Maleficent Seven Cover Talk

A post today just to be a fan and squee a bit. Any Skulduggery Pleasant or Derek Landy fans out there? I was randomly surfing the internet when I saw that he’d posted the paperback cover of the spin-off novella, The Maleficent Seven (okay, he did this over a week ago, but I’ve only just found it, and my blog is kinda a reflection of my book-experiences in the world).

This cover (by Tom Percival) makes me have faith in YA covers again.

Yes, I know it’s a gorgeous women shoving her chest out as she eyes the reader, but let’s look beyond that at the moment. Aside from it being a piece of art, a drawing, the reader is more drawn to the combination of colours than the figure. Tanith is stunning here, but she’s not actually the first thing I notice. Look at the orange swirls and the blue background and the hinted-at storm. Only after peering several times at it, did I notice the rain and the lightning in the blueness. I also love how Tanith’s blade unintentionally cuts through the title, the silver standing out against the orange, the white and the teal.

I am super excited about reading Last Stand of Dead Men. Yes, it was out at the end of September, but, money matters aside, I wasn’t risking getting too into the book to abandon my uni studies before I had even started. So, as I tend to, I’ve asked for it for Christmas.

Yay, books! Derek’s blog is here. I met the writer in person last July, when he came to Oxford to talk about the series. What I like about the Skulduggery Pleasant series is that, though in third person, the voice in those books is clear and humorous. Yes, they’re sometimes a little too fast-paced, but if one wants a swift read, there’s nothing wrong with that. Landy is definitely one of those writers, though, those naturally inner/casual/person voice (!) matches his writing style.

Does that matter? A great deal, in fact. Anybody who has read an extract from When the Clock Broke and its work-in-progress sequel here may recognise that the voice I use for my posts (and which narrates in my head, though you’re not to know that) is very similar, if not identical, to the voice of those books. My speaking voice (see the previous post’s video for reference) is the snarkier narrator of the Agnetha King Trilogy.

However, I cannot break away, cannot do humour so much, because it is not a part of me. Therefore, I have so much respect for writers who can write humour and distinct voices, and even greater respect for people who have their own, personal voices lively!