Skulduggery Pleasant: Audio Collection, Books 1-3

The Faceless Ones Trilogy: Skulduggery Pleasant, Playing with Fire, The Faceless Ones

By: Derek Landy

Narrated by: Robert Degas

Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

Books one, two and three in the Skulduggery Pleasant series - known collectively as the Faceless Ones Trilogy, Derek Landy's fantastically imaginative series about our favourite dead detective.

Skulduggery Pleasant

Stephanie's uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn't fiction.

Playing with Fire

With Serpine dead, the world is safe once more. At least, that’s what Valkyrie and Skulduggery think, until the notorious Baron Vengeous makes a bloody escape from prison and dead bodies and vampires start showing up all over Ireland.

The Faceless Ones

Skulduggery Pleasant and his wonderfully cheeky and inquisitive side kick, Valkyrie, take us through another journey, which promises to be filled with adventure, dark, mysterious meetings and classically funny moments.

©2020 Derek Landy (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

My son's obsession for the past 4 yrs!

My son begged me (his 54yr old mum) to read these books and I approached them with an enormous lack of enthusiasm, but to my surprise I loved them and was hooked...well at least for the first 7-8! There's lots of humour, a broad range of characters and lots of excitement. At book 10 I could take no more, it all became very samey! I found myself skipping through yet another fight scene and it didn't help when my fave character was killed off on a previous book. I don't blame Landy for churning out more and more, there is obviously a great love for the characters and demand for him to keep this world going. During lockdown my son persuaded me to try again and I picked up book 10 again and actually enjoyed rereading it and continued on with the latest books. I do feel that they are running out of steam, he describes a fight scene well but there's only so many I can take and am well past that number!! I have to say that these audible books are brilliant, they couldn't have found a better narrator. His range of accents is amazing, I can't imagine any one else reading them. If you like the sound of the plot, you won't be disappointed...not sure if you will last 13 books but my son can't get enough of them!!

loooooove it !

Robert Degas does an amazing performance reading these books ! every character with a charming voice, only issue is tannith now fair enough you're a bloke you'll never be able to get a womans voice spot on ! but id lean more towards a tomb raider British accent 👊👊🙌

all round very good and enjoyable

Really enjoyed the book, grate humour, expertly discribed fights, could really clearly see it.

surprising

Loved IT. Funny, surprising, exciting, amazing.
Cannot wait to read the next one.
Recommend it

Incredible performance, flawed story

NOTE: If you take away *anything* from this review, it's that Rupert Degas is absolutely AMAZING at narration. That's RUPERT Degas; he has been miscredited, so you won't find his other works on Audible if you search for Robert!

I have no personal, childhood investment in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, and I'm coming at this from the perspective of a new reader in his early 20s with a love for silly fantasy. I'm also only 2 books in, but from what I'm heard, they're all cut from the same cloth anyway.
The setting is innocent enough, though the "secret magic world" trope has some of the regular flaws where you realise it couldn't possibly exist if you think about it too much. The reason you read the stories are for the characters, and the reason you listen to it is for Rupert Degas' performance. The writing is on a rollercoaster of quality; sometimes its not great (characters tend to have very bland motivations or only have one trait that is the core of their entire character), but at others times its brilliant (whenever Skulduggery talks, that one scene between the protagonist and her father on the beach in book 1).
A lot of the characters are incredibly funny (if, as previously stated, bland), and the rest are just serviceable. With the exception of the protagonist. By god, I hope she improves, because I find Stephanie to have 0 redeeming qualities.
I'll come right out and say it: she's a Mary Sue.

A great book

These books have been a part of my life for twelve years. This is the first time I have read it not in its physical form. The narration is okay, but it gets better and better as the books move on. The narration in the first book is lacking in the sarcasm the characters are known for, but in the second book it's there. The voices of Ghastly and Bliss are unnecessarily raspy, but Bliss' voice is fixed in Playing With Fire. The voices of China Sorrows, Kenspeckle Grouse and Finbar wrong are exactly as I imagined them. The voice actor adds an extra layer to the books that is delightful. His voices for various creatures like the Sea Hag and Springhield Jack are brilliant and would likely scare any kids listening. A really good audiobook version of the first three Skulduggery Pleasant books, with the added bonus of Irish accents throughout. I'm excited to listen to the rest of the series.

Don't even THINK, just BUY

Simply perfect. You will definitely love it, each book gets even better than the last.

Great stories we'll read

Having read all of the books I thought I'd give the audio books a try, and as a trilogy was available it was good value. Great story and very well read, good voicing, tone and sarcasm when needed

Good fun

Seriously, how talented is the narrator. Each character has a unique voice, really amazing. It has spoiled all my other audio books. My standards are now set. And Im obsessed with practicing my accents now. I'm very pleased with this series and I would recommend this if you are not normally a fan of audio books. I have laughed a lot.

amazing

the stories are amazing and the reading was amazing and only 1 token what a bargain