Kingdom of the Wicked
(Skulduggery Pleasant #7)
By Derek Landy
HarperCollins, 2012
576 Pages
Young Adult
The Skulduggery Pleasant books are more supernatural noir than horror, but there are plenty of dark and gothic images flowing through them. Skulduggery works for a group called The Sanctuary as a private detective who deals with problems that arise in the secret magical world. This is the seventh in the series that features him and his partner Valkyrie Cain. (A novella featuring her friend Tanith Low should be released later this year.)
To my knowledge, this book has not been released in the US, though it is available from amazon.uk in electronic format. There have also been many other Skulduggery Pleasant short stories released, but they can only be found in certain formats or World Book Day editions (also not available in the States,) or were offered only on Derek Landy’s Blog. If you missed them, don’t worry, Derek has announced -or leaked?- a “Skulduggery Pleasant Collection of short stories and novellas, available… um… some time in the spring of 2014…”Kingdom of the Wicked is the first book of a third trilogy.
Mortals are beginning to develop magic powers in Ireland. Other Sanctuaries are threatening to take-over the Irish magical government if they can’t get their business resolved soon. In fact, so many things have happened in Ireland, a “cradle of magic,” in the last few years that the rest of the world’s magical contingent is ready to bring military hostility to the table if they mess this one up.
Eliza Scorn and The Church of the Faceless Ones (who trashed China Sorrows’ library in the last novel,) now want to merge with Christoph Nocturnal’s American Church. The only price is the death of Valkyrie.
Tanith Low still has a remnant inside her, (an evil spirit, as described in Mortal Coil,) and she’s running with Billy Ray Sanguine, (though Tanith herself had been falling for Ghastly Bespoke, now Elder of the Irish Sanctuary.) Eliza turns the tables, frames Christophe for an attempt on Valkyrie’s life, then manipulates Tanith Low and Billy Ray Sanguine into killing him.
A bunch of kids have a better go of it, as it happens, and beat Valkyrie as she has never been trounced before, stealing her special armor-like jacket and rubbing her face in it as they leave her lying in the dirt.
I started to get confused about who was who, so I turned to these sites:
Skullduggery Pleasant (wikipedia)
or
Skulduggery Wiki
The mortals with magic, and many others now, are having nightmares that involve a guy called Argeddion and his “Summer of Light.” Argeddion is really Walden D’Essai, a sorcerer who, like Valkyrie, has learned his True Name. Though described as a pacifist, he also has had a sensitive reveal a premonition of extreme violence, death and suffering at his hands.
He was so gentle, and warm, and he said he had a wonderful gift to give me. He appeared in my dreams for weeks, telling me to prepare for the Summer of Light, and then the last time I dreamed about him he held up his hand, and he was holding this bright, glowing energy, and he put it into my chest. Then he smiled, and said he’d be back for it later.
Tyren Lament, Vernon Plight, Kalvin Accord and Lenka Bazaar all tried to find Argeddion many years ago… and disappeared. Skulduggery and Valkyrie think it might be a good idea to find them.
…And suddenly we enter the world of Harry Potter. The duo raid a jail for sorcerers (alas, no Dementors, though poorer for it,) and ride on an invisible train through the mountains.
During the search, Valkyrie is sent to a parallel world by a dimensional shunter, a world where magic has subjugated mortals and Mevolent and his red-hood cleavers reign along with his generals, Lord Vile, Nefarian Serpine, and the black-armoured Baron Vengeous. Fletcher Renn is nowhere near to teleport her away, and Valkyrie barely escapes with her life, suspected of being a rebel sorcerer.
As it turns out, Lament had discovered a way to incarcerate just such a sorcerer who was too powerful for his own good: The Tempest. Argeddion was ‘erased’ and hidden away in a state of suspended animation to protect the world from the prophecy without actually killing a man who was guilty of nothing.
Valkyrie is worried that Darquesse is still her future, and believes that Argeddion’s cage may be able to hold her alter-ego to protect both her family and the world.
In order to boost the strength of the prison and stop the dreams, stop the werewolves and magical muggles, to stop Argeddion from waking up, they need “The Accelerator,” a device that increases magic, enough to keep two people comatose indefinitely… or enough power that sorcerers could overrun mortal civilization, since that’s what Roarhaven originally designed it for.
In the continuing story arc, we see the White Cleaver reconstructed by Dr. Nye, and in payment for its body, Vaurien Scapegrace, (the self-proclaimed “Zombie Lord,”) given a new, non-decomposing body along with his sidekick, Thrasher. Unfortunately for Scapegrace, Nye gives him a female body.
While the Sanctuary is trying to hook it all up, Argeddion wakes from his slumber in the machine. He seems like a really nice guy, just like Valkyrie, who doesn’t want to kill the mortals, but just kind of “bring up the bottom” and help the world towards the next evolutionary step in regard to magic. He wants a world where everyone has special powers. A place like the parallel dimension.
‘If everyone in the world was suddenly capable of using magic,’ Strom said, ‘there’d be a frantic scramble for dominance. We’d be looking at a new world order, and humanity would be decimated as each nation struggled to assert itself at the top.’
In order to enact his big plan, Argeddion has to study how mortals will react given super-human powers, so he has chosen four in particular; teenagers who need a boost of extra-strong magic to counteract their young age. Yeah, it’s the ones that were able beat up Valkyrie and take her jacket. Of course, they immediately run amok and start getting revenge for all the wrongs that were ever done to them. Apparently Argeddion’s question isn’t so much will they thrive, but will they be able to learn to control themselves before they destroy the world. It doesn’t matter that they will die as a result of the study.
Elsie is the runt of the litter, and she ends up giving herself up to Skulduggery, realizing how Kitana Kelloway, a true psychopath, has wrapped the boys Sean and Doran around her finger and is using them to kill people.
Meanwhile, Valkyrie continues to shunt back and forth to the “evil dimension,” but learns to predict the crossing and bring Skulduggery with her. Now awakened, the Sanctuary’s only hope to defeat the nearly all-powerful Argeddion and his misguided, naïve ideal is to take on Mevolent and Vengeous, as well as a rogue, alternate China Sorrows, and steal the other world’s Scepter of the Ancients.
Will Argeddion or Valkyrie wipe out the evil ‘Spock-with-a-goatee’ parallel dimension? Will Mevolent or Vile from the other reality somehow discover a way into our dimension now that they know it exists? How will I sleep until the next two books come out?
This book marks a change in the way I felt towards the characters. Perhaps it was done on purpose, perhaps not; but I began to dislike Valkyrie. Her remorseless violence is distinctly noticeable at the end, and not so much of the ‘unapologetic fisticuffs’ of the previous adventures that I adored, but more a sort of ‘extreme hateful violence for the sake of really hurting people with no redeeming value’ type of fighting. But I am so glad to see Vengeous in his glory again. (Because he’s supposed to be a bad guy.) Here’s hoping to see Uncle Gordon Edgley and his house again soon, too!
I only wish I could do the book justice in such a short review. There is so much sub-plot that I just can’t touch it all. Regardless of how I felt about Valkyrie at the end, some amazing things happen in this episode, not least of which is the beginning of what you’ve all probably smelled coming—Stephanie Edgley’s reflection makes a decision. If you enjoyed the first six books as much as I did, make sure not to miss the oncoming storm!
Skullduggery Pleasant: Official Website
  |
  |
  |
  |
