A review by mmokler
Scepter of the Ancients by Derek Landy

2.0

This was required reading as part of my young adult literature class. I was told that it was terribly funny and about a skeleton, but not much else.

I wasn’t really impressed.

Scepter of the Ancients follows twelve year-old Stephanie Edgley. When her beloved, although strange uncle Gordon dies, she becomes accidentally acquainted with a walking, talking skeleton detective named Skulduggery Pleasant. He is also a magic-user. Turns out that this whole world of magic has existed under her feet her entire life, and Stephanie has been completely unaware of it. In a quest to learn more about her uncle’s death, she and Skulduggery set out to find the mysterious scepter of the ancients.

Maybe it’s just because I finished a different fantasy young adult novel that basically blew my mind with its awesomeness (The Last Dragonslayer), but I was just not super impressed with this one. I will say that it’s funny at times. It’s largely written in dialog, and the magic world was entertaining. It has this whole bit about how a person has three names (their “real” name, their given name, and their chosen name) that I really liked. And the characterization was relatively well-done: every character is distinctive. I just wasn’t wowed. The action seemed a bit over-dramatic. There’s only so many times that a character can appear “just in the nick of time” before I start to roll my eyes. Also, there are some gaping plot holes that really bother me.

Spoiler

Skulduggery blasts a front door off its hinges, never fixes it, and then they just return to the house a few days later and nothing happened? Seriously, that place would have gotten robbed or weather-damaged: someone should have noticed. Then, in the last scene, Stephanie just sits there while Skulduggery and Serpine fight? I mean, I know that her leg is injured and all, but she can’t do something?

The fight scenes in particular just seemed sloppy.

I don’t think I would recommend it. Maybe to a ten-year-old girl obsessed with action and fantasy. It’s not that it’s bad; it’s just that there are better than books than this one, in my opinion.

Warnings:
Drugs: None. Not even alcohol. Although pubs are mentioned a few times.
Sex: None.
Language: There is one or two “Damn”s
Violence: Fantasy violence, death, some blood, two torture scenes (none of these are particularly graphic in nature, but they are there.)