J. K. Rowling has once again penned an amazing story that even surprised people who had been speculating and theorizing about the series for years. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, released on July 21, 2007, is the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter Septology. JKR’s narrative is brilliant, and the characters believable. Personally, I like Deathly Hallows better than it’s predecessor, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, though it’s not my favorite of the series. Can one really have a favorite among seven amazing books? If I had to choose a favorite, it would probably be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

In Deathly Hallows, Harry leaves the Dursleys for the last time, going to The Burrow for Bill Weasley’s wedding. On his seventeenth birthday, a day before the wedding, he is legally enabled to use magic outside of Hogwarts. On that day, he also finds that Albus Dumbledore had left him and his friends a number of odd objects with no explanation why. Their importance only comes into play later in the book.

Right after the wedding, Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave The Burrow to hunt for Voldemort’s four remaining horcruxes. With several setbacks, discoveries, and close encounters with Voldy’s followers, they eventually succeed in finding (and destroying) most of them. Unfortunately, one horcrux remains….plus Lord Voldemort himself.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is one of the best books in the series. It’s absolutely packed with plot-twists, explanations everyone’s been waiting for, and surprises no one would have guessed. I highly recommend this book, though you should definitely not read it unless you’ve read the previous six books in the Septology.

You heard that right. The Site of Requirement has an article up about the whole thing.

Photos of book pages (supposing it’s the real book and not a hoax) were spread through BitTorrent. Scholastic has obtained a court order, with the intent of identifying the book-spoiler. The torrent files have been removed, and the images as well I believe.

Ken Oppel is currently at work on Starclimber, a sequel to the amazing book Skybreaker. The third book is the Airborn series, leads us to believe (through the title) that the characters will be heading into space possibly.

For those of you who don’t know, Airborn (and Skybreaker, the [in my opinion] better sequel]) are set in an alternate history. In France, or what would have been France if certain events had turned out a bit different, the mainstream methods of flight are airships (think Zeppelins) and Ornithopters. Skybreaker was totally amazing, with some really…different ideas.

Airborn, the first book in the series, is currently in production as a movie (to be released in 2008), the same year that Starclimber will (probably) be released.

EDIT: From KennethOppel.ca, the book will be released in September 2008 in Canada. Sadly, it won’t be released in the United States until January 2009, and the following May in the UK.

Skulduggery Pleasant is a living skeleton. If that isn’t amazing enough for you, he’s also a magic-wielding detective. And, as the book’s cover puts it, “he’s the good guy.”

Investigating Gordon Edgley’s mysterious death, he ends up teaming-up with Gordon’s niece Stephanie. What starts as a simple murder investigation quickly turns into a race to obtain an ancient magical artifact before the murderer. The plot runs through Stephanie and Skulduggery’s misadventures as they stumble through the numerous plot-twists, slowly figuring out their ultimate goal.

It’s hard to describe the book. It’s totally different from anything out there, so I’m not going to go too much into details. Read it yourself.

Skulduggery Pleasant is a great book, filled with magic, humor, and numerous plot-twists. I wasn’t joking about the book being filled with humor, either. It’s hard to get through a page without running into at least two hilarious lines.

LibRate rating: 4.5.

Also note that Warner Brothers has just obtained filming rights.

In the first book of Garth Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom series, Arthur Penhaligon (is it just me, or does that sound a bit like Pendragon?) nearly dies from an asthma attack. Oddly enough, he doesn’t. A couple of men dressed in clothes 100 years out-of-date (Mr. Monday and his servant) give him half of the first Key, expecting him to soon die (thus the Key’s ownership would revert back to them and fulfill a prophecy). Their plans go awry and Arthur, still alive, retains the ownership of the partial Key.

Mr. Monday soon sends his minions to force Arthur to relinquish ownership to the key, bringing a plague. Arthur leaves the Secondary Realms (our universe) to fight Mr. Monday for the greater half of the First Key to the Kingdom, so he can rid Earth of the sickness and free the Primary Realms from the Tyranny of Mr. Monday and the Morrow Days.

Though the writing level is a bit lower than I’m used to, the Keys to the Kingdom series is very enjoyable….and isn’t that the whole purpose of fiction? To entertain?