Flyte (Septimus Heap, Book Two)

The second book in the series follows Septimus Heap in his role as Apprentice to ExtraOrdinary Wizard Marcia Overstrand. All is not well in the magical world of witches and wizards. Marcia is overcast by an ominous Darke Shadow; the young Princess Jenna is kidnapped by her wicked stepbrother; evil necromancer DomDaniel rears his ugly skull and the Dragon Boat is sunk.

This lengthy book fails on a number of counts. It’s far too long, and lacks the well-paced suspense needed to keep its readers on the edge of their seats. There are too many characters and it’s easy to find yourself identifying with the ‘baddies’ simply because they are so much more interesting than Septimus, Jenna and the other ‘goodies’ from the Castle.

Far from being a ‘spellbinding sequel’, Flyte drags on for over 500 pages before coming to its predictable conclusion. Even the ending is drawn out, with Sage using a clumsy epilogue style device to explain (rather tediously) what happened to some of the characters from Book One.

The detailed black and white illustrations by Mark Zug provide a welcome distraction at the start of each chapter. But it’s a shame that so many drawings are repeated and don’t always relate very well to the chapter they preface.