Like Father, Unlike Son

Braedon Longfritz

The Caldera

John Flanagan

Your best friend’s father abandoned his ship mates when they needed him most. He left your best friend and his mother to face his dishonor. Now he’s back and he needs the help of you and your friend. In the beginning of The Caldera, by John Flanagan, Hal and Stig are faced with this choice. Hal has led the Herons, his crew, on a number of special missions, mainly for Skandia, their home country. Stig, first mate to Hal, has been best friends with him since they were boys. Now, Hal and Stig must lead their crew on another adventure in a far away land, in order to help someone who has wronged them in the past: “ ‘We’ll help you,’ Stig said, and [his father’s] shoulders… subsided in relief” (65).

Flanagan takes his readers through the vast world he has created once more, delivering the same level of depth and enjoyment as before. He has written tons of books in The Brotherband Chronicles series and The Ranger’s Apprentice series that all take place in the same world and build on each other. The Caldera is the seventh book in The Brotherband Chronicles series, and because of this, most of the characters have already been introduced. Each character has their own personality and skill set that allows readers to be immersed and enjoy the novel, and lets the main set of characters create interesting and creative approaches to the problems set before them: “[Hal said,] ‘It’ll take me most of the afternoon to make a wooden replica for this…’ ‘I could always climb up the cable,’ [Lydia] said” (251). However, this also means starting with the first book in the series, The Outcasts would be better than reading The Caldera with no prior knowledge.

In addition to a variety of character traits, John Flanagan and all of his characters are constantly making funny jokes that frequently had me laughing: “After all, everyone knows that we’re equal in all things - except that I’m a bit more equal than he is” (15). Flanagan has been able to consistently deliver jokes throughout his books - without distracting from the messages and plot - which greatly contributed to my enjoyment of both series and made it hard for me to put the books down.

I would strongly recommend The Caldera to anyone who enjoys adventure or fantasy, although I would also recommend reading the previous books in the series first. I was happy to revisit The Brotherband Chronicles after not reading a new book in the series for a year, and I was more interested in reading it than any other book I’ve read recently. Overall The Brotherband Chronicles and The Ranger’s Apprentice have been two of my favorite series that I’ve ever read.