John Flanagan has created one of the most seductive fantasy worlds I’ve seen in a long time. He slips his readers into Castle Redmont with incredible ease and introduces them to Will, a 15-year-old orphan who hopes to become accepted to be a warrior. Will is worried, though, because he’s small.
The readers feel Will’s heartbreak when he isn’t selected for fighter training, but he is offered the chance to become a Ranger — one of the secretive warriors no one knows much about — an offer extended by Master Halt, one of the most legendary figures in the kingdom.
Prompted by a mysterious note given to the king by the Ranger, Will reveals hidden skills as he sneaks back into the castle. When he gets the note, however, he finds Halt lying in wait for him. From the moment the note was passed, and after finding out Will had a history of climbing the walls and being in places he wasn’t supposed to be, I knew what was going to happen. Still, Flanagan expertly took me through the steps to get there and I had a great time with the sequence.
There’s a second surprise waiting for Will when he sneaks back into the room to check out the note, but I was expecting that one, too. One of Flanagan’s strengths as a writer is that he gives you what you’re looking for in a story. He’s straightforward and takes his time developing the world and the characters.
After leaving the castle, Halt begins training Will in the ways of a Ranger. The training is well detailed and comes into play later in the story. With all this going on, I felt the story took a little time to build up my interest because I saw no villain on the horizon, but once Flanagan had me hooked, I was solidly hooked. So was my son. After that, we hung on every word, waiting to see where Will and Halt’s adventures took them.
Article comments
1 - ??????
i too LOVE rangers apprentice.
2 - .....
same