Mortal Coil

Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 5

By: Derek Landy

Narrated by: Brian Bowles

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

Following the shocking revelations of DARK DAYS, get ready for the fifth instalment of the bestselling Skulduggery Pleasant series – guaranteed to contain at least 40% humour, 50% action, and 100% thrills…

"The blonde girl with the black lips turned to Valkyrie. 'We know,' she said. 'We've seen the future. We know you're going to kill the world…'"

Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are back – just in time to see their whole world get turned upside down…While they struggle to protect a known killer from an unstoppable assassin, Valkyrie is on a secret mission of her own. This quest, to prevent her dark and murderous destiny, threatens to take her to the brink of death and beyond. And then the body-snatching Remnants get loose, thousands of twisted souls who possess the living like puppets, and they begin their search for a being powerful enough to lead them. Facing such insurmountable odds, Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Ghastly and Tanith can trust no one. Not even each other…

©2010 Derek Landy (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

A different narrator

While the narration was good, it was rather difficult to get used to a different narrator once you've gotten used to another one for the last 4 books. the voices for each character had gotten familiar but with this book I had to memorize each voice anew. Brian Bowles did, however, do a good job on his narration and picking up such a large project in the middle of it.

mostly fisticuffs

This book has a different narrator from the previous ones. that is always abit annoying. Not that it is badly done, but the voices for the characters are different and that is unsettling . I will say this narrators voice is easier to hear when there is a lot of ambient noise. The story is OK. I really hope we will stay away from the twilight-esk love triangles in the future. There are a lot of fistfights in this book though. they get boring.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

The saga of Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain continues with edge-of-your seat suspense and unexpected twists and turns. This book is an excellent addition to the series. While it's true that this narrator fails to live up to the standards of Rupert Degas, he still does a creditable job portraying the various characters. In all fairness, no new narrator could replace Rupert Degas and the deadpan delivery that made Skulduggery Pleasant into the interesting character we knew and loved. I also miss the amusing sound effects and music of the earlier books. It seems that, like the Harry Potter series, as Valkyrie gets older, the story gets darker. I look forward to the next installment in the series.

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Snarky Dialogue and Humour Go Missing

I gave the first three books five stars, but the fourth book did not seem to have the same amount of hilarious dialogue and action and I was concerned that the author was running out of new ideas; I gave it four stars. In this book, Stephanie is 16 years old, and she is dealing with problems appropriate to her age but the snarky dialogue and humour are missing from most of this book. However, Scapegrace and Thrasher’s efforts to find a way to preserve their bodies is almost worth the purchase price of Mortal Coil, as their quest for a cure is very funny. It made me think of Monty Python’s Dead Parrot skit and I am sure that we will play that part of the book time and time again in our household.

I purchased the audio book as a download and it came in 2 six-hour parts. After listening to the first part, I was going to give the book four stars. Not five stars because I felt that some of the violence was inappropriate for the recommended lowest reading age. Unfortunately, the second part was largely taken up with violence that was gruesome and graphic, with very little humour or interesting dialogue. The fighting scenes in the second half of this story will probably appeal to readers who like horror and zombie stories, but I do not fit into that category, and I found the protracted violence to be brutal and of little interest. The previous books are 8 hours or less and they do not contain this level of violence. It would be nice if the publishers could release an abridged (eight hour) version of this story that did not contain the brutality found in this book.

I was very excited to find a series of books that I could listen to with the nieces and nephews, and purchased the first three books in soft cover to give as gifts. I will not purchase the last three books to give as gifts due to the increased level of violence. The next book (Death Bringer) is in the mail from Amazon and I am looking forward to reading it, but if the level of violence continues to escalate, I will not purchase book number seven.

Great fun, Great Story

You have to love Skulduggery Pleasant, he is a super suave detective with a great sense of humour. He and Valkyrie are great partners.
A fantastic book, can not wait for the next instalment

Excellent book spoiled by the new narrator

This book, like the others in the series was just sooo good. However, it was spoiled by the new narrator, he just can't compare with the previous one and the characters were much more one-dimesional as a result. If this was the first book I'd heard I would think again about getting the next one. The plot and everything was still just excellent and the best in the genre by far in my opinion, but once you've heard characters come to life in Rupert Degas's melodic tones, no one can even come near to him and the new narrator didn't even nearly meet the mark....such a shame and it really spolied it for me....

Great book, lousy narrator.

I really enjoyed the previous four Skulduggery audio books as the writing is fresh and brings a smile more often than not by the excellent way that they were read. The interaction between the main characters is a joy and it would have been in this book if, for some unknown reason, the publisher hadn’t picked a narrator that took all the life from Skulduggery. Yes I know he is a skeleton but in Rupert Degas’s readings he was an excellent main character but in this reading he was nothing. That combined with the inability, at so many times, of the narrator to differentiate the voices of the female characters led to it being a book that I will not listen to again. Do listen to the earlier Skulduggery audio books as they are pure joy but unless that this one is recorded with a different narrator buy the paperback.

Wanted to give the book five stars but with the narrator could only stretch it to three and that was a stretch. Sorry Mr Landy.

Wonderful book

Would you consider the audio edition of Mortal Coil: Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 5 to be better than the print version?

Really enjoyable installment to the Skulduggery series - but where is Rupert Degas gone! Really missed him, though Mr Bowles does a good job, and had he been reading them from the start I'm sure it wouldn't have been a problem, but having listened to Degas read the first 4, it was difficult to get the hang of listening to this one - bit like if Stephen Fry hadn't read all the Harry Potters! Don't let it put you off - the story is well written, gripping and well worth the listen.

wrong narrator :(

the first thing I noticed when i started listening to this is the fact that it is not the same narrator from the other audiobooks. generally, as a narrator, he's a pretty good story teller but i felt i had lost the atmosphere that Rupert Degas gave and Brian Bowles' Skulduggery didn't seem as hilariously witty compared to Degas'.

Excellent Book, Shame about the narrator

I love the Skulduggery series of books, they are entertaining, funny and a great listen. I have eagerly awaited the listen of each book, including this one but was disappointed by one major flaw. The Narrator. Rupert Degas was brilliant in all the other books, he got every voice spot on and everything sounded, right. This book however, although still well written, is seriously lacking purely due to its new voice. He doesn't get it, Skulduggery is no longer a stand out character and Valkyrie doesn't have the sparkle in her tone anymore. I would still recommend this purely for the book in it's own right but i'm afraid it's spoiled by the new narrator.

I don't like reader switch

I prefer the person who read the books before this. He got the voices perfect, the person who reads this sounded the same the whole way through. At times Valkyrie sounded like Winnie the pooh!

Don't be put off by the change of narrator

What did you like about this audiobook?

The plot develops with interesting twists. Plenty of suspense, and imaginative new magical ideas. Having heard the first four, I was keen to meet up with the the friends I had come to like, and I wasn't disappointed. I had a hard time taking breaks in my listening! Anxious about the change of narrator, I found Brian Bowles surprisingly easy to enjoy!

adult reader

it maybe a children's book but I am so glad my son-in-law bought me the first book for Christmas I'm totally hooked on this series of books once I've finished one I make sure I've the next on ready to go

Great

Amazing I love this series so much! Bit disappointing it’s a different narrator as I did like the first one and it was harder to adjust however still an excellent performance and I really enjoyed it.

New narrator took time getting used to

mortal coils story was good and still had the same humour and everything youd love from the others. This one has a new narrator which took a bit of time getting used to the new voices