The Spook's Apprentice series

[HansBraggart]

i watched the trailer yesterday for the upcoming film Seventh Son. it looks awesome, so i researched it and learned that it is an adaptation of the first book in a series called The Spook's Apprentice. in America, the series is known as The Last Apprentice.

 

because the trailer for the film looks amazing, i am eager to read the books.

 

who here has read the books? what do you think of them?

[Spark]

I read most of them, only stopping because I had to move away and my new library didn't have the rest. Argh.

 

Anyway, I thought they were quite good. They had a sort of low-key, everyone's-against-us-but-we-fight-on-as-we-trap-ghosts-on-the-foggy-moor sort of feel. The characters are employed in fighting against the things that go bump in the night, but they don't have many weapons and little in the way of permanent disposal techniques for the beasties. For instance, one of their best tricks is to imprison a monster they call a Boggart in a large pit that they dig, wall with iron filings and glue, and then cap with a giant round stone that can fall and kill the hunters. Then the Boggart is just trapped there for good unless someone digs it up. Still, the hunters do their thing and fight witches, demons, all kinds of things with their limited tools. They're treated sort of like craftsmen of the medieval period: necessary and kept happy with offerings of food, but not someone you want living in town.

 

TLDR: The series is pretty good. It's not going to break the bestseller lists, but worth trying.