The Spook's Tale and Other Horrors

An excellent book. A great intermediate book to read while waiting for the next book in the series.

I am a huge fan of the Last Apprentice Series so I rushed to read this book and totally loved it! It told great background stories behind Alice, Grimalkin, and the Spook, and it helped explain a lot to me so that I could love the series books even more. Even someone who has never picked up a Last Apprentice Series book should read this, it tells a story from the perspective of 3 characters whose stories you won't hear elsewhere. It's enjoyable for everyone.

I was reading the other reviews, and noticed that most people seem to misunderstand why this book was written. It is not meant to further a story; it is a World Book Day book. On World Book Day, authors release small supplements to their stories. Exempli gratias, J.K. Rowling's short story, or Eoin Colfers Artemis Fowl Files. These books are simply companions to the real stories, and are still highly enjoyable.

Book six of Joseph Delaney's fabulous Last Apprentice series just rocks! This series still gets me excited and when each installment gets released I can't wait to run to the store to grab my copy the first day. Delaney still delivers the goods, and doesn't stop creating sensational stories that will scare the living daylights out of you whether you are young or old. This installment, The Spook's Tale and Other Horrors is a pleasant interlude, an intermediary story that is sort of a prequel to the first book that started it all. These short stories focus on three of the main characters from the other books; The Spook himself, Mother Malkin, and our adorable Alice, Tom Ward's friend. Each segment tells how each character came to be who and what they are, good or bad, to give the reader a little insight to information we haven't yet been clued into, even though these players are mentioned in all the five other books. I was expecting something of less quality because the book is about a quarter of the size of the other novels, and with short stories I figured they'd be not up to Delaney's wonderful standard of quality story telling. For certain, I was pleasantly surprised and wrong. These quick little chapters, believe it or not, are bloodier and scarier than all the others. It amazes me how the author can manage to continually outdo himself by finding a way to write sentences and paragraphs that get more terrifying with each book he publishes. There were times in this read where my 52 yr old mouth just dropped and my eyes got as wide as saucers. I found myself many times not breathing at all. And once again, the show-stopping illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith are the best he's created yet. With every flip of a page I got delightfully squeamish as blood dripped, knives hacked, head's rolled in decapitation, and chains bound evil cackling cannabalistic witches! My eyes squinted too terrified to look at what was coming next. I winced time after time again with each gory episode, and at times, it was all SO much outlandish horrific fun that I found myself laughing out loud. This is a perfect example of an old fashioned "flashlight under the covers" read for ages 9 to 90! Love these, just simply LOVE THESE BLOODY BOOKS and am counting the days until Book 7 releases. We can technically only give a five star rating for the best of the best but with this I send the author all the stars in the heavens

Note that I am a Fan of the Last Apprentice, but this last installment was a little frustrating. I did in fact like getting a look backwards with key characters in the series, without being insulted with a different branch of books covering a `prequel' feel; which seems to be the trend that many authors are using to tap into our wallets that much deeper. This installment has all the flavor, art, and darkness that carries the Last Apprentice series. It's of my opinion that this book covers those annoying flashback sequences in a book that could easily distract from what's really being conveyed. Good work Mr. Delaney! I'm looking forward to your next book - I hope it'll be soon. Bottom-Line is that if you're a fan of the series already, The Spooks Tale is a very nice publication to continue reading. I just wish it was a lot longer considering the price.