The Battle of Hackham Heath by John Flanagan: Morgarath please go away

The Battle of Hackham Heath 

by 

John Flanagen

Halt and Crowley are back! And Morgarath but nobody really cares about that. What everybody really cares about is sarcasm and shooting people. 

              Anyway Morgarath has his army of wargals tearing things up, ‘what do we do?’ I know send our fifty rangers out and sit back to watch them kick butt. Honestly guys the plots of the Ranger’s Apprentice books are always simplistic. The biggest plot twist is a trick move in a battle that may or may not end with somebody dying.  That’s not bad exactly but doggonit! what am I supposed to put up here in place of the summary?

. . .  

Halt and Pauline sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! okay I’m done. 

I apologize.

Characters

Halt: Do you know how excited I was when we got a prequel story staring Halt! I mean sure he’s basically the same character but I’d bet money on the fact that Halt was an angry old man at the age of fifteen so . . . Not bothered. I would also like to request a book in which Halt spends his entire time talking to Abelard please and thank you.

Crowley: How can Crowley be just as sarcastic as Halt yet somehow nicer? Tell me your secret Crowley. One of my favorite parts in this book was how he was totally in charge and totally not okay with being in charge. That my friends is how you do reluctant leaders correctly. 

It was hilarious. 

I’m going to be saying that a lot in this review aren't I.

Likes

I honestly just really like Flanagen’s writing: do the conversations go on a bit too long? Occasionally yes. Sometimes Flanagen even uses a few modern-day words in his writing which drives me up the wall. It was probably because I was listening to it on audio which made such words stand out which is why I’m not putting this in the dislikes.  But the friendships between the characters make up for the overlong conversations and I of all people know how annoying it is to vary your words when you’re in a medieval setting with a limited vocabulary. 

Gilan was there yaas! And holy crap he was adorable. One of the best images ever was tiny twelve-year-old Gilan swinging a over-sized sword against gigantic monsters. 

So, cool.

Everybody was, as usual, hilarious: I’ve already said that the plots are simplistic guys. I read these books for the characters and their interactions. Much like Skulduggery Pleasant everybody from the main characters to the random bystanders are sarcastic little punks and it’s basically the best thing ever.

Best freaking part: Crowley and tiny baby princess. I take it back. I didn’t like this book. What I want instead is Halt and Crowley riding cross country with an itty bitty baby that they have to take care of.

 Crowley was so clueless it was the best part of the book.

Dislikes

Morgarath go conquer yourself a personality gosh: Look Flanagan’s villains have never been the shinning point in his writing. They’re usually pretty two dimensional with just enough unique traits to differentiate them from their other counterparts. Morgarath is the most boring of the lot. I know that these books started out as some sort of weird bedtime story between Flanagen and his son and Morgarath is clearly the ‘boogeyman’ villian. He’s dull and far too close to comically evil for my taste. 

 I’m very glad that he’s stuck firmly in his place waiting for the Ruins of Gorlan and I won’t have to deal with him for the books to come.

I’m looking forward to the next one more actually: I’m pretty sure that after this one Flanagen will be able to craft more . . . independent plots? So far we’ve got two stories about Halt and Crowley and both of them have had some sort of explanation in the original books. So we had a vague idea what was going on and where they were going. That didn’t ruin the experience by any means but I would hope that Flanagen steps away from that and goes for stories that we haven’t heard of yet.  

I recognize that these books have some problems I really do. But they’re also good at making me laugh out loud in the middle of reading them and making me care about the main characters at least if not anyone else. They aren’t masterpieces by any definition but I still love them.