John Flanagan, an Australian, has written a popular and successful children’s fantasy series set in an imaginary world with many parallels to our own. I reviewed the first three books in this series here; the fourth one was released on March 20th of this year. Of course, in Australia, book SEVEN was released in December of LAST year. BOOK SEVEN. Not cool, Philomel. Not cool. I got plans, though . . . and friends in down-under places . . .

Will, the Ranger’s Apprentice of the title, and Evanlyn were last left in a cabin somewhere in Skandia. They’re from Araluen, a country with significant parallels to England. Skandia, of course, parallels the Scandinavian countries; Gallica is France; Celtica is Ireland; Teutland is Germany. Will and Evanlyn (that’s not her real name, but it’s not important at this moment) were captured by the Skandians during a war in Araluen; they’ve escaped, with a little bit of help from a jarl named Erak. Will’s apprentice-master, Halt, and an old friend (Horace, who is in Battle (knight) school), have left Araluen to come to search for them; Horace has built up quite a reputation and actually a good deal of skill on the trip. Early on, Evanlyn goes out to check the snares, and the Temu’jai capture her. The Temu’jai are from the steppes down south; I assume they’re some variation on Tartars or Mongolians. Will goes after her, and Halt and Horace find all of them at the same time. They rescue Evanlyn from the Temu’jai, and meet up with Erak. Halt realizes that the Temu’jai are trying to take over Skandia, and they realize that Skandia’s normal berzerker hack-and-slash school of battle just isn’t going to cut it against the cavalry . . . but will Skandia listen to Halt? And why would Halt help Skandia, when Skandia and Araluen are enemies?

The first hundred or so pages of this book were not that interesting to me. Sure, things happened — Evanlyn gets kidnapped, they run into Halt and Horace again, much as I described as above — but the story wasn’t interesting enough to keep me from noticing the flaws in the language. Flanagan, as I’m sure I mentioned in the last review, tends to tell-not-show, and he talks down to his readers quite a bit. He seems to explain his own jokes, removing a lot of the humor. I will put up with imperfect writing if the story holds my attention well enough, but the beginning of this one didn’t. The end, however, went awfully well. Yes, well, he did overexplain his joke about Halt throwing up in someone else’s helmet, but it was actually funny and I laughed aloud.

Flanagan seems to have a decent grip of pre-explosives warfare; his description of the battle at the end (the titular Battle for Skandia) was eminently readable, flowed very well, and kept my interest. He somehow made sitting behind a line and shooting a bow repeatedly interesting, and the difference between the normal warfare style of the Temu’jai and the Skandians made for interesting tactics.

Sometimes, there were modern touches that threw me out of the story. The people of his world use kilometers to measure distance. Meters (and by extension kilometers) were invented around 1793. At one point, Halt gives someone instructions, including the ‘golden rule’ to ‘hit them where they aren’t’ — a phrase that I’m sure predated baseball by quite a long time, but was made most famous in the late 19th-early 20th century by Wee Willie Keeler, as advice to hitters: “Hit ‘em where they ain’t.” I read that line and heard my dad’s voice, not a Ranger. (Well, perhaps a Texas Ranger.) It was only partially apropos to the situation, as well: hit them where they’re thinnest, not where they aren’t. Obviously if you strike an army where no one is, you’re not accomplishing that much.

That having been said, I enjoyed the book a good deal more than volume 3. It’ll definitely appeal to boys as well as girls, and to anyone who enjoyed such series as the Harry Potter books and the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I’ve heard that it’s pretty good for reluctant (boy) readers, as well, given the amount of fighting and thinking about fighting and training for fighting and escaping. This particular volume, however, I can really only give 3.5/5 stars.