John Flanagan is an Australian fantasy fiction writer who made his name in TV and advertisement industry before embarking on his writing career. He is famous for writing an epic fantasy series, titled Ranger’s Apprentice.
Flanagan was born on 22nd May, 1944, in Sydney, Australia. He wished to be a writer from a very early age. Though, growing up his plan changed and he began working for an advertising agency. There he was treated unjustly by his senior executive who would disparage and belittle his work. Flanagan took a daring step and wrote a derogatory poem for him. His inadvertent attempt at literary writing was complimented by company directors. They concurred with his assessment of the senior executive as a result they gave him an opportunity to be trained as a copywriter.
Flanagan became a successful copywriter for an advertising agency and worked there for two decades. Afterwards, he headed toward television and teamed up with an old friend, Gary Reilly, to create a TV show. They co-wrote a phenomenal sitcom Hey Dad..!. The show ran two-hundred successful episodes between 1987 and 1994 on Australian television.
In order to encourage his son, Flanagan originally wrote twenty short stories in Ranger’s Apprentice adventures in 1990’s. His son Michael, at age 12, was going through a rough patch as he was small in stature unlike his friends who looked bigger and grown-up. Flanagan introduced Michael to reading to help him cope with things. So as to provide his son the relevant reading material he began writing the short stories in which the heroes were not necessarily supposed to be all mighty and muscular. He exhibited this idea in his Ranger’s Apprentice fantasy stories. Ten years after writing them he decided to turn them into novel to publish.
The first novel in the series was published on November 1, 2004 titled, The Ruins of Gorlan. There are total of twelve novels in the series which have successfully sold three million copies in sixteen different countries. A bookstore in Austin, Texas held a five day campaign to help support the book. It also succeeded to garner positive response from readers and critics.
Ranger’s Apprentice medieval fantasy novels follow the story of a fifteen-year-old, Will. The character is loosely based on Flanagan’s own son. Being an orphan Will is supposed to choose between working in field and becoming an apprentice. He decides to become an apprentice Ranger. Rangers are expected to perform as spies of Araluen, being a part of an intelligence force. A Ranger named Halt takes Will under his wing and trains him to pass the assessment test. During the assessment process they hear about Morgarath’s underling, Kalkara that has broken into Araluen. So the Ranger and his apprentice set out on a hunt for this creature to save their kingdom.
The Ruins of Gorlan was followed by The Burning Bridge, published in 2005. The book continues Will’s adventures. In this installment, a war is looming over Araluen and Will and his friends are sent on a mission to bring reinforcements from Celtica. Further installments in the series include Oakleaf Bearers (2006), The Siege of Macindaw (2007), The Kings of Clonmel (2008) and more. Subsequently, Flanagan wrote two more series. First published in 2011, Brotherband series comprised four novels and Jesse Parker series (2009) had two. John Flanagan won the International Success Award for Erak’s Ransom in 2008.