The Last Apprentice: Slither (Book 11)

Joseph Delaney is a GENIUS, but ... I'm so sorry, I just didn't like it. I am a HUGE Joseph Delaney Fan (LOVE ya Joseph!) and The Last Apprentice series is one of my all-time-favorite book series -- EVER -- but, I was disappointed. It didn't seem to me to be book # 11 at all ~ it was only very loosely tied in by the presence of Grimalkin sort of being slide into the book near the end. Not that a book in this series must have all the characters in it to be great (it does help though to have Tom, Alice & the Spook in it, I won't lie about that), but most of the book was dedicated to never before introduced characters in a totally alien story line, which kind of left me thinking, "Huh?". Even when Grimalkin had her own book, and Tom & Alice played minimal roles (& the Spook wasn't in it at all) that worked because it flowed with the main theme & story line (and lets not forget that Grimalkin is totally awesome too!). This just didn't -- for me. I know plenty of others enjoyed this book (mostly going by the UK reviews) but I found I didn't at all like, or even have interest in the Kobalos, especially at the amount dealt with in this book. The other thing that gave some difficulty was there was way too much new (or alternate) words for things, which made the story a bit incoherent -- I have a Kindle, and the "spookpendix" at the back of the book (which describes the meanings of everything) was too hard to access in this format to be able figure out what everything meant. I felt lost at times & found myself actually skipping ahead to try to grasp something familiar to the story line (or something I found interesting) ~ which is something I have never experienced before reading any of the previous books. I just want to find out what happens next after book # 10. I really, really hope that the future books stick mainly with the characters & themes that made this series the huge success that it is, as well as one of the most loved series to date. I'm so very sorry for a bad review ~ but it's from the heart.

P.S. Something else that bugs me (which is NOT the fault of Mr. Delaney!) is that this was released in the UK in 2012, but we had to wait until 2013 in the US to be able to buy this book. Why? And, why couldn't we buy The Spook's series book via Kindle if we wanted them, like we used to? Why does the US books have to have a different title?

Super boring. The story drug on with barely a mention of the usual main characters. Finally almost halfway through the book..maybe further..grimalkin came into the storyline but never tom, the spook, or alice. Wasn't what i was expecting. Totally bummed.

Looked forward to reading this, but, Alas! Where is Spook? Where is Tom? Thank goodness (or badness) that a familiar character (Grimalkin) shows up late in the book. Meet Slither, a nauseating creature who lives on blood, and sometimes flesh, of any animal, but particularly enjoying human hemo. With her father’s permission, Slither habitually creeps into 17-year-old Nessa’s bedroom, to lie on her chest and suck blood from her neck. He calls her Little Nessa throughout the book, and is enthralled by her touch, and his bloodlust overcomes him constantly. From Slither’s dream-poem at the end of the book: “For Little Nessa I do see, Still tapping on her silken knee… I carve her flesh in succulent slices… For although I’ve loved our downy bed, I’m happier still when I’ve been fed!” There’s quite the cupful of Fifty Shades of Grey here—plenty of dominance and submission with a wafting of sadism, not involving sex, of course, but gory bloodthirsty carnage. Gross!
The narrative point of view goes back and forth between Slither and Nessa, but the author contrives no distinctive feel between the characters. Yes, the reader can believe when Slither is speaking, but there is no good voice for feisty “Little Nessa.” What keeps this series in vogue is Patrick Arrasmith’s artwork and the distinctive layout and well-spaced type of the book.

I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway. I must have been in a weird mood the day I entered the giveaway because horror novels are SO not my thing. It took almost a year of staring at it on my shelf before I decided to bite the bullet and read it.

This is the eleventh book in a series, but as far as I can tell, it is only loosely connected with the rest of the books and can be read on it's own. It is told from alternating point of views between Slither, a Kobalos creature, and Nessa, the girl he inherits from a trade with her father. Trade is very important to Slither and his people, so he does his best to honor the bargain he struck with the girl's father. The thing I like about Slither is that he never pretends to be something other than the beast he is. He is a blood thirsty monster, and he doesn't apologize for it. I like the respect and almost friendship/alliance that he and Nessa develop. It makes them both grow as characters. Nessa proves to be brave and selfless almost to a fault. She defends and protects her two younger sisters at her own risk and peril, even when they don't really deserve it.

Now, this is a horror book. It is full of declarations of blood lust and dire intentions. There are gruesome fights and lots of beheadings. Horror tends to either scare me to death or bore me to death. I will admit that the constant yearning for blood and intents to carve flesh caused me some boredom and more than a few eye rolls. But the rest of the story I actually liked. The characters were interesting. Their journey was intense and I was fascinated by the customs and traditions of the Kobalos.

Recommended for teens ages 14 and up that like horror and fantasy.

Content: Horror, blood and guts, violence, disturbing scenes.

The Last Apprentice, volume 11.

For the first half of this book, I thought that perhaps Delaney had written it to pad the series out so it would make the planned thirteen volumes. (Not counting various side volumes I won't go into, nor probably read.) But then it began to tie into the main story and I understood: he's expanding things, but also advancing the plot in a way that couldn't be done with a volume from Tom Ward's point of view.

The story tells of the titular Slither, a Kobalos - a kind of vampire-mage - who watches over his "haizda," his plot of humans and their farms. At the story's opening, one of these humans dies, and a bargain Slither made with him comes into effect. He must bring two of the farmer's three daughters safely to their uncle, in return for which he claims the third (the eldest) as a slave.

Slither's point-of-view alters with that of Nessa, the eldest daughter. The alternation is deftly handled, though their voices could stand to be a bit more distinct from each other and, for that matter, from Tom Ward's. Delaney may be reaching his limits as a stylist here.

The story moves rapidly and most everything in it ties together to make a whole: there are one or two random incidents, but they don't distract much.

Probably the biggest weakness is that Slither is not an attractive character, so one does not greatly enjoy being in his point of view. He has his honor and his virtues, but he is, in the end, a vampire, and not a nice sparkly one.

It appears that other reviewers didn't like this book just because it didn't focus on the main characters of Alice, Tom and the Spook. I, for one, did not mind that one bit. I think this book just further expands the wonderful world that Delaney has created with the Last Apprentice series. It even had a jaw-dropping moment that I was totally not expecting. I thought that Slither was a very interesting character and enjoyed his struggle to not become "weak" in the eyes of his kind by having compassion for humans. Also I thought Grimalkin's role in this book was fantastic! This book made me love Grimalkin even more than I already did (which I did not think was possible). If you go in to this book thinking you're going to get major plot progression with the main story then you might be let down. If you go in to it expecting to get more in depth to the world Delaney has created then you will definitely enjoy this book.

With this particular story, it was difficult to come up with a good rating. Mostly because, although this story takes place within The Last Apprentice world, there are few creatures and places that are familiar from the other books. And while I love the series and found the story interesting, I found that I had to stop pretty often in order to get myself oriented to the characters and their locations. It's mostly because of this that I gave Slither only 3 out of 5 stars.

The story was interesting in that it was a break from the Fiend story line that is permeating the other books. It was nice to go to new worlds and see some new characters and creatures. The mythology that was built around the new characters and creatures, especially Slither himself, was interesting and very detailed. However it was hard to follow along as the story kind of jumped in right at the middle. It was difficult to figure out what was going on from the start, so I had to take some time to read the guide at the back of the book in order to figure out what all the creatures were.

It was also pretty cool that Grimalkin was brought in from the other stories. She is a strong character that helped to link the story to the other books since Tom and the Spook weren't in this one. It was really important to make the novel feel as if it was a part of the series even though it could be considered a bit of a stand alone novel.

The only thing that would have made this novel better was a better prologue. The one that's in the book doesn't make much sense until near the end of the book. I just wish that it would have had a better introduction to the world and the creatures that live in it.

"Slither" should not be a numbered book in the Last Apprentice series because it is more of a Side-story or even a backdoor for a spin-off series about the Kobalos demons.

However that does not mean it is a bad story. Slither himself is the most interesting character and gives us a good view inside the world of his species with his narration. These are creatures that know nothing of Spooks and witches and Delaney does a good job showing their unique culture.

The problem is the other narrator Nessa. Slither has been tasked with escorting Nessa and her two sisters to safety and in return Slither gets to keep Nessa and sell her as a slave. Unfortunately Nessa's narration is boring and although her character has strong moments it seems as though she is wondering whether she will be killed by Slither almost every other sentence even after Slither tells her repeatedly that he is not going to kill her.

Ultimately Nessa loses any chance of advancing as a character because Grimalkin shows up. While it is always good to see the Witch Assassin (she has become my favorite character) I do feel like she was simply thrown in for the sake of having one character from the series in the book and to tell us that she is going to make a new sword for Tom.

*Spoiler Below*

However one interesting thing about her interactions with Slither concern one of the Kobalos Gods, He Who Has Yet To Be Born. Slither tells us that when this god is born not only will his people take over the earth but this god will be born into the form of a Skelt like the one depicted on Tom's swords.

Do not even come near this book, the biggest.............in the world Joseph Delaney the author builds up a very sweet love relation between a young boy and a girl, truly this relation is what set this series apart from other books in the same genera, we can find plentiful of witches, demons and battles in other fantasy books, but the relation between Tom and Alice the two main protagonists of this series is what made this whole series very special, and guess what happens in the final book, Alice simply leaves Tom and goes with another man simply because they locked eyes and discovered they were meant for each other, so after 5 years and 13 books Alice simply leaves Tom whom she was madly in love with and shacks up with a dark mage, sharing bed with him, kissing him in front of Tom, and causing great permanent harm to her best friend Grimalkin, and directly contributing to the situation that had Gregory Tom's Master, teacher and friend die....and the reasons that the author provides for this are as flimsy as his ethics as an author, he probably felt the heat after all the backlash from fans, but no matter what he pulls out of his......to try to redeem the story-line and to also try to remove his foot from his mouth it will never work, personally as a reader i can never forgive the Character Alice nor can I forgive the author’s blunder....there are tons of books out there that will give a good measure of bitter reality , if that is what all the fans wanted then they would have went for those other books, but we remained faithful to this series because it gave us a break from the actual hellish reality that we live day in and day out, sadly the author Joseph Delaney did not remain faithful to his fans, story Characters or even himself, choosing to sell out and ruin the ending with a "Game of Thrones" like twist at the end.....but if that is what we wanted or needed we wouldn't have stuck around for a 13 book series, to finally be mocked by the rude and cruel since of humor that Mr. Delaney has displayed…….
Summary: best aspect of the book the love relation between the two main protagonists is permanently ruined and damaged in the final book which also permanently changes the tone of the whole series from a sweet coming of age, first love, friendship and perseverance to that of a smutty cheesy soap opera...will not buy any more books from this awful Author

I've worked as a Children's/Young Adult Librarian for over 20 years and have not yet come across a series of books as good as "The Last Apprentice". Starting in 2005, with the the release of "Revenge of the Witch", this has been my go to suggestion for the reader looking to try something new and different. All eleven books plus the two short stories collections, along with the bestiary are fantastic. The latest book "Slither" keeps the reader spellbound from page one until the the final glossary entry. Old characters and new take us on a journey across the phantasmagorical landscape created by the mind of Joseph Delaney.

Delaney switches the point of view yet and setting yet again! Honestly I like Slither's tale and hope he's incorporated in the rest of the series. Grimalkin was awesome as usual, she's slowly becoming one of my favorite characters. The book was refreshing and a great next step in the series

With this particular story, it was difficult to come up with a good rating. Mostly because, although this story takes place within The Last Apprentice world, there are few creatures and places that are familiar from the other books. And while I love the series and found the story interesting, I found that I had to stop pretty often in order to get myself oriented to the characters and their locations. It's mostly because of this that I gave Slither only 3 out of 5 stars.

The story was interesting in that it was a break from the Fiend story line that is permeating the other books. It was nice to go to new worlds and see some new characters and creatures. The mythology that was built around the new characters and creatures, especially Slither himself, was interesting and very detailed. However it was hard to follow along as the story kind of jumped in right at the middle. It was difficult to figure out what was going on from the start, so I had to take some time to read the guide at the back of the book in order to figure out what all the creatures were.

It was also pretty cool that Grimalkin was brought in from the other stories. She is a strong character that helped to link the story to the other books since Tom and the Spook weren't in this one. It was really important to make the novel feel as if it was a part of the series even though it could be considered a bit of a stand alone novel.

The only thing that would have made this novel better was a better prologue. The one that's in the book doesn't make much sense until near the end of the book. I just wish that it would have had a better introduction to the world and the creatures that live in it.

"Slither" should not be a numbered book in the Last Apprentice series because it is more of a Side-story or even a backdoor for a spin-off series about the Kobalos demons.

However that does not mean it is a bad story. Slither himself is the most interesting character and gives us a good view inside the world of his species with his narration. These are creatures that know nothing of Spooks and witches and Delaney does a good job showing their unique culture.

The problem is the other narrator Nessa. Slither has been tasked with escorting Nessa and her two sisters to safety and in return Slither gets to keep Nessa and sell her as a slave. Unfortunately Nessa's narration is boring and although her character has strong moments it seems as though she is wondering whether she will be killed by Slither almost every other sentence even after Slither tells her repeatedly that he is not going to kill her.

Ultimately Nessa loses any chance of advancing as a character because Grimalkin shows up. While it is always good to see the Witch Assassin (she has become my favorite character) I do feel like she was simply thrown in for the sake of having one character from the series in the book and to tell us that she is going to make a new sword for Tom.

*Spoiler Below*

However one interesting thing about her interactions with Slither concern one of the Kobalos Gods, He Who Has Yet To Be Born. Slither tells us that when this god is born not only will his people take over the earth but this god will be born into the form of a Skelt like the one depicted on Tom's swords.

Do not even come near this book, the biggest.............in the world Joseph Delaney the author builds up a very sweet love relation between a young boy and a girl, truly this relation is what set this series apart from other books in the same genera, we can find plentiful of witches, demons and battles in other fantasy books, but the relation between Tom and Alice the two main protagonists of this series is what made this whole series very special, and guess what happens in the final book, Alice simply leaves Tom and goes with another man simply because they locked eyes and discovered they were meant for each other, so after 5 years and 13 books Alice simply leaves Tom whom she was madly in love with and shacks up with a dark mage, sharing bed with him, kissing him in front of Tom, and causing great permanent harm to her best friend Grimalkin, and directly contributing to the situation that had Gregory Tom's Master, teacher and friend die....and the reasons that the author provides for this are as flimsy as his ethics as an author, he probably felt the heat after all the backlash from fans, but no matter what he pulls out of his......to try to redeem the story-line and to also try to remove his foot from his mouth it will never work, personally as a reader i can never forgive the Character Alice nor can I forgive the author’s blunder....there are tons of books out there that will give a good measure of bitter reality , if that is what all the fans wanted then they would have went for those other books, but we remained faithful to this series because it gave us a break from the actual hellish reality that we live day in and day out, sadly the author Joseph Delaney did not remain faithful to his fans, story Characters or even himself, choosing to sell out and ruin the ending with a "Game of Thrones" like twist at the end.....but if that is what we wanted or needed we wouldn't have stuck around for a 13 book series, to finally be mocked by the rude and cruel since of humor that Mr. Delaney has displayed…….
Summary: best aspect of the book the love relation between the two main protagonists is permanently ruined and damaged in the final book which also permanently changes the tone of the whole series from a sweet coming of age, first love, friendship and perseverance to that of a smutty cheesy soap opera...will not buy any more books from this awful Author

I've worked as a Children's/Young Adult Librarian for over 20 years and have not yet come across a series of books as good as "The Last Apprentice". Starting in 2005, with the the release of "Revenge of the Witch", this has been my go to suggestion for the reader looking to try something new and different. All eleven books plus the two short stories collections, along with the bestiary are fantastic. The latest book "Slither" keeps the reader spellbound from page one until the the final glossary entry. Old characters and new take us on a journey across the phantasmagorical landscape created by the mind of Joseph Delaney.

Delaney switches the point of view yet and setting yet again! Honestly I like Slither's tale and hope he's incorporated in the rest of the series. Grimalkin was awesome as usual, she's slowly becoming one of my favorite characters. The book was refreshing and a great next step in the series

Book Eleven in the Last Apprentice series is a puzzlement. Slither is an interesting character in his own right but his story does not seem to fit with the ongoing saga of Tom, Alice and the Spook. The book introduces a whole new vocabulary and a bunch of new characters the strongest of which are Slither himself and the girl Nessa. Slither is a truly abhorrent creature, a drinker of blood from both humans and animals. He is humanoid but has a tail and belongs to a race called the Kobalos. Slither has little compassion and is mostly driven by his hunger for blood. If it were not for the presence of Grimalkin this book could not even pretend to be part of the Last Apprentice series. I wonder whether Joseph Delaney created Slither to begin a new series after Last Apprentice concludes. Like some of the other reviewers I was eagerly waiting to find out what happens to Alice when she goes into the Dark and what awaits Tom after slaying Siscoi. Instead we take a side journey that adds a few fragments of intriguing information but mostly puts us on hold until Book 12. I have absolutely loved the Last Apprentice series from Book 1 and on up. As a librarian I have recommended them to young adults and adult readers alike. I have read all of them more than once and also highly recommend the audio versions which are brilliantly voiced by Christopher Evan Welch. Unfortunately, we now have to wait awhile for the next installment and hope to get back on track.

I was very disappointed in the last "Apprentice" book, Lure of the Dead. It seemed to go off on a completely irrelevant tangent, departing from the central story of Tom and Alice, to tell the tale of Tom fighting against some vampire-like creatures because he wanted to "get more books to restore the Spook's burned down library." Yes, you read that right. That's the entire driving force of the book, which explains why this series is losing serious momentum. In fact, the most important parts of how Tom and Alice's relationship develops and their workings against The Fiend happen "off the page". We only hear about them after-the-fact, literally mentioned in passing, as if they were no big deal. Alice is only in about 10% of that book, anyway. As this series draws to a MUCH needed close...it should be focusing MORE on Tom and Alice and their quest against The Fiend, not on these side stories that don't contribute to the overarching plot, as a whole.

Now, it seems as if Slither has done exactly the same thing. No Tom and Alice, just another random story about a completely NEW character, literally introduced at the 11th hour of this series. This entire story has been slowly falling apart since Rise of the Huntress. That book was okay...but you could easily remove it from this entire series and never miss a beat of the story. The exact same thing goes for Lure and Slither. THREE whole books that do nothing to further this plot. What a waste of time?!

I heard Joseph Delaney say in an interview that he does NOT use an outline when writing. He simply sits down and starts to write. That seems VERY clear, since all writers who do that end up with a gigantic manuscript that rambles on and on with no focus. As a writer, you MUST know where you're going, even before you begin the journey. A solid outline is your road map. If you don't have one, you take your readers on a trip to nowhere...and that's exactly what Delaney has done. He's become just another one of thousands of writers who get all wrapped up in their "concept" but have no real skill to execute it in a cohesive, clear and compelling way. What happened to understanding story craft with contemporary writers?

That's difficult for me to say, because I loved this series. It could have been the Harry Potter for adults...a very earthy, dark and Gothic coming-of-age tale in a world of elemental (not "sparkly") magic. Sadly, like so many writers, Delaney has created a world so big that he can't wield it anymore and has become crushed by the weight of it, as it completely falls apart.

I will not be buying anymore of this series. I'll get them from the library and skim them, as I'm not wasting the money anymore, either. Delaney plans 13 books, with two, yet to go. Let's hope he finds his way back to what really matters in this story. I've a feeling that once it's all over, the story of these 13 books will probably be told in about 9 or 10 of them, once you eliminate the unnecessary ones like Huntress, Lure, Slither and whatever other filler is yet to come.