• • •
Far from home after escaping slavery in Skandia, Will and Evanlyn's plans to return are spoiled when Evanlyn is taken captive. Will employs his Ranger training to locate his friend, but soon finds himself fatally outnumbered—until Halt and Horace make a daring, last-minute rescue. But their reunion is cut short by the discovery that Skandia's borders have been breached by the Temujai army—and Araluen is next in their sights. Only an unlikely union can save the two kingdoms, but can it hold long enough to vanquish a ruthless new enemy?
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Rating: 5/5
Ah, the days when I was 16 and hormones were raging, and I was utterly clueless...
The Battle for Skandia is the fourth installment of John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice series, and I think it's by far the most entertaining (which is strange because this was the one that took me the longest to read, but that's probably because I was a bit distracted). It is also the satisfying conclusion of the story presented in the previous novel (The Icebound Land), where we were left wondering if Will would ever come out of the drug-induced fugue-state he was in—until he did, right before the words ran out and the book ended!
A lot has happened to Will since he became a Ranger's Apprentice. He's trained under his mentor, Halt—the Ranger of the Barony of Redmont—gone to war against the warlord Morgarath and the Skandians, been kidnapped by a band of Skandians before the war with Morgarath was even over, been a slave for a while and drugged to the point that he couldn't be automatically taken off the narcotic without risking dying in agony...
When The Battle of Skandia opens, Will has just snapped out of the drugged-induced haze brought on the warmweed that had been forced upon him. He's not as in shape as he had been before he and his friend Evanlyn were captured. During her attempts to hunt meat, Evanlyn caught sight of a stranger in the frosty woods that stuck out like a sore thumb—because these woods belonged to Skandia and the stranger doesn't look one whit like a Skandian.
And by the time Will "wakes up" in the little cabin up on the mountain where he and Evanlyn have been hiding out from the Skandians, that stranger has become a real problem—he's a member of a scouting party from the Temujai Steppes in the East, and they've come to conquer Skandia for their boats.
One of the things I like most is that the world of Ranger's Apprentice is based on our own, with dynamics based on what was going on in the past. Araluen is obviously based on Britain; Skandia is based on Scandinavia; Celtica is based on Celtic countries, probably Wales or Ireland, since The Sorcerer of the North and The Siege of Macindaw reveal that Picta is based on Scotland, because historically Scots were referred to as "Picts"; and the Temujai Steppes are based on the Mongolian Steppes.
The way the world is built makes it feel different, but somewhat similar to what we know, grounding it in reality and not lifting it too far away for us to relate to it.
I thoroughly enjoyed this installment. The humour was well-paced and clean, never failing to make me laugh. But there were some things that made me stop and consider how old my (future) kids would need to be before they were scarred by those things. It's funny how you're forced to think like that when you're reviewing... haha...
Anyway, there are the obvious: Araluens take God's name in vain periodically, but not all the time, and the word "d**n" is used once in a while. The Temujai General has a concubine, and there are other things that I can't remember, on top of the general violence and unmentioned blood.
Every person and parent is different of course, so it's up to you if you wish to talk to your child about it. These "issues" are extremely mild compared to what I've seen, read, and heard, but I'm also 23 years old.
In my opinion, this book should be read 14 year olds and older if you or your child have been sheltered, even though the back cover says "10 years and up". But that's just my opinion.
