Sie ist cool, sexy und schlagfertig. Und sie war Walküre Unruhs beste Freundin. Aber in Band 5 der Reihe um den zaubernden Skelett-Detektiv Skulduggery Pleasant hat sie die Seiten gewechselt und seither fragen Fans weltweit: Was macht eigentlich Tanith Low?
Selbstverständlich weiß Kult-Autor Derek Landy eine Antwort darauf.
Denn Tanith ist natürlich nicht einfach verschwunden: Sie hat eine Gruppe verwegener Halunken um sich geschart, mit deren Hilfe sie die vier Göttermörder entwenden will. Die einzigen Waffen auf der Welt, die einer so mächtigen Zauberin wie Darquise schaden könnten!
Derek Landy is an Irish writer and screenwriter. In addition to the bestselling children's/YA series of Skulduggery Pleasant books, a supernatural mystery series starring Skulduggery Pleasant, a skeleton detective, and Valkyrie Cain, a young female magician, he has written two screenplays that have been made into films: the IFTA award winning "Dead Bodies" and the IFTA nominated "Boy Eats Girl". Landy himself was nominated for an IFTA for Best Script.
He doesn’t like to brag about all the awards he’s won, such as the Irish Book of the Decade, or the Red House in the UK, or all the other awards that he humbly displays on his mantelpiece. He is also far too modest to mention things like the first book being a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year, but would like to extend an invitation to Oprah to pop around one day for tea, in thanks for selecting his book for the Oprah’s Book Club Kids Reading List.
Derek plays too many video games, reads too many comics, and watches too many movies. He lives in Ireland with too many cats. Occasionally he talks to real people, but only when he absolutely has to.
Oh, Tanith!! All I wanted to whilst reading this book was reach through the pages and wrap her in a big, big hug. But the only person that got to do that was Sanguine...and that just depressed me. The sooner they find a way to rid Tanith of the Remnant, the better! And the ending is a great lead on to the next Skulduggery book :)
While my insides may be rotten, I still like a good reason to kill someone. It has to be either business, personal, or out of sheer boredom.
I'm usually not one for novella's usually as they don't really add much to the plot of the main story however this one provided some context of one of the series main characters Tanith Low who has a remnant inside of her.
Seeing many of the underrated and missed villains finally getting to shine throughout this novella and see them do what villains do best and is cause mayhem. Black Annis, Sabine, Dusk, Springheeled jack, Wilhelm Scream are mostly villains apart from i would say Sabine who is more of an old friend of Tanith.
I also enjoyed this book going from real time to past time and seeing Tanith with how she acts with the remnant inside of her and how different one of my favourite characters has become over the course of a couple of books. But i love how plotting and scheming she is in this book and it's so out of character due to the remnant in her but man it was so fun to read at times.
I did really enjoy getting to see Tanith adventures in this little novella away from the main series as she wasn't really scene much in book seven.
It's here!!! It's finally here, another book from the masterful Derek Landy. I got this as an Easter present today and got stuck right in. Of course I finished it in a mere few hours. Derek Landy is one of those authors who I will drop EVERYTHING for! My reading pile may be 200 or so books long, but his books will jump to the top everytime. They are just kick butt awesome. This book is a spin off novella, told a couple of months after the events in Kingdom of the Wicked, but this time the story is told from Tanith's side of things and she's a bad guy now. At 280 pages this is quite short but still packed with so much awesomeness. I always loved Tanith - she's one of my favourite characters, I still wish she would come back to the good side, but I will admit she makes quite a cool villain. This book also reveals some of her past which I found fascinating and it was good to see that history. Tanith is trying to track down, steal and destroy four weapons that can kill with a single nick, they are called 'God Killer's' as nothing can stop them, she recruits a band of villains to help her, some are known favourites from earlier books such as Billy-Ray, Springheeled Jack and Dusk, whilst others are new additions. all with very different talents, and some more disgusting than others. I got so excited whist reading this as one of the new characters has the same surname as me, I am being delusional and telling myself that Derek Landy did that deliberately, just for me. The character is male and I am of course female, but Derek can't be too obvious can he? :P I know it's a tribute to one of his most dedicated fans!!! :D There is a distinct lack of Skulduggery and Valkyrie in this book, but in a strange way it works, Tanith is such a strong character that she commands the page and captures the story. I don't want to write too much about it as I don't want to give away any spoilers, just know that this book is just as incredible as all the others and yes I did laugh out loud in many places.
„Танит Лоу в... Седморката на злото” или какво правят лошите на Дерек Ланди ако се превърнат в главни герои на своя собствена книга! Наистина сочна история и живото доказателство, че дори и без Скълдъгъри и Валкирия на преден план, поредицата предоставя плодородна почва за всевъзможни странични приключения. Ланди знае как да държи интереса на читателите и продължава с пълна пара да развиват своя магнетично мрачен свят. Прочетете ревюто на "Книжни Криле": https://knijnikrile.wordpress.com/201...
I admit: I expected this book to be fluffy fun, but considering that it's essentially a side story in the Skulduggery Pleasant universe, focusing entirely on secondary characters and not even featuring either Skulduggery or Valkyrie, my expectations were, well, somewhat limited.
Oh boy. Was I wrong.
Right now - admittedly, I'm still on that high from finishing it - I'd rank it as one of the very best of the entire SP series. It's shorter than the main series novels, yes, but being still novel-length, it fit in more than enough - plot, some excellent character stuff, back stories for several characters, lots of action and even a fair bit of romance (hey, it even has a love triangle of sorts - and anyone who knows me even a bit knows what I think about love triangles in general, but this being Derek, it was awesome, as usual).
The feels. Ye gads, the feels this book gave me. I officially managed to fall in love with Springheeled Jack. I loved the banter, both among the good guys and the bad guys. I enjoyed the action. I ... there are twists, towards the end, that I did not see coming. I came pretty damn close to tears at one of them.
I think this is as close as I can get to a "review" without getting into spoiler territory, and I just don't want to do that right now. But... yeah. Awesome.
I'm terrified of Last Stand of Dead Men, now. Not that I wasn't before, but... yeah.
Derek has a gift at making us love his villains and he proves it with dedicating a whole book to them! I loved having a whole 285 pages dedicated to Tanith, Sanguine and all the other villains that have flown under the radar throughout the series. We also get introduced to some more of the good guys including Saracen Rue and the Monster Hunters themselves, Donegan Bane & Gracious O'Callahan who I love to death a make me laugh so much.
The action was great and as always every single character had an amazing and different personality which added to the story and the dynamics of each group. No matter how many times I read this book I will always find myself loving it and never getting sick of it!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! SANGUINE AND TANITH ARE ENGAGED!!! IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!!! WHAT ABOUT GHASTLY?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I loved that Jack like Sabine and Black Annis liked Jack. It was cute that monsters fell in love, even though they were...monsters. BUT SHE KILLED JACK!!!! I LIKED JACK!!!! He can't just be dead!!!! And Tanith is practically psycho, which does not make me happy :(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Es war eine echt nette Geschichte, aber mehr auch nicht. Ich hatte mich wirklich darauf gefreut, mehr über Tanith zu erfahren. Die Kapitel aus ihrer Vergangenheit waren auch wirklich interresant. Die Kapitel rund um die Hautpstory waren aber eher belanglos. Dafür aber im typischen Derek Landy Stil ;) Und das Ende macht einen ja doch etwas Hoffnung ^^
Based on the mostly 4 & 5 star ratings and gushing reviews, I'm definitely in the minority on this one, but I just had a hard time getting into it.
Maybe part of it was disappointed expectations. When I first heard about this book I was all geared up to love it. I mean, I like Tanith and I always like when the villains - even villains you're hoping will end back up on the good side - get a bit more depth to their characters.
And we did learn more about Tanith, specifically her upbringing and being trained as an assassin and then giving that up to become a mercenary, of sorts, and then a bounty hunter. Basically, Tanith before we ever meet her in Skulduggery.
And those bits were interesting and, honestly, if that was the whole of the story I probably would've rated this higher.
But those bits were just interludes in the story of the Maleficent Seven - a group that Tanith puts together in order to track down 4 weapons - God-killers - because she's seen a vision of Darquesse and she, or the Remnant within her, wants to help bring about that destruction.
Against them is a team of seven of the good guys, lead by Dexter Vex, who are also after the weapons, but to secure their use against Darquesse.
And so, basically, we get a lot of scheming, fighting, chasing from both sides - rinse, wash, repeat.
The good guys were hard to root for because they basically seemed kind of inept. Valkyrie and Skulduggery aren't in the book at all, mentioned only in passing, and I almost feel like they couldn't be in the book because we couldn't have a story in which our two main heros would be quite as blundering as our good guys were.
In some ways, it was like a typical story of this kind where the bad guys are pretty inept, but at least you want them to sort of be inept because you want the good guys to win. But, in this story, you'd almost have to root for Tanith and Co. because, well, they are the protagonists, in a way... but I kept wanting them to fail.
There are some stories written from the villains perspective that makes them more sympathetic, or likable, or where you get into their heads and at least sort of understand where they're coming from. But Remnant Tanith is just a psychopath and so is Billy-Ray. I kinda liked some of the rest of the villain group - it was cool to see Spring-Heeled Jack and Black Annis again, for instance, but they never seemed to be used to their full capacity and then, well...
That was one thing. On at least two occassions Tanith went into retrieve the weapon herself and I kept thinking - why did we even both putting together a team? They were all involved in the last encounter, for the most part, so there is that.
But, anyway... kind of a lackluster story in which I kept hoping the main characters would fail and/or that the 'good guys' would be more competent and at least put up a bit of a fight.
I did like the background on Tanith, and I liked the ending, and the rest was "ok".
A fun "get the gang together" heist book that was pleasantly popcornish.
This book was a lot shorter and shallower than the mainline Skulduggery Pleasant books, but that isn't a criticism, as it very clearly is a side book that happens beside the main plot.
I liked all of the characters from each crew, but felt it odd that some were given chapters focusing on their thoughts and others weren't.
For example, Spring-Heeled Jack was a funny and likeable character who had an amusing plotline, but Black Annis was a very intriguing character who got no time for us to learn more about her.
A fun, short read that gave time to some of the side characters to the main books while standing on its own.
I really enjoyed this book. Tanith is one of my favourite characters and I'm glad that we got to see more of her story, even though she wasn't in the last few books as much. I loved the parts about her childhood, since it gave so much insight into her character. The ending was interesting and surprising, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it affects the final two books in the series.
"Singing along when Carry on my Wayward son played on the radio" I felt personally attacked by this.
If was fun! A bit confusing time wise sometimes, might have been because I listened to it but when it jumped I sometimes had trouble keeping up. Otherwise it was a fun heist plot with some interesting characters. I do feel kinda bad for them tho, even tho they had done some horrible things before I feel kinda bad.
A great side quest in the world of Skulduggery Pleasant, with a whole host of new heroes and villains to get to know.
Slotting neatly into the bubbling tensions of this magical world, it’s a fun Suicide Squad-esque tale with twists, turns, Tanith, and more twists. Landy’s humour continues to swing home runs.
Holy shitballs, was that a 3-star rating I just gave to a Skulduggery book? YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS IT WAS!
Settle down and let me explain. I love this series. I adore it. I've had so much fun re-reading it, but honestly I think I burnt myself out a bit from reading through the series back-to-back.
I started my re-read of The Maleficent Seven a month ago. A WHOLE MONTH! This book is by no means a long book. In fact, it's the smallest in the series (if you don't include The End of the World, that is). And only partway through, I fell into a massive slump. Yep. I'm pretty sure this is the first book I've finished in over a month. I'm sure you all know what happens when you fall into a slump partway through a book, right? You lose interest.
I guess it didn't help that whilst this is set in the world of Skulduggery Pleasant, this by no means a tale involving the skeleton detective. I love Tanith, but I just can't connect to this story like I do with all of the other books.
Throughout my re-reading, I've been enjoying getting to parts and being all like, "omg yessssss I remember this!!!" and looking forward to other bits and pieces I remember happening. Tbh, I didn't remember anything about this book at all. It almost felt like reading it for the first time, but not necessarily in a good way.
I think if I hadn't fallen into a slump whilst reading this, I would've given it a solid 4 or maybe even 4.5 rating, but instead it's just gonna sit at a 3.5.
3oo pages of pure awesomeness ♥ An entire book about my two most favourite characters (Sanguine and Vex), it was just like a dream ♥ And then this, "Tanith shrugged. “I liked Harry Potter.” “This ain’t about Harry Potter!” “You liked Harry Potter as well.” “They’re good books,” he snapped." I've always loved him, now I love him even more.
"Two monsters, a vampire, a hitman and a ninja, plus whatever this mystery woman is. You know what this means? We're going to die. We are going. To die." "Don't be so dramatic."
Oh boy, this book is not at all what I thought it was, and was certainly a bit more violent and "backstabby" than I thought it was going to be. Wow O.O
In this, we have two groups of seven facing off against one another in a plot to steal four "God Killer" weapons from various people (and groups) around the world, fighting against both time and each other in a bid to retrieve the only weapons that could kill . One group to save said person, and one group to kill said person.
"We could wear disguises." "Like a false beard. I've always wanted to wear a false beard." "But you're a woman." "Exactly. They'd never suspect it was me."
I also really loved the flashbacks to a younger Tanith - when she was learning to be a "hidden blade" in some sort of underground assassin-training school that reminds me a bit of the Faceless Men (from Game of Thrones, not to be confused with the Faceless Ones from Skulduggery Pleasant ;D). Getting to learn about how she became the badass she's been since the beginning of the Skulduggery Pleasant was a real treat, and I would love to learn even more about her background.
"...I didn't kill him. Besides, I have an alibi. Probably. When did he die?" "Halloween." "I have no alibi."
There's definitely some set-up here for the future books; definitely not just a side story I'm hoping that the plot twist at the end of this is going to come into play in one of the later books, rather than staying solely as a side-story. It'll be interesting to find out how things go down later...
As per usual [for Derek Landy] the book was incredible (even with it being so short in comparison to others in the world of Skulduggery Pleasant), full of action and plot twists and the ever present (and wonderful) comedy and sarcasm that these characters [and the author] are known for. The whole thing was just incredibly well done - and incredibly vicious - especially with some of those final twists... Wow o.o
"...I don't limit myself because of what I am," he said as he walked away. "Do you?"
Tanith Low assembles a team of villains to steal the only weapons that could potentially stop Darquesse, while Dexter Vex's latest incarnation of the Dead Men try to stop her. It's Ocean's Eleven, if half the team hated the other, and the fate of the world was at stake.
A fun little side-story. It's neat to get into some different characters' heads other than Valkyrie for a change, and there are some glimmers of hope for Tanith that made me smile.
I'm assuming the events here will be relevant going forward as the Darquesse plot looms ever larger in the main series, especially given the twist ending. I'm not sure if I can call this required reading without having seen how it all plays out, but I feel like it will be.
��Come have a go, if you think you’re hard enough.” - Tanith Low The Maleficent Seven had the same wit and charm as Skulduggery Pleasant, but somehow managed to become an entirely different amazing book. I figured I could guess everything that was I was going to be able to guess everything that happened, since I’d already read the Skulduggery Pleasant books that take place afterward, but I was pleasantly (no pun intended) surprised. The Maleficent Seven brought back old characters with unfinished endings, such as Springheeled Jack, and introduced new ones, like Wilhelm Scream, all of which had distinct personalities and added their own little touches to the story. Overall, a great addition to the series, I loved it!
It is an interesting diversion from the regular books. I found the main cast of villains a little boring at times. Not a big surprise they mostly all end up dead. The plot picked up towards the end, and the backstory to Taniths character was good. I do hope she turns back into a good guy by the end of the regular series though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I thought that this was an amazing book full of drama, betrayal, and Derek Landys' patented humor. This was an interesting read and a great backstory that explains a lot in Last Stand of Dead Men. I recommend reading this before Last Stand of Dead Men but after Armageddon Outta Here.