Spike ,'Never Leave Me'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Holy crap. That's all I can say. I'm really surprised at what the author did, though in retrospect I can see where he's been building to Something Big.
I guess I thought that a "kids' book" (the flap says ages 8-12, and I'm not sure I'd let an 8- or 9-year-old read this) wouldn't make me go Holy crap!, but then I remember Harry Potter, et al., and it's a brave new world in kids' books.
Holy. Crap.
I have never heard of these books.
P-C, you know how you and I end up liking a lot of the same things? Go, read them. When the first one came out (originally titled simply Skulduggery Pleasant, and has since been retitled Skulduggery Pleasant: Scepter of the Ancients, I think because maybe the author didn't intend for it to be a series, and then when it became one, he needed a new title), a reviewer dubbed it a new genre -- screwball fantasy.
Skulduggery Pleasant is basically Remington Steele -- a witty, sharp-dressed detective. Who happens to be a 400-year-old living skeleton.
Check it out, in a comic strip synopsis: [link]
I may have to get those. And for the love of all that is holy, somebody send those to Tim Burton.
mmmm, Remington Steele . . .
I have added it to The List.
They are really good. Like I said, the first one got my stuborn, non-reading son to read it all the way through and pick up the second one un-prodded.
Oh Tep, these sound great! I'm going to have to remember to pick those up for Nate-- sounds completely up his alley.
Going way back to lisah:
I just finished the first book in the Dark is Rising series. I read it because there was such an uproar about the movie adaptation and I had to see what people were being so passionate about. And I have to say I just don't get it. It was quite a slog.
Is the first book just a dud and the rest are more exciting? I was totally skimming at the end just to finish it.
I hope the second part is true, since I was looking forward to the series once I saw the description in that Newsweek list someone posted. For such a short book it took me quite awhile to get through. But I think I would have really liked it had I read it growing up.
I also took The Dark is Rising out at the same time so I will give it a go.
In the meantime, I'm reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians. It's promising so far. And starts off in my old neighborhood of Park Slope!