Skulduggery Pleasant

Skulduggery Pleasant is the debut novel of Irish playwright Derek Landy, published in 2007. It is the first of the Skulduggery Pleasant novels. The novel crosses the horror, comedy, mystery and fantasy genres.
The story follows the titular character Skulduggery Pleasant, an undead wizard and detective, with his partner Stephanie Edgley (Valkyrie Cain), and numerous magic-wielding allies as they try to prevent Nefarian Serpine from unleashing a weapon of terrible power on the world. The book was retitled Sceptre Of The Ancients for the 2009 paperback release in the US and Canada.
It won the coveted Red House Children's Book Award and the Hampshire Book Award in 2007.
The second book: Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire , third book: Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones and fourth book Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days are currently available. A fifth book, entitled Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil, is due out by September 2010. Harper Collins Audio also publishes the unabridged CD sets of the books read by Rupert Degas.

Plot Summary

Stephanie Edgley's novelist uncle dies, leaving her his vast mansion and the royalties from his best-selling books. At the reading of the will, a strange man in a tan overcoat, a hat, sunglasses and a scarf is present, along with Fergus and Beryl, Stephanie's none-too-liked aunt and uncle. Stephanie's aunt and uncle are given something as well: a seemingly useless brooch, a boat, and a car, which they both do not want. Spending a night alone in the mansion, Stephanie is attacked by a strange man, demanding she gives him a "key". As the man attacks Stephanie, the mysterious man in the tan overcoat from Gordon's funeral, known as Skulduggery Pleasant, arrives and saves her, throwing a fireball and then shooting the attacker. Skulduggery's disguise of a hat, wig and sunglasses fall off to reveal that he is an undead wizard, made up of only a skeleton held together by magic.
Upon slowly realising that her uncle was murdered, Stephanie, wanting to escape her previously boring and tedious life, helps Skulduggery investigate his mysterious death. Skulduggery and Stephanie gradually uncover a greater plot for world domination. Stephanie's uncle discovered an ancient weapon used by the first sorcerers, the Ancients, to defeat their tyrannical gods, the Faceless Ones. He sealed this deadly weapon, the Sceptre of the Ancients, in a maze beneath the house Stephanie inherited. The "key" is in fact the old, insignificant-looking brooch left by her uncle to his other brother's wife, Beryl.
Stephanie and Skulduggery, aided by an immensely strong tailor named Ghastly, and English professional swordswoman Tanith Low attempt to prevent the main antagonist, Nefarian Serpine, from obtaining the Sceptre. Serpine once served under the evil wizard Mevolent who waged a secret war on the wizard community, trying to take over the world. Skulduggery opposed Mevolent in this war several hundred years ago, when he was still alive. He became ensnared in a trap by Serpine, his wife and child murdered before his eyes and himself killed after several days' torture. His hate for Serpine allowed him to return from the grave as a skeleton and complete the war.
Now working as a detective and with Stephanie's help, Skulduggery defeats Serpine, destroying him with the Sceptre to protect Stephanie, breaking the Sceptre's power in the process. At the conclusion of the novel, Skulduggery offers to take Stephanie on as his assistant and student in sorcery; Stephanie has discovered through the course of the novel's events that her family are descendants of the Ancients and she herself has magic abilities.
There are many similarities to H. P. Lovecraft in the story. The Faceless Ones are likely inspired by the Great Old Ones of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft actually gets a mention by Skulduggery saying that his stories were inspired by myths about the Faceless Ones. Serpine also uses Lovecraft's name as an alias.

Characters

Skulduggery Pleasant      

Skulduggery fought on the 'good' side under the wizard Meritorious during the secret war. After his death, his body was placed on a spike and burned as an example to Mevolent's other enemies. Skulduggery did not move on after his death but stayed on and watched the war progress; to his horror, the tide turned and Mevolent gained advantage. In the book, Skulduggery's past life name (given name) has not been revealed. He accepts the sacrifice of individuals as part of war, but he is highly reluctant to allow this to happen to Stephanie. He protects her diligently throughout the novel; originally about to arrest Serpine only, he is forced to kill him when Serpine attempts to kill Stephanie.

Stephanie Edgley (Valkyrie Cain)    

Stephanie is a 12-year-old girl living in the quiet Irish sea-side town of Haggard. She is the niece of Gordon Edgley, a recently deceased horror novelist, whose novels she discovers were not completely fictional. She first meets Skulduggery at Gordon's funeral; Gordon was a friend of Skulduggery's. Skulduggery tells Stephanie how Gordon once described her as 'strong-willed, intelligent, sharp-tongued, doesn't suffer fools gladly', traits Gordon himself possessed. Stephanie proves herself to have all these qualities in spades, clashing wits with Skulduggery and annoying him to no end. She refuses to be left behind by Skulduggery when they first meet, despite his advice that she keep out of danger. He later comes to respect her abilities, recognizing them when she herself does not. Stephanie despised her boring, ordinary life; she did not have anything in common with her peers and though not disruptive at school, has a healthy disregard for authority. She takes great enjoyment in Skulduggery's more criminal escapades, such as breaking into a museum vault. She constantly proves herself to be every bit the equal of the adults, though some people under-estimate her - her pet hate is being called "child"or "baby".
Though possessing no immediately obvious special abilities, other than fundamental running, swimming and fighting instincts which help her out of trouble at the outset of the novel, Stephanie later learns she is a descendant of the original sorcerers. She begins to develop her magic skills, manipulating air in a climatic battle scene and managing to create fire at the end of the novel. Skulduggery offers to help her master her magical abilities, so that she can assist him in adventures to come. Her main strengths, however, are her intelligence, her sheer strength of will and determination. When Skulduggery is captured and the adults put off launching a rescue, she initiates a rescue attempt herself.
According to the novel's magical premise, knowing someone's name gives you power over them. China Sorrows knows Stephanie's name, and uses this knowledge to prevent Stephanie from rescuing Skulduggery. Stephanie takes on the name Valkyrie Cain. Taking this name seals her given name away, keeping others from controlling her and breaking China's hold on her, allowing her to save Skulduggery. Although known as Valkyrie by other characters from this point onwards, Landy continues to refer to her in the third-person as Stephanie, and Skulduggery chooses to call her by Valkyrie. However, for the rest of the series, she is known as Valkyrie.
She got her name from the Norse Warrior Women who guard Valhalla (she first heard this name after watching "rise of the Valkryries" with her dad) and she got her last name from the word Cain. (Skulduggery Pleasant introduced the word to her, claiming that she had a "penchant for raising cain", meaning that she makes trouble).

Nefarian Serpine (picture unavailable)

The arch-villain, Serpine is an evil magician who once served under the evil wizard Mevolent. He possesses magical powers that rival or may even surpass those held by Skulduggery. He is a sadist who takes great delight in the pain and suffering of others, especially Skulduggery. At first it appears that Serpine seeks the Sceptre to release the Faceless Ones but it eventually becomes clear that what he really wants is the Great Book of Names and the Sceptre is merely a stepping stone in his plan to obtain it.
Serpine and Skulduggery are old enemies. Serpine was the one originally responsible for Skulduggery's demise and was also the murderer of his wife and children. Skulduggery would love nothing more than to get revenge on Serpine and he eventually does by using the Sceptre to destroy the Great Book of Names, preventing the return of the Faceless Ones, enraging Serpine who attempts to kill Stephanie but Skulduggery stops him and avenges the death of his family by vaporizing Serpine with the Sceptre.
Serpine is highly intelligent and a skilled manipulator who seduced not only Mr Bliss but Sagacious Tome into joining him. He is a fanatic who is believed by many, (Skulduggery included) to be insane, although the Faceless Ones (as proved in Book 2 Playing with Fire and Book 3 The Faceless Ones) are actually real.
The greatest weapon in Serpine's arsenal is his right hand which some dark power has stripped of all its flesh and possesses the ability put individuals in great pain, eventually killing them when pointed at them.
Serpine bears many similarities to Sauron of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. A dark sorcerer who was once a servant of an even greater evil but is now the greatest villain in the world and who seeks a potent magical device to aid him in his quest for domination of the world (in Serpine's case the Sceptre, in Sauron's case the One Ring). In this, Mevolent could be seen to resemble Morgoth and Sagacious Tome could be seen to resemble Saruman.

Warner Bros, own the film rights to Skulduggery Pleasant. However, Derek Landy commented "that the movie will probably not be coming out in 2010... we have a director and are working on the script...but if the movie's made it will be live action."