The Tournament at Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice: The Early Years) Hardcover – October 6, 2015

Been reading this series since a kid, still love it as an adult. Great book and storyline. Clean for kids too

Interesting series

I was reading the Rangers Apprentice when I saw the early years!! Thanks great reading with lots of action. The best part their is another book!!

I don't know what it was about this read for me. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't read the Ranger's Apprentice series for a couple of years, and have such fond memories of it that it's become a nostalgia trip just thinking about the stories. Perhaps it's spending two years trying to write on my own, and studying Creative Writing in college. But I just could not find myself enjoying this book, and found it irrevocably boring to peruse. It's not bad by any means, but it's not exactly as enjoyable as I remember these books being. Here's why:First of all, I feel the need to emphasize a pattern I've seen in John A. Flanagan's writing style, a definite weakness, and that is his overabundance of telling you, the reader, how characters are feeling and thinking, and at every possible time, reminding us of the character tropes he's built into his characters. Now, I'm all for transparent writing, but it's the WAY he tells us that bothers me so much: he doesn't show the reader more often than he just tells you what's going on and why, oftentimes repeating himself over and over again. This is the first main reason why I found myself so bored with this book: I was unable to get immersed in the story because it felt so hollow, nothing felt like it was being shown in scene to me, nor did I feel like I really could get into the characters I remember loving so much when every other line feels like I'm being told the same thing I was two pages ago. This is probably my biggest issue with the book, and the main reason I found myself just putting it down over and over again.The second issue would be that of the stakes, and the plot's pacing. This book starts off strong, with Crowley and Halt having just escaped Morgarath's grasp just after the short story in The Lost Stories ends. They end up eventually coming up with 'the plan', as every Ranger's Apprentice book starts off with, which is to gather up all the rangers that Morgarath has dismissed and try to stop the corrupt Baron. A simple plot to go with a simple backstory, and it's fairly obvious what's going to happen here: the Rangers are going to go around, recruiting a merry band to stop Morgy at his tournament, exposing his diabolical plot with the aide of other veteran characters of Flanagan's series. A simplistic plot is fine, I have no issues with the premise of this. But it's the way it's delivered and lingered upon that killed the stakes for me. When the two start to go around and recruit Rangers, it's fine for the first one or two, maybe even three recruits they grab. But by the time they get to the fourth and more, it's very clearly established that just gathering these rangers is meant to be some sort of filler in between point A to B. Contrary to the rest of the series, though, which tends to sprinkle in lots and lots of character moments in between those two points, Tournament at Gorlan seems to take that soul and heart of past books and just strip it down to its bare formula, taking all the heart and life I remember out of the characters and their interactions that occur in the first place. When Crowley is ultimately elected leader (spoiler, I guess? This is a prequel so it's kinda obvious he eventually becomes leader), I felt no buildup, no hinting at the ultimate situation that arose from Halt's suggestion. There wasn't any foreshadowing, nothing. Just, bam, Crowley needs to be leader eventually so let's throw it in now. When one of the funniest parts I can recall pops up, a silly conversation between Halt and Crowley over what a 'lady-o' is, I see a glimmer of those enjoyable characters I remember so fondly, those character moments that broke up the tension and asserted the camaraderie the main characters had. But ultimately, this book fails to deliver a buildup, a gradual climb up to the climax. It provides no context for scenarios, and really just feels like it's going to eventually drift to the climax, with no actual tension involved in it.I could go on and on about this, but long story short, I felt like the soul of Ranger's Apprentice was lost on this book. The funny and charming character moments, while there, have no context to them, and the writing fallacies of this novel hold them back from being fully immersive. The plot is almost too simple, and doesn't ever feel like a curveball is appropriately thrown in to make the story interesting. You can easily predict where everything goes, what's going to happen, and on top of all of this, it just feels like the middle of the book is filler. I feel like Flanagan was shoehorning too much into what was originally just a simplistic backstory, trying to flesh out what should've stayed as it was. There are those character moments in there, and a hint at what I feel the Rangers' Apprentice series is, but the soul of it is gone. It's not horrible, and frankly if you're not as picky as I am, you'll probably enjoy it, as the five star rating this book currently has shows. But for me, I couldn't look past the flaws. They stood out way too much.

After hearing about the Ranger's Apprentice series, I thought this would be a great place to start. I was not disappointed. Good, snappy plot, wonderful pace, witty, and descriptive. Will be starting on the next book soon!

My 13 year old daughter and I love these books! They have great stories, and little things that we can both talk about and have inside jokes with.

Yes wonderful

I would usually spend a lot of time creating a nice long review of my favorite authors latest book. But for this book, I just don't feel it deserves that time. Now it's not really fair to judge it so. I've recently been reading Hugh Howey's Silo Series. A series written by an author who is a master of description and imagery. I've grown accustomed to that style and really enjoyed it. In this book, the author caters more to the "Action, Adventure, EXCITEMENT!" Group. And less to the more... "Mature and incite full group" craving a book they can warp they minds too. If you are a fan of anything John Flanagan, as I am, then this book is for you. Just don't expect crazy detail and imagery.(This still ended up being long) :(

This must be my fifth reading of this series. It was bought for the older of my two children but I was hooked by the end of book one, read in a single sitting. Since then I have read each of the series then moved on to Brotherband. After one or two books by another author, I returned faithfully to the Ranger series finding each book as fresh as the first reading. I thank the person who introduced me to these books and the author for giving me the pleasure of reading them, again and again.

Excellent addition to the ranger series, it was fantastic to see halt and Crowley as young rangers with none of their staid professional demeanour from the apprentice series.The book was easy to read and hard to put down, if you're a fan of halt then you're in for a treat, he's not his polished gruff ranger in this but something much more entertaining!Overall I enjoyed it and I'm hoping we get more of the same!

Very much enjoyed this , highly recommend

As described speedy delivery

Love John Flanagan, Great books for young or old adults.