Amber's Reviews > The Lost Stories

** spoiler alert ** I read the first three books in this series a while ago and couldn't for the life of me remember why I stopped. I mean, I LOVE rangers (Aragorn, Drizzt, and all you other trackers/scouts out there), so I was very much ready to fall in love with this series. But after reading Lost Stories, I remembered why I had stopped. I HATE Flanagan's writing style. For me, it ranges from just meh to "NO ONE SHOULD EVER PHRASE A SENTENCE THAT WAY!" His style is just so redundant. For example, "The farmer was already dressed in a nightshirt and it was clear that he was about to retire for the night." That sentence should have ended at "nightshirt." Obviously if he is wearing a nightshirt, he is about to retire for the night; that doesn't need to be stated and doing so insults my intelligence. Or "He placed a finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet." Finger to the lips is the universal sign for be quiet, so that last bit also doesn't need to be stated. Now, I can handle these redundancies in small doses, but Flanagan seems to phrase most sentences this way. It gets to the point that there are so many of these poorly phrased sentences that reading becomes painful. And when his sentences aren't redundant, they are just annoying. "But he also knew that a duel like this was a chancy affair." Why did you add "like this?" Is there ever a duel that isn't a chancy affair? And the last reason I can't stand Flanagan's writing style is that he breaks one of the Golden Rules of writing: SHOW, DON'T TELL! An example of this: the whole book.

The stories:

Foreward, Afterword, Fragment: I really don't understand why it was necessary to add these. Why did we have to see a professor digging up these stories? Just tell me (or rather, show me) the stories; you don't have to contrive some reason for me to be reading them.

Death of a Hero: I actually rather enjoyed this one. It was interesting to see Will's parents and what had happened to them. It gave Will a little more depth as a character. It was also nice to see a slighly different side of Halt, who so rarely shows emotion. But even though I liked this story, it really suffered from just a meh writing style.

The Inkwell and the Dagger: I enjoyed this story too, maybe even more so than Death of a Hero. It made me remember that I really liked Gilan. Things I didn't like about it: the duel sentence from above and how the name comes from a cheesy one-liner that is the last sentence of this story.

The Roamers: I didn't so much like this one. I found the premise sort of ridiculous: Ranger going on a dangerous infiltration mission to save his. . . dog? Yup. His dog. Are you really out of cool ranger stuff for him to do that you half to build a storyline out of him saving his dog?

Purple Prose, Dinner for Five: I didn't read these. I read the last half first, so at this point in the book, I just couldn't go on anymore.

The Bridal Dance: I thought the whole assassination plot was a neat concept, but the clues that lead Will to the assassins seemed a little far-fetched and contrived. I had trouble believing that anyone could take those random, insignificant pieces of information and form them into a coherent suspicion.

The Hibernian: I wanted to like this one more than I did. I liked the idea of seeing Halt before the Rangers series takes place, but I found myself rolling my eyes at the writing style more than actually enjoying the story.

The Wolf: Warning: rant incoming (like there hasn't been a few of those already in this review). I hated this story. I hated the way the events of this story were handled, and I hated why this story was written. The premise: Ranger tracks down and kills wolf that has been harassing the countryside. Sounds cool; I wouldn't mind reading that. But the way in which Will tracked down the wolf was so surpassingly stupid that I lost all immersion in the story. The wolf attacks a farmer's wife and son, but is driven back into the forest. The wolf is easily identifiable because it is missing one of its legs. Thus, it should be a simple matter for a ranger to follow its distinctive tracks back into the forest to its lair. But instead of taking a brief account of the farmer's story and departing for the hunt, Will keeps cross-interrogating these poor farmers.
Farmer's wife: "The wolf came at him like a streak of lightning-"
Will: "But I thought you said he was lurching?"
WHO CARES?! Why are you interrogating these farmers? This isn't that big of a mystery: There was a wolf; you found its tracks. And you already knew it was missing a leg from those tracks, so this line of questioning serves no purpose. Stop cross-interrogating these poor farmers and go kill that wolf.
Then the next morning, having nothing more to interrogate the farmers about, one would imagine Will would begin the hunt.
Tug (his horse, and we'll talk about the fact that he can "talk" later): Are we hunting the wolf this morning?
Will: "I want to ask around some of the other farms first."
WHY?! You aren't hunting for a serial killer; you are hunting for a WOLF. Are you planning on giving this wolf a trial or something? You don't need to cross-interrogate anybody and you don't need to gather evidence. Even if this wolf attacked no other family, it has still proven itself to be highly dangerous and in need of slaying. JUST GO KILL IT!
Fortunately for my sanity, Will eventually tracks and kills it. But his horse, Tug, is seriously wounded in the process. Herein lies the reason why Flanagan wrote the story (so says his note at the end). He realized that horses can't serve their ranger forever and must eventually be "retired." And he does mean this in the literal sense: Tug doesn't die, he just retires. But Will would need a new horse, wouldn't he? Simple enough. He can now choose from a variety of trained ranger horses, right? But surprisingly, bafflingly the answer to that is no. Oh, no. For there is a breeding system in place for every ranger in which a stallion and mare are chosen that have nearly identical traits to the stallion and mare that bred the ranger's retired horse, hereby breeding another horse, seemingly identical to the ranger's retired horse, that said ranger can now use to take the place of said retired horse. WHY?! Why is this necessary and why did we need to frame an entire story around this ludicrous concept? This horse breeding system seems impractical and stupid. Why does he need to have a horse exactly like the old one? I don't think that's even possible, no matter if the parents of that horse are similar to Tug's. A horse close to Tug, yes. Exactly like Tug, no. Not to mention the fact that this HAS to have some adverse effects on the whole gene pool from which you are breeding your horses. I found this entire concept (and story) impractical, impossible, and stupid.
Side note on ranger horses: I really don't buy in to the whole fact that they can communicate with their rangers so effectively. The way it was described is that the horse can communicate with his ranger by way of nonverbal communication. I can understand this maybe for some simple communication, but some of these bits of horse dialogue are far too complex for that explanation. Even just taking the example I gave earlier: "Are we hunting the wolf this morning?" I simply will not believe that a horse can have such a diverse range of nonverbal expression as to put forth that sentence. If it were explained as telepathy, that would have been fine. I could suspend my disbelief for that. But nonverbal communication, no. Unless the anatomy of ranger horses differs from that of the horses we (the readers) know (and to my knowledge, it does not), a horse simply cannot physically communicate in this manner, no matter its mental capacity. This has been something that irked me throughout every Rangers book I have read.

And About Time Too…: This story too was just meh. It finally brought together the romance between Will and Alyss. I found it sweet, but I never really felt that their romance was a big part of the story. In the three books I read of this series, I hardly remember any significant interaction between the two. Maybe their interactions took deeper meaning later in the series, but for the books I read, their romance seemed hastily thrown in.

I know I've been harsh on this book and on the Ranger's Apprentice series in general. But I am harsh only because I so opened my heart to love it. And I tried to do just that; believe me, I couldn't rave for this long if I didn't care. And the whole time I was reading the series, I was on the brink of really liking it, but the manner in which it was told kept me just shy of crossing over. But in the end, story is what matters. Not necessarily what happens (that would be plot), but why and how it happens. Some may argue that Ranger's target audience is aimed for a young demographic (ages 9-12) and, therefore, simpler, but I honestly don't think that is an excuse. Consider Avatar: The Last Airbender (yes, I know it is a tv show and this is GoodREADS, but it is also a story). It too was aimed for a younger audience, but it is one of the most amazing pieces of storytelling I've ever encountered. Also consider Eoin Colfer, Cornelia Funke, and so many others. All aimed for younger audiences, and able to be enjoyed by the younger audience while still staying true to good storytelling; able to be simplified without becoming condescending. I'm not sure if it is because Rangers was simplified for a younger audience or if it is just Flanagan's writing style, but I did find the storytelling severely lacking. And that is the main reason why I disliked this book, and why I found the part of the series I read to just be meh where it had the potential to be truly good. Execution. It's all about execution.