Spoilers for the Brotherband Chronicles series!!!
To start this off, I am a huge fan of John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice series. I've read them all multiple times, and I love them more and more every time. The characters are fantastic, the stories action-packed, and it's a reader's paradise.
Now, the Brotherband Chronicles unfortunately don't live up to my expectations. As a whole, the series seems like it's a carbon copy of the Ranger's Apprentice, and certainly not as good. Some of the characters are practically identical to Ranger's Apprentice characters. Hal, the main character of the Brotherband, is a more boring version of Will Treaty, the main character of the Ranger's Apprentice. Thorn is identical to Halt--he even uses phrases that Halt used all the time and his eyebrow raise, which was always attributed to Halt--and Hal's first mate Stig is a less-entertaining version of Will's best friend Horace.
I love John Flanagan's writing, but one thing I'm not too fond of is how he writes his young female characters. They are identical in every way--spoiled, sarcastic, and irritating. In the Ranger's Apprentice, it's the princess, Evanlyn, and Will's girlfriend Alyss. In the Brotherband Chronicles, it's Lydia.
Now on to the Ghostfaces. Hal and his crew decide to sail into a storm to get home, so they won't have to be bored waiting at a harbor in Hibernia. Yes. They decide to sail into a storm so they won't get bored. Smart.
Unsurprisingly, when they sail into the storm, they get lost and washed out to the Endless Ocean. Running out of water, Hal makes the decision to sail further into the Endless Ocean in the hopes that they find land. It's here that I must point out a plot flaw. On the wolfship, (the Brotherband's vessel) is Hal's dog Kloof. They've rationed their water to almost nothing, and I'm fairly certain a dog requires a lot of water to survive. More on this later.
They go deeper into the Endless Ocean and--huzzah!--find land. They all scramble off the boat, find water, drink, yay, they're alive. End of story, right? Yeah, no. Part two!
In part two we find out that Kloof is alive. My question is, did they share their precious water supply with the dog? Or is this just a plot hole John Flanagan decided to ignore, since he couldn't bear to leave the dog behind, but also didn't want to kill her?
So, they feel like they're being watched, Lydia and Thorn find evidence of a bear with a crippled paw, life goes on. They build a palisade to protect themselves and carry on with their lives.
Then one day the bear shows up and tries to attack two random children who appear outside the palisade. One of the crew, Jesper, whose character is lazy and complaining, decides he wants to be a hero and distracts the bear. This doesn't bother me, actually. I like progression of character.
The following scenes with the fight with the bear are well-written and exciting. Suffice to say, they killed the bear and saved the children, who disappeared after the fight.
In part three, the natives appear, led by their leader, announce themselves as the Mawagansett tribe and take the Skandians to a feast. At the feast, Stig falls in love with a beautiful maiden named Tecumsa and Thorn meets an old friend named Orvik.
The Mawagansett tribe and the Skandians dwell peacefully for a while as the Heron band prepares to go home to Skandia. All isn't peaceful though as Stig announces his intentions to remain behind when the others leave. He wants to marry Tecumsa and stay behind.
After Stig's announcement, the Ghostfaces finally appear, and they're coming right towards them to destroy their village and kill their men and take their women. When the Heron band agrees to help the Mawagansett tribe to fight the Ghostfaces, we move on to part four.
Part four deals with a lot of the preparations along with Hal's emotions that his best friend is planning to stay behind, which is actually the first time he ever shows much emotion at all. Then he goes back to emotionless Hal as he makes defenses and other such stuff for the Mawagansetts.
This is followed by the battle with the Ghostfaces, which, like all of John Flanagan's battle scenes, is well-written and exciting. It ends with a significantly more morose ending than most of his books, with both Orvik and Tecumsa dying.
Now, Tecumsa's death wasn't unexpected, but it was an anti-climactic death. She gets a tiny scratch with an axe on her head and dies from it. I would've preferred, frankly, if she'd died instantly instead of from this strange turn of events.
They have her funeral, they send off Orvik, and then the Skandians, with Stig, depart from the Mawagansetts and return home. Hal's mother talks Stig through the death, and the book ends.
All in all, there are some plot holes, a few boring characters, and an annoying one (Lydia.) but altogether it wasn't completely horrible. It doesn't stand muster beside the Ranger's Apprentice, but I'd give it a six out of five. Thanks for reading!
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