Good to get the gang back

A good new beginning but unfortunately the narration performance is lacking, especially when compared to the previous 9 books.

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2 people found this helpful

A middling offering with unconvincing direction

I sincerely believe that Derek Landy wrote himself into a corner around the 9th book when he decided to change what was setting up to be the ending of the series to instead be a soft ending. In fact, the pacing issues in the 9th book may very much owe to him deciding 30 % through to not end the series there due to the sudden urge of new ideas. New ideas which, however, do not seem to have paid off correctly.

We find the events of the last book (and the "soft ending") to have had a drastic and dramatic effect on the usual protagonist, Valkyrie. This much makes sense; if somewhat limited in overall storytelling, Landy is excellent in characterisation. We do not, however, end up convinced we needed to be made privy to this character development and if it is something we really wanted to see going further. We are split between her and a new character that seems to be intended as a semi-protagonist and a POV character of significant influence, and that makes it even harder for us to answer the question "Did we really need the book"? If that, did we really need Valkyrie Kane? Sure, the reader base may have been a bit split if Skulduggery was to find a new protege and for us to be in the shoes of a different protagonist, but at least it would feel like there is a progress that we are a part of, that we are observing an evolution in the overall story. Instead, we find ourselves in another story that seems to hint to wanting to drum the same beats the previous 3 books did, just even slower somehow, as it feels increasingly bloated. The "soap opera" feeling I would get throughout the biggest slumps in the previous books is even more accentuated as this one ends. I find myself doubtful if I wanted to read this one, and while I will read the next one (at this point it is starting to feel like sunk cost fallacy, "I have invested so much of my time getting here, might as well invest some more"), I do not feel nearly as excited about it as I should be. This is a really clunky soft reboot, and despite Landy's general high quality of characterisation, situation descriptions and overall writing, if I had known how I feel after finishing reading it, I think I'd not read have started the books at all. I really hope I feel differently after the next book.

To make matters worse, Kevin Hely contributes even more to that feeling with his choices in narrative voices. At first, when I heard the jarringly different Skulduggery and Valkyrie Kane, I wanted to force myself to be understanding - Stephan Hogan and Rupert Degas had very similar and this immersive voices for them, but they are on a level beyond what can reasonably expected for a narrator of a book. Even with a limited number of voices, a narrator can still be worth 5 start delivery. To my shock and dismay as I proceeded, however, I found out Kevin Hely is excellent in his own right - the main villain of the story is a gem of a narration, and he seemed to have a bunch of really well done (if sometimes weird in pronunciation) voices in his bag. Hell, I would even compliment him on being the only narrator I have heard so far get slavic accents right (being Bulgarian myself, I am impressed at how his Bulgarian character was voiced).
So it makes it even worse that it seems like a deliberate choice to invent a completely new set for the two predominant characters of the previous 9 novels, making the continuation of the series feel even more like an unwanted reboot. Why he chose to do that is beyond me, as he clearly has the capacity to have tried an approximation. A desire to stand apart, perhaps? Well, I can say for certain it had the effect of wanting to make me, the listener, stay away instead.

Overall, much less enjoyable a read than expected, and a somewhat disappointing piece of literature by more than just the virtue of its existence.

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