Oakleaf Bearers

Ranger's Apprentice #4, part 1/2

by John Flanagan

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Medieval

312 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

For mysteries by this same author, see John A. Flanagan.

John Flanagan grew up in Sydney, Australia, hoping to be a writer. It wasn't until he wrote a highly uncomplimentary poem about a senior executive at the agency where he worked, however, that his talent was revealed. It turned out one of the company directors agreed with John's assessment of the executive, and happily agreed to train John in copywriting.

After writing advertising copy for the next two decades, John teamed with an old friend to develop a television sitcom, Hey Dad!, which went on to air for eight years.

John began writing Ranger's Apprentice for his son, Michael, ten years ago, and is still hard at work on the series.

He currently lives in a suburb of Manly, Australia, with his wife. In addition to their son, they have two grown daughters and four grandsons.

Reviews

[Straight · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is quite an interesting book. It shares many similarities to Europe at the Middle Ages. For example, the Araluans are obviously the British or Anglo-Saxon if you prefer. Then there is Skandians, which is clearly meant to resemble the Vikings of Scandinavia. Next Gallica is meant to resemble the Kingdom of the Franks, which later became France, and of course the Temujai are supposed to be the Mongols and the Eastern Steppes from which they originate is probably the Asian Steppes which actually exist in real life. There is quite a lot of ingenuity that comes from Will the main character in not only this book but almost every one made. The descriptive sections in the book that talk of what he does when he shoots have actually improved my shooting exponentially in real life (Yes I have a target that I shoot in my backyard once in a while.) I can shoot from a longer range, hit the dead center more often, in fact I hit the TARGET more often. I found it a great book to read with a satisfying ending and plenty of valuable information about tactics used in the middle ages and other things.

[Hua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too good to stop.

[Djoeke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like long battle scenes is what i learned from this

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always with The Ranger's Apprentice books, its tells an interesting tale. The fantasy lands in the story draw heavily and not subtly on real peoples. In this story we are introduced to the Temujai Warriors from the steppes. They are a harsh expedient race of fighters who are used to carrying all before them - until they encounter our heroes who are prepared to ally themselves with former enemies to defeat the Temujai.
A considerable amount of the humour derived from this series is the undisguised caricaturing of various races. There is no pretension that the story is attempting a balanced view of the races Halt and Co encounter, and some fair better than others.

[Thomas]

best book ever