Bookworm Speaks! The Sorcerer of the North by John Flanagan

Bookworm Speaks!

Ranger’s Apprentice Book 5

The Sorcerer of the North 

by John Flanagan

****

The Story: Several years have passed since the apprentice and his master, Will and Halt, first met, and Will is finally a full-fledged Ranger with his own fief to look after. The fief seems sleepy?boring, even?until Lord Syron, master of a castle far in the north, is struck down by a mysterious illness. Joined by his friend Alyss, Will is suddenly thrown headfirst into an extraordinary adventure, investigating fears of sorcery and trying to determine who is loyal to Lord Syron. As Will battles growing hysteria, traitors, and most of all, time, Alyss is taken hostage, and Will is forced to make a desperate choice between his mission and his friend.

The Good: Will is now a full-blown Ranger and is now getting a fief of his own to protect. It is good to finally see Will come into his own as a Ranger after being an apprentice for so long. 

Alyss coming to Seacliff is also very good. After seeming to pine for Princess Cassandra for the past few books, the somewhat obvious relationship between Alyss and Will finally seems to come into fruition. Continuing the tradition of character growth, the characters are taken out of their element and subjected to pressures in order to develop. This is accomplished with Alyss a great deal, who was little more than a background character for much of the series. Alyss has grown into a beautiful woman and is strong and confident, a definite plus for any book. In spite of that she still has weaknesses. When she is captured by Sir Keren, she puts on a brave face and tries to think things through but she makes mistakes along the way, due in part she is not used to playing the part of the hostage. 

The first two books shed a lot of the tropes of contemporary fantasy with Morgarath and the Wargals but here we get back a little bit to the mystical realm. The way Will deals with sorcery is a very clever and harkens back to how magic really should be portrayed. Its something mysterious and otherworldly. People in the Middle Ages, did not have a large grasp on science and mythology stilled held a powerful sway. The way that the shadowy warrior is portrayed really drives the fear of darkness into the reader and how magic takes many different forms. 

The Flaws: This story is not a bad one but it falls into the same pattern as the third book in the series, the Icebound Land, in that the whole thing is pretty much a setup for the next book in the series, The Siege of Macindaw. 

To be completely honest, in Bookworm’s opinion this two parter story is his least favorite of the whole series and tends to skip it when he rereads the series. 

The fact that Halt is missing from the majority of the volume works to its detriment. The purpose of the book was to help Will flesh out into manhood, but the series is as much about Halt as it is about Will and to not have him is a great shock. We see him a little which helps but still…

Final Verdict: It is nice to see Will come into his own but overall this story was more setup to the payoff and once again one has to read the next book in order to complete the story at hand. 

Three out of Five Stars

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