Recently, I have finished reading The Last Apprentice Attack of the Fiend, it is a 532 paged fantasy book by a british author named Joseph Delaney, he mainly writes books about science and fiction and fantasy he went to a catholic college then worked as an apprentice engineer and fitter. He eventually became an English Teacher at the blackpool sixth form college. He then pursued his dream of becoming an author and publishing his first book in 2004 called the Wardstone Chronicles. The Last Apprentice is a big part of the Wardstone Chronicles. His books have sold over 1 million copies to amazon. This book more or less relates to young teenaged boys because many of the characters are teenagers including the main character.

 

  The book isn’t too difficult but as you keep reading the books they become a little bit more confusing and tend to become thicker. The book is very exhilarating and is always leaving you with cliffhangers leaving the reader wanting to read more until the book is over. If you like fantasy books this series is the series for you because after reading 4 of the books it never ceases to excite me and never disappoints. There are over 10 books in the series including the spin offs.

 

  In the novel a teenaged boy named Thomas J. Ward has recently found out terrible tragedies that have happened to his family. When staying at his master’s house John Gregory one of his past apprentices comes to speak with him and before he arrives Thomas leaves the house to go find the chests his mom has left for him. But when he arrives to his brothers farm to retrieve the chest the worst thing that could  have happened. The farm was ransacked and had smoke coming from the burning wood. When he searches inside he finds that there is no one home and that the chests are missing. He asks around and find out that witches from Pendel came to his farm and attacked his family in search of the chests. So Thomas, his master and one of his friends Alice, go to find out about the rise of the three covens and it up to them to travel to Pendel (Alice’s origin) to stop the covens from reuniting on Lammas where the power is the strongest. When they arrive there they find out about what happened to Thomas’s family and how they are trapped inside of a tower being held prisoners. Thomas and The spooks previous apprentice now priest end up staying in Read Hall also known as Master Nowells home so that the following morning Master Nowell and soldiers may blow up the side of the tower with a canon then enter from the side and retrieve Thomas’s family. The only problem is that something very dangerous is lingering in the mansion and it scryes. Scrying means to foretell the future using a crystal ball or other reflective object or surface in the book they use mirrors. Master Nowell is a person who does not believe in witchcraft and thinks they do not exist. Having this knowledge Thomas now knows that he can not tell him exactly what is going or else Master Nowell will not believe him and forget the idea of trying to save Tom’s Family. Eventually Master Nowell becomes of no use so he must take matters into his own hands and find an alternate route into the tower and the only way to get in safely without being attacked is by treating a Mouldheel which is always not good because witches or only a recipe for disaster and he has to bargain the chests in exchange for his family’s lives in order to save them but that is one bargain he can not make. So you will have to read the book to find out if he takes the bargain or manages to save his family and get away safely.

 

   If I to compare this book to a series similar to this I would compare it to Fall Out because they are both fantasy books that have teenaged main characters that require them to make unbelievably difficult decisions in order to save their loved ones and do whats right also because they are both page turners filled with suspense and a few books in their series. Another reason as to why I would compare it to Fallout is because the audience of the two books are very similar. The audience is generally teenaged boys and the book like the Last Apprentice can be finished fairly quickly. They both do not require for you to have very advanced vocabulary in order to comprehend the book completely. I noticed/liked how the author tended to make very large problems for the main character then then added little side problems, for the main characters so the side problems could all lead up into the biggest problem for them to solve and the main character had to make very careful and intellegente decisions or else the consequences might be fatal. I was surprise when the author killed off so many crucial characters because when a new character is introduced either they are never mentioned in the book or killed off also when writing a book you tend to keep the characters close to the main character but I also liked how he did his becuase it isn’t something you see every often in books which makes this series more unique compared to other ones. I was also surprised to see so many characters introduced then gone into very deep detail and description of the character then never mentioning that character ever again.

 

Finally I really enjoyed one of the passages of the book which was “None of us are either all good or all bad – we’re all somewhere in between – but there comes a moment in each life when we take an important step, either toward the light or toward the dark…” (p. 210)

    I really enjoyed this passage because it is very important to the story because it is talking about Alice and how it is unpredictable and to predict which direction she will go towards. The authors craft helped make passages like this happen all throughout the book. That is why this book similar to the other books in this series will be one that I will remeber reading fondly. I am glad that I read it and I hope I never finish this phenomenal series.