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A review by daffz
The Lost Stories by John Flanagan
2.0
Since these are a bunch of short stories, I'll rate them individually. I'm not a huge fan of this format and I didn't really enjoy the book in general. What I did like was the glimpse into the future, I almost wish that had been explored more instead of the stories.
1. Death of a Hero. 2/5 stars.
We have basically heard this story already, the only thing that was suddenly changed was how Will's mother died, and honestly, I think it was a bad change. Not everyone has to die in a herioc sacrifice to save Halt's life. All in all, pretty boring.
2. The Inkwell and the Dagger. 2/5 stars.
Predictable. The twist where Gilan saves the day by being smarter than the bad guy was no surprise. Neither was the cowardly traitor, yet again, being a fat man. (This happens in this book in particular a lot, what does the author have against fat people? It's so lazy to think: "Well I gotta write a pathetic villain who is greedy and/or cowardly. Let's make him fat and then mention it 700 times.")
3. The Roamers 0/5 stars.
Wow. This was a terrible story. The only small thing that was positive was that Alyss had a role in it but that wasn't enough to save it from getting a big fat zero. I've had issues with the way Flanagan wrote different countries / groups of people before, but never as much as this. He wrote a race that was obviously based on the Romani people. Then, he took every single terrible stereotype that has been used to oppress these people in the past in real life and applied them to his fictional race. They are thieves, they treat animals badly, they treat women badly. Every single trait he assigned to these people was a negative one. It felt incredibly racist to me, not to mention that it was just plain lazy writing. The only person that was treated with any sympathy from the writer's point of view wasn't even really one of them. Will had a line at the end about how he should just lock every single one of them up in jail (even though most of them were obviously innocent of any crimes) but disinfecting the cell afterward would be too much trouble. And this is the good guy?! I hated this story so much, if it had been the plot of an entire book I would have stopped. I almost did already.
(Also, the way Halt said that they saw women was bad implied that the writer thinks they are treated pretty much as equals in Araluen. This is laughable. Of the four female characters that have had any plot significance, only two have been shown doing anything important. It has been implied in the beginning of the series that diplomatics being largely a women's job is a pretty recent thing. Where are the female rangers? Female warriors? Secretaries?)
4. Purple Prose 2.5/5 stars.
Not very memorable. The most annoying bit was how much Will talked to his horse, there's only so much suspension of disbelief I can muster for the horse talk. Entire, pages long conversations is too much for me.
5. Dinner for Five 3/5 stars.
I mostly liked this story because Jenny had a role in it, even if I dislike that she's seeminly randomly paired with Gilan. Still, wish it had been more interesting or maybe just that we could see more different sides of Jenny for once, it barely explored her character.
6.The Bridal Dance 2.5/5 stars.
It was alright. The wedding was cute but I really dislike the trope where the main character suspects something & is obviously right but everyone else dismisses it until its too late.
7. The Hibernian 3/5 stars.
Again, it was alright. It was nice to have some more insight in the rangers and how much has changed since the time when Halt became one.
8. The Wolf 1/5 stars.
This was really pointless. I literally can't understand why you'd write an entire story where a horse gets hurt and has to be replaced, only to replace it with basically an exact copy with the same name. I don't care if it's more realistic that the horse gets replaced after a certain amount of years. It's even less realistic that they can have entire, complicated, conversations with humans. If the author had really wanted to explore the idea of Will getting a new horse, he should've made it an actual new horse. Not a creepy copy.
9. And About Time Too . . . 3/5 stars
Sweet but largely uneventful.
End result: 2/5
1. Death of a Hero. 2/5 stars.
We have basically heard this story already, the only thing that was suddenly changed was how Will's mother died, and honestly, I think it was a bad change. Not everyone has to die in a herioc sacrifice to save Halt's life. All in all, pretty boring.
2. The Inkwell and the Dagger. 2/5 stars.
Predictable. The twist where Gilan saves the day by being smarter than the bad guy was no surprise. Neither was the cowardly traitor, yet again, being a fat man. (This happens in this book in particular a lot, what does the author have against fat people? It's so lazy to think: "Well I gotta write a pathetic villain who is greedy and/or cowardly. Let's make him fat and then mention it 700 times.")
3. The Roamers 0/5 stars.
Wow. This was a terrible story. The only small thing that was positive was that Alyss had a role in it but that wasn't enough to save it from getting a big fat zero. I've had issues with the way Flanagan wrote different countries / groups of people before, but never as much as this. He wrote a race that was obviously based on the Romani people. Then, he took every single terrible stereotype that has been used to oppress these people in the past in real life and applied them to his fictional race. They are thieves, they treat animals badly, they treat women badly. Every single trait he assigned to these people was a negative one. It felt incredibly racist to me, not to mention that it was just plain lazy writing. The only person that was treated with any sympathy from the writer's point of view wasn't even really one of them. Will had a line at the end about how he should just lock every single one of them up in jail (even though most of them were obviously innocent of any crimes) but disinfecting the cell afterward would be too much trouble. And this is the good guy?! I hated this story so much, if it had been the plot of an entire book I would have stopped. I almost did already.
(Also, the way Halt said that they saw women was bad implied that the writer thinks they are treated pretty much as equals in Araluen. This is laughable. Of the four female characters that have had any plot significance, only two have been shown doing anything important. It has been implied in the beginning of the series that diplomatics being largely a women's job is a pretty recent thing. Where are the female rangers? Female warriors? Secretaries?)
4. Purple Prose 2.5/5 stars.
Not very memorable. The most annoying bit was how much Will talked to his horse, there's only so much suspension of disbelief I can muster for the horse talk. Entire, pages long conversations is too much for me.
5. Dinner for Five 3/5 stars.
I mostly liked this story because Jenny had a role in it, even if I dislike that she's seeminly randomly paired with Gilan. Still, wish it had been more interesting or maybe just that we could see more different sides of Jenny for once, it barely explored her character.
6.The Bridal Dance 2.5/5 stars.
It was alright. The wedding was cute but I really dislike the trope where the main character suspects something & is obviously right but everyone else dismisses it until its too late.
7. The Hibernian 3/5 stars.
Again, it was alright. It was nice to have some more insight in the rangers and how much has changed since the time when Halt became one.
8. The Wolf 1/5 stars.
This was really pointless. I literally can't understand why you'd write an entire story where a horse gets hurt and has to be replaced, only to replace it with basically an exact copy with the same name. I don't care if it's more realistic that the horse gets replaced after a certain amount of years. It's even less realistic that they can have entire, complicated, conversations with humans. If the author had really wanted to explore the idea of Will getting a new horse, he should've made it an actual new horse. Not a creepy copy.
9. And About Time Too . . . 3/5 stars
Sweet but largely uneventful.
End result: 2/5