Derek Landy - Armageddon Outta Here - The World of Skulduggery Pleasant

Discover what happens between the books …

This collection includes every Skulduggery Pleasant short story ever written, including two awesome novellas – Get Thee Behind Me , Bubba Moon and The End of The World , written for World Book Day.

But that’s not all.

Written specially for this collection are three new short stories. Two of them delve into the things that fan-favourite, Billy-Ray Sanguine, gets up to between books, while the third pits Skulduggery and Valkyrie against a serial killer, a desperate ghost, and a swarm of very nasty insects.

So it’s business as usual, then.

First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2014

The edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London, SE1 9GF

Visit us on the web at www.harpercollins.co.uk

Visit Skulduggery Pleasant at

www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk

Derek Landy blogs under duress at

www.dereklandy.blogspot.com

Copyright © Derek Landy 2015*

Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover illustration © Tom Percival;

Skulduggery Pleasant™ Derek Landy

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* The Lost Art of World Domination , first published in Skulduggery Pleasant , 2012 Down-under Tour Edition; Gold, Babies and the Brothers Muldoon , first published in Playing with Fire , 2012 Down-under Tour Edition; The Slightly Ignominious End to the Legend of Black Annis , first published in The Faceless Ones , 2012 Down-under Tour Edition; Myosotis Terra , first published in Mortal Coil , 2012 Down-under Tour Edition; The Wonderful Adventures of Geoffrey Scrutinous , first published in Mortal Coil , 2012 Down-under Tour Edition; Just Another Friday Night , first published in The End of the World , 2012 Australian Edition; The End of the World , first published in 2012; Trick or Treat and The Button , first published on www.dereklandy.blogspot.com; Across A Dark Plain , first published in Armageddon Outta Here , 2014; The Horror Writers’ Halloween Ball , first published in Armageddon Outta Here , 2014; Friday Night Fights , first published in Armageddon Outta Here , 2014; Get Thee Behind Me, Bubba Moon , first published in Armageddon Outta Here , 2014; Death in Texas , Theatre of Shadows and Crazy Little Thing , first published in Armageddon Outta Here , 2015.

Source ISBN: 9780007559527

Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007559558

Version: 2020-09-17

This book is dedicated to my brand new nephew, Cameron.

Cameron, I’m sure you’ll grow taller as you get older, but right now you’re simply way too short. You also can’t talk or stand up, and I have yet to see you read a book. None of this is entirely your own fault, however – I blame the parents – so I hope my words don’t upset you too much.

The problem is, you’re surrounded by a formidable sister and some formidable cousins, so you’re going to have to grow up to be an exceptional person. I’ll do what I can to help, but the rest is up to you.

Contents

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

THE TIMELINE

INTRODUCTION

ACROSS A DARK PLAIN

THE HORROR WRITERS’ HALLOWEEN BALL

THE LOST ART OF WORLD DOMINATION

GOLD, BABIES AND THE BROTHERS MULDOON

THE SLIGHTLY IGNOMINIOUS END TO THE LEGEND OF BLACK ANNIS

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS

MYOSOTIS TERRA

THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF GEOFFREY SCRUTINOUS

JUST ANOTHER FRIDAY NIGHT

THE END OF THE WORLD

TRICK OR TREAT

GET THEE BEHIND ME, BUBBA MOON

THEATRE OF SHADOWS

EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

THE BUTTON

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

I’ve always loved Introductions.

They remind me of when I was a kid, wandering through second-hand bookstores, pulling battered old horror paperbacks from the shelves. Those wrinkled covers, those dog-eared pages, that wonderful, slightly stale smell of stories … Those books pulled you into their own history, made you a part of it, and if you were lucky – like, really lucky – right before the story started you’d find the Author’s Introduction.

This, to a kid who wanted nothing more than to be a writer, was a portal into imagination. I couldn’t Google a writer’s name and read his blog or watch every interview he’d ever done on YouTube (and I hereby wave to some reader way off in the future who’s just read that and is now getting information about “Google” “Blog” and “Youtube” downloaded directly into his brain), so I had to make do with what brief glimpses I was afforded. It was in the Introductions that authors talked about their work and their process, and I scoured these words, searching for the secret to writing, hunting for the Big Clue that would lead me to Where Stories Come From.

I found glimpses of the Big Clue in the words of Stephen King and other masters of the genre, but nothing definite. Still, in many ways it was enough. These glimpses brought with them their own kind of inspiration, and when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, that’s all I needed. My early stories dripped with blood. They were soaked in it. Drenched. I had yet to learn concepts such as subtlety or restraint, and there is definitely a place for subtlety and restraint – but it was not a place that held any interest for me. I was all about the blood, the rawness, the viscera. I was reading King and Clive Barker and James Herbert and Michael Slade and Skipp and Spector and Shaun Hutson and dear GOD the list goes on. My life was blood-soaked books, horror movies and heavy metal.

Ah, youth …

And yet, dig a little deeper and you reveal a love of film noir and craggy detectives in rumpled suits and cool hats. Dig a little more and you uncover a love of westerns inherited from a father, a love of screwball comedies inherited from a mother (and for a kid who has stammered all of his life, to find these movies where everyone talks really really fast was beyond exhilarating), and a love of science fiction and adventure that blossomed in the eighties because of people like Spielberg and Lucas and shows like Knight Rider and Airwolf and The Six Million Dollar Man …