First
things first: If you've not read up to book 13 of The Spook's Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney, don't read any further until
you've gotten that far in the series.
Book 3 |
Now, if
you're still reading, you'd better have read book 13. If you still
haven't, it's not my fault when I spill all the big surprises and
ruin the story for you. You brought this on yourself.
The purpose for this post is for me to explain some of the that bothered me about the way Joseph Delaney extended The Spook's Apprentice to thirteen books. On the whole, he did a pretty
good job. Books 1-3 were actually almost stand-alone. They all built on the events of the previous, but more than that they introduced the County and the job of a Spook. They are my favorites out of the series because
the whole Fiend episode has influenced my opinion of the rest of the
story. Books 4 and 5, though, were also good. The Fiend was in them,
but the series hadn't gotten all weird like many series do after they
go on longer than was good for them. Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan was a
series that had this problem toward the end.
Book 4 |
From book 6 onward,
however, Delaney ranges beyond the County to find enemies to
throw at Tom, Gregory, and Alice. And although that's not the
principle reason I was unhappy with the last seven books, the enemies
from foreign places did contribute to making the series less
enjoyable. All these people from other countries are coming to the
County, and logically there are far, far too many enemies for Tom's
allies to have a prayer of winning. And it's not a good story if the
good guys haven't got a chance – but still somehow manage to win.
But my main problem
with the later books was that in his attempts to string his series
out a few books longer, Delaney wrote books that were purely filler.
Book 9, Grimalkin the Witch Assassin, is an example of that.
In the beginning of the book Grimalkin has the Fiend's head and is
trying to keep the Fiend's servants from returning it to the rest of
his body. She has a series of narrow escapes and makes several 'last'
stands, and even gets severely injured once. But at the end of the book Alice heals Grimalkin so she's back to full strength. Nothing was achieved.
Grimalkin is as strong as ever, and still has the head. That's
filler.
Book 5 |
And book 11,
Slither, was written purely to explain the new enemy that
Delaney suddenly throws into the story. Basically, in Slither we find the story of a Kobalos called Slither. He narrates a story that's completely unrelated to what's happening to Tom and Alice, and the only connection between Slither and the rest of the series is formed when Grimalkin shows up with the Fiend's head. In my opinion, the sole purpose of Slither was to make it possible for Grimalkin to tell Tom what will happen if the Fiend is destroyed. And since I can give as many spoilers as I like in this post, I'm going straight for it.
What's going to happen is that the dark Kobalos god, Talkos, will be born when the Fiend is destroyed, and the Kobalos will have the power to take over the world. And in my opinion, even if Delaney had to keep the entire Kobalos extension to the story, there might have been a better way to introduce the threat they'll present once the Fiend is gone. After all, the threat the Kobalos will present isn't mentioned much, and isn't the focus of the book itself. In my opinion, Slither is mostly filler. The only important parts of it were the five or six sentences where Slither and Grimalkin talk about Talkos. A book written for half a page of dialogue. That's filler to me.
What's going to happen is that the dark Kobalos god, Talkos, will be born when the Fiend is destroyed, and the Kobalos will have the power to take over the world. And in my opinion, even if Delaney had to keep the entire Kobalos extension to the story, there might have been a better way to introduce the threat they'll present once the Fiend is gone. After all, the threat the Kobalos will present isn't mentioned much, and isn't the focus of the book itself. In my opinion, Slither is mostly filler. The only important parts of it were the five or six sentences where Slither and Grimalkin talk about Talkos. A book written for half a page of dialogue. That's filler to me.
Book 7 |
The other thing
that really disappointed me was that he had some really interesting stories for some of his characters, and I don't think he handled them
well in the 13th book. For instance, for a long time –
since book 1! – Alice has been Tom's best friend. In the later books they are in love, and the only reason things
haven't gone very far between them is that Alice is a witch – a
very powerful witch. For 12 books she walks the line between
light and dark because although she was taught dark magic and often
uses it to save Tom's life, she doesn't want to become a malevolent
witch. The struggle against succumbing to the dark is a very
important part of Alice's story, and so I was crushed when she ends
up becoming a malevolent witch in book 13. All that effort turned out
to be for nothing. To make things worse, somehow becoming a
malevolent witch makes Alice beautiful and she stops loving Tom.
Instead, she is in love with a dark mage called Lukrasta. And I have
to say I hated the fact that becoming a dark witch should change
Alice so deeply, since technically Grimalkin is a malevolant witch
and she's not like that. Why should it happen to just Alice?
Book 9 |
In fact, Grimalkin
is the other character who disappointed me. She's a very tough,
strong, fearless, and sometimes brutal character, but there's always
a reason for what she does. She's very deliberate. And she's worked
very hard to become the best witch assassin ever and an incredibly
skilled warrior. But to have a character who's that strong and never
have that person make a mistake or get hurt is terrible, and Delaney
was smart enough not to do that. But it seemed to me that every time
he hurt her he would find a way to get her back to her old self. When
she's poisoned, Alice heals her. When she breaks her leg, she puts a
silver pin through the shattered bone so that it will heal straight
and strong. Then the agony of the silver, which is deadly to witches, isn't too much for Grimalkin's iron will to overcome. She's in danger of becoming a serious munchkin.
All right, one last
thing and I'll stop complaining. The final thing that I don't like
about The Spook's Apprentice series is something that happens in
the 13th book, and which I mentioned earlier. The dark
Kabalos god Talkos will be born after the Fiend is killed, and when
he comes the Kabalos will take over the world. My thought is: Why??
Why even make up the Kabalos? Why not leave it at the Fiend and be
finished with it?
Book 11 |
All books or series
could go on and on forever if you just come up with another problem
and another problem and so on. But there's a point when the story
should end. You've given the characters enough problems, and now they
need to solve them all and reach a conclusion. Then the story is
over. But in my opinion, Delaney reached that point – and then he
kept going. Was he trying to string the story out a few more books so
he could make more money, or did he really think that this plot twist
would make the story even better? I don't have any idea. But in my
opinion, dragging a story out just for more books and more money is
one of the worst sins an author can commit, and Delaney is guilty. I
was very disappointed, because in most other aspects, he's a really
good writer. If he hadn't chosen to extend the series past what was
healthy, I think I would have rated it much higher and enjoyed it
much more.
Anyway, those are
the things that annoyed me most about The Spook's Apprentice series.
I'd like to point out that they all occurred in the last five or six
books, though. The first five at least deserve a 4 star
rating, and the next two or three were all worthy of 3.5 stars. But
after that things went downhill, which is why I'm only giving this
series 3 stars. It could have been much better, but because of a
variety of big mistakes and poor choices, it turned out to be very
disappointing.
One thing to keep in mind is that the last book or books in this series aren't out yet. I know there's more to come because I haven't figured out what Tom's going to do about Talkos. Maybe Delaney will surprise me with a really great ending to his story. So I'll hang in there for the end, but I don't think it will be enough to redeem the series.
And if you read this post and haven't read up to book 13 yet, all I can say is that you've just ruined half the surprises in the story for yourself! But at the same time, you've already read about most of the disappointments in store for you, so they shouldn't shock and outrage you as much as they did me. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure. You'll have to decide.
One thing to keep in mind is that the last book or books in this series aren't out yet. I know there's more to come because I haven't figured out what Tom's going to do about Talkos. Maybe Delaney will surprise me with a really great ending to his story. So I'll hang in there for the end, but I don't think it will be enough to redeem the series.
And if you read this post and haven't read up to book 13 yet, all I can say is that you've just ruined half the surprises in the story for yourself! But at the same time, you've already read about most of the disappointments in store for you, so they shouldn't shock and outrage you as much as they did me. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure. You'll have to decide.
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