review: Skulduggery Pleasant #7.5: The Maleficent Seven (Novella)

by: Derek Landy
HarperCollins Ebooks, 2012
Middle-grade Fantasy (novella)

Remember how I said this series was too good to put down? Too good to stop in between and write reviews for every single book? Yes? Good. That's why I'll be skipping the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th books to bring you this. I might come back one day and fill them in, but I just finished this, and "The End of the World" is sitting on my bookshelf, and I'd rather jump to the more recent books. (I'm terribly impatient like that.)

Summary: 

The newly changed Tanith Low will do anything to ensure that Darquess will destroy the world. Traveling around the world, she gathers a team of seven to find and destroy the four God Killers--before Dexter Vex's own team of seven (aka. the good guys).

The survival of the world depends on who gets these weapons, and it's a chase through continents as the two teams fight to steal the weapons first.

Thoughts: 

Action, action, action. With an unpredictably twisting plot covering locations and magical figures around the world, fans of the SP 'verse will love the chance to get an extra glimpse into the previously secondary, but interesting characters. The cast features two Dead Men, Dexter Vex and Saracen Rue, Frightening Jones, Tanith Low (of course), the English sanctuary, Dusk, Jack, and many more. This book could be a fun few hours, with lots of ingenious heists and action scenes, but it lacks a little in the witty conversation and, in my biased opinion, the awesomeness that is Skulduggery and Valkyrie. (On the bright side, we can all be glad that there is no Scapegrace.)

The symmetry of the novel sets the scene well. Tanith and Dexter Vex both pull a team of seven together, and race to four places in the world to get the four weapons before the others can. Tanith is a wonderful antagonist because she's so unpredictable and unique in her plans. If anyone's ever wondered about Tanith's past, this book tells us the tale with little vignette flashbacks thrown throughout.

I enjoyed the plot, it was a well thought-out plan, told mostly from the POV of Tanith, the evil mastermind in this case, and almost reads like Artemis Fowl. However, her sociopathical nature was... not what you expect and she felt astoundingly flat. She wasn't, but she felt flat, because of her lack of emotion. Her inability to feel anything irritated me. Maybe that was the point. You could see how much she'd changed, from her childhood to the end of this book.

I was not impressed by the pacing. The character are what was really appealing in this book, but instead we go from action to action. It was a huge rush, pacing was painful because so much of the book is slow in the beginning, wasted on every single way that Tanith recruits her team. Then suddenly, we're switching POV's like crazy, dripping into a flashback of Tanith's childhood, involved in some weird romances, going from dead Men to vampire in a heartbeat, and you knew what was happening but there didn't seem to be any of the marvelous buildup to a clear climax. In a rush, then suddenly you're there at the final showdown. And it wasn't a showdown. It was just more action.

Too much running around and a slew of character that dispersed the reader's concentration, but the plot of solid and the characters were as interesting as always. I guess when you're used to writing 900 page books, when you write a novella, you just have to overcomplicate it.

Rating: 

3.1/5

And there you have it!  See the length and enthusiasm I have for something I just read? That's why we're skipping the 4 books in between. That, and because my writing can't seem to keep pace with my reading.

Thanks for stopping by! 

PS: Anyone else obsessed with Nimona, or is it just me?