1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good and exciting, October 12, 2010
A Kid's Review
Skulduggery Pleasant The Faceless Ones fits in well with the other books and is just as good. It is easy to pick up the story and characters so don't worry if you haven't read the other books.
This book is a little bit scary but good for an 8 year old or older I think. It is a very exciting and enjoyable.
You will like this book if you like adventure, magic and action.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There is no other place where you can get a dry sense of humor, sarcastic bantering, and a host of original characters, December 28, 2009
After defeating endless vampires, demons and bad guys, you would think that Skulduggery Pleasant and his assistant, Valkyrie Cain, would be ready for a break. Although blacklisted by the Sanctuary, Skulduggery and Valkyrie still seem to be in the thick of all matters paranormal and unusual. You didn't expect them to sit at home and just watch the world come to an end, did you?
After inspecting the crime scene of a teleporter's murder, four more teleporters show up dead and the trend is utterly disturbing. Not only are teleporters extremely hard to catch and/or kill, all of them have been murdered in the same gruesome way. Skulduggery and Valkyrie launch into an investigation that turns up even more alarming information. Someone named Batu is killing off teleporters to narrow down the population to one...and that one teleporter will be used to open the gateway to the world of the Faceless Ones.
Of course, there are numerous issues to complicate matters. Finding a teleporter is never easy, and confining them to one location is even trickier. Batu also has drummed up support and created "The Diablerie," a problematic group of assassins who will stop at nothing to make sure that the gateway is opened. The Sanctuary isn't exactly being helpful, seeing as their head detective, Remus Crux, gets confused easily about who the real bad guys are. It also doesn't help that a spy is hidden in the Sanctuary passing along crucial information to the Diablerie.
In the midst of all these issues, Valkyrie Cain is struggling with some problems of her own. Newly 14, Valkyrie has grown over the past year and her protective outer gear is no longer fitting. Her reflection is doing well keeping up appearances at home and school, but her reflection also received her first kiss from a boy, and Valkyrie is disappointed to find the whole experience devoid of emotion. Perhaps she is most uncomfortable with the fact that everyone keeps telling her she needs to live a normal teenage life, one that is not fraught with danger and an untimely death. It looks as though her nightly excursions may finally be catching up with her.
However, Valkyrie's personal problems will have to wait for another day as the threat of the Faceless Ones is very real and very dangerous. If you've read the previous installments in this series, then you know that there is an epic battle, a couple of deaths, and some bruises and broken bones. In the end, though, there are smiles all around as yet another disaster is averted. Not to give anything away, readers, but don't plan on smiling at the end of this one.
I've always thought that the Skulduggery books have long been underappreciated. Sure, it's fun to have wizards, witches, magic, blah, blah, blah, but there is no other place where you can get a dry sense of humor, sarcastic bantering, and a host of original characters that cause readers to shed tears from so much laughing. Quick wit is hard to come by these days, and if you read too fast, you're going to miss all the little gems inserted craftily into the story. I, for one, can't wait to see what Derek Landy has up his sleeve next.
--- Reviewed by Benjamin Boche (bennyboche@hotmail.com)
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoying the Series with my Son, September 8, 2009
The Skulduggery Pleasant series is for older kids, probably most exciting for the 10-12 age range. But I'm a mom, and I read this before passing it on to my son. (He was working on another book.) One thing I like about this series, which I like about the Harry Potter books, too, is that genuinely bad things happen to people. Though. since the world of magic and monsters isn't real, the young reader is removed from the violence being "real".
But the battle between good and evil is desperate and the bad guys are really bad and there's plenty of people who sit in the middle unintentionally making trouble (Think Fudge in Harry Potter) or whose side is really up for grabs (Think Snape). There's also a lot of humor in the Skulduggery series.
The Skulduggery books, at least through this 3rd book, do not have the touches of philosophy that you see in Harry Potter, though. If Derek Landy added a little more of the big questions to his stories, a little more of the morality tales, I think this series could turn into really exceptional books. Right now, they are, on balance, more simple fun.
But sometimes the writing is downright excellent. Near the end of "The Faceless Ones", Landy describes a Faceless One as it enters our world. His description is amazing, I could see this creature in all it's awful beauty. More writing like that, and he'll have a classic. He's not there, yet, though.
Recommended as fun reading.
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