The Royal Ranger

So this is a review, of sorts—no spoilers, promise— of the Ranger’s Apprentice book 12, The Royal Ranger. It… I don’t know if you’ve read them. You should. If you haven’t, go out and get the first one, The Ruins of Gorlan. Then the next eleven. Really. I can whole-heartedly recommend them. Go out. Read them.

If you have— if you’ve read the ten books, you were probably ecstatic when you found out about the eleventh.

And then, you found out John Flanagan was writing a twelfth book.

A twelfth book.

You were probably so excited, so ready to dive back into this world, to reunite with the characters you’d grown to love.

And then you discovered, when he released the first chapter a few months ago, that John Flanagan had apparently taken cues from people like Steven Moffat and Rick Riordan and Bruno Heller and had decided to do something unspeakably evil and horrible to our dear Will (the main character of the series). You were probably furious. You probably wanted to shower Will in coffee and wrap him up in hugs and fluffiness while you fixed everything.

But…

It seemed to fit, really. Ranger’s Apprentice has never been a light, fluffy, happy and bright series. What with Will in Skandia, or Arridi, or Halt in Hibernia… you knew that this was going to be a rather bumpy ride when you picked up the next book.

But they always, always, came through. The Rangers practice until they never get it wrong, and you knew that even if it seemed hopeless, it wasn’t. They never failed. And the books were always all right. Will was unflappably cheerful, even when he was dying, and Halt could be relied upon for snarky humor and hard steely eyes striking terror into the hearts of wrongdoers, and Horace…dear Horace. Oh, they wouldn’t have gotten very far at all without Horace. Or their horses. You knew you could rely on all of them.

You knew you could count on the author who had brought them to life.

So, carefully, desperately, you either bought or ordered the book through the library because you live in a small town and the bookstores didn’t have it because you don’t have a proper bookstore and you waited impatiently until it finally arrived and you bribed your sister with doing dishes so you could read it first, and you sat down to read it.

And it didn’t disappoint. You’d had time to sort of at least kind of come to terms with Chapter One, but it still stabbed at you and you turned the page and hoped to high heaven that Flanagan would make everything all right.

And to your absolute surprise, page 26 made you smile. “Thank you, Jenny,” you thought, and you continued. Page 28, and you laughed. You were laughing, and smiling, and your sister noted this. You stared at the book in amazement, remembering those awful months of having nothing to go on but Chapter One and how everything was very much not okay and yet here you are, with a Ranger’s Apprentice book, grinning at the clever Ranger witticisms and cheering the sarcastic horses on.

(I mean that. Both the sarcastic horses and cheering them on.)

It was exactly what should happen. You tore through the book, and this new apprentice made you smile as you remembered wittle baby Will going through the same things and you cheered everyone on and they surged ahead.

You finished the book, and you were grinning widely and smiling happily and confidently, and you went upstairs and rejoined the world. “It was everything a Ranger’s Apprentice book should be,” you informed your sister.

“Danger?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Halt?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Horses?”

“Definitely!”

And you were beaming, and you thought that it was okay. This ending, this twelfth and final book, it was okay.

…

Because he’s going to start another series, right? Not over? Right? There should be a new series, Rangers Apprentice: The Next Generation or something. He can do that, right? Because this wasn’t quite like Book 10, wrapping everything up, or Book 11, tying loose ends and filling in holes. It was… something new. It felt more like a passing of the torch than anything.

Please, John Flanagan? Pretty please? With coffee?

(so basically, fellow Rangers, don’t be afraid to pick up this book. It’s okay. It’s going to be fine. I’m not spoiling anything, but it’s absolutely all right. Honestly. What did you think, that Will would be permanently struck down by something? Psh. It’s like you don’t even know him.)