Dark Days by Derek Landy

Dark Days (Skulduggery Pleasant, #4)

by Derek Landy

Meet Skulduggery Pleasant: detective, sorcerer, warrior.

Oh yes. And dead.

Skulduggery Pleasant is gone, sucked into a parallel dimension overrun by the Faceless Ones. If his bones haven’t already been turned to dust, chances are he’s insane, driven out of his mind by the horror of the ancient gods. There is no official, Sanctuary-approved rescue mission. There is no official plan to save him.

But Valkyrie's never had much time for plans.

The problem is, even if she can get Skulduggery back, there might not be much left for him to return to. There’s a gang of villains bent on destroying the Sanctuary, there are some very powerful people who want Valkyrie dead, and as if all that wasn’t enough it looks very likely that a sorcerer named Darquesse is going to kill the world and everyone on it.

Skulduggery is gone. All our hopes rest with Valkyrie. The world’s weight is on her shoulders, and its fate is in her hands.

These are dark days indeed.

Reviewed by thepunktheory on

4 of 5 stars

Share
Full review on my Full review on my blog coming soon!


So, what to do with this novel? I'll keep the review short, I promise!
I like the idea of the story but the final product was a tiny bit mediocre for me. It's a solid book but in comparison with the other three so far, it was a little weak. (At least for a good chunk!)
For more than half of the book, it felt like a filler. You know, setting up things for the next story. What you'd usually squeeze into a prologue instead of spreading it into a full novel.
So, for quite a while the story was dragging a good deal. However, once we reached the last third, we finally picked up momentum and things got more exciting. That made me really happy as I had tremendously enjoyed the book series so far!
Despite the slow start (and middle), the latter part came with quite a few surprises, and now I'm even more intrigued to read the next books.
I love Valkyrie but the search for Skulduggery's head was a bit slow and even after he was back it took a moment for the story to get its groove back. Nevertheless, with all the things we know now, the next novels are set up for greatness. I can feel it in my bones!

Last modified on

Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 12 October, 2020: Finished reading
  • 12 October, 2020: Reviewed