accolades his books may have won. He will not, for instance, mention the fact that his first book, Skulduggery Pleasant, won the Red House Children's Book Award, or that his second, Playing With Fire, won an Irish Book Award for Children's Book of the Year, or that his third, The Faceless Ones, is his mother's personal favourite.
He lives in Ireland with a variety of cats, a German Shepherd, and two geriatric Staffordshire Bull Terriers who keep peeing on his kitchen floor because they think it's funny.