The Soldiers of Halla: Finally, some answers!

The Soldiers of Halla by D.J. MacHale

It’s been a few years since Bobby Pendragon first found out he was a Traveler. He’s been all over the territories of Halla, trying to thwart Saint Dane’s plans to throw all of Halla into chaos. Now the final battle is here. Can Bobby and his friends kill Saint Dane, or will all of Halla be forced to live in the terrible universe he has created?

The Soldiers of Halla, the final PENDRAGON book by D.J. MacHale, begins with Bobby learning who he is, where he came from, and what happened to his family — all in one huge infodump. I’m not sure why Bobby couldn’t know these things before… (Well, actually, I do know why — it’s because MacHale likes to withhold information for dramatic effect, even if it doesn’t make sense to the plot. This happens frequently. For example, dying characters will continue to talk around the important information they need to impart until, finally, in the last breath, they manage to croak it out…) But, anyway, all this information is welcome news for Bobby and fans. Finally, some answers!

So, Saint Dane’s goal all this time was to create a weird cult called Ravinia. It’s an elitist utopia with a eugenics campaign. Its philosophy (which feels post hoc at this point in the story because we did not hear about it until book nine) is to embrace everyone who displays some sort of excellence and to invite them to live in beautiful walled cities that exclude the undesirables. Those left outside the walls have few resources and will die off. This sort of elitism is happening in all the territories.

Back in the previous book, Raven Rise, Saint Dane had arranged for 70,000 people, most of the people who didn’t support him (including Mark and Courtney), to attend a rally at Yankee Stadium. Then he opened a flume and sucked them all out to who knows where. This was a really big (and unbelievable) mistake because he didn’t kill them. They are now somewhere else in Halla. Their spirit of hope and revulsion to Saint Dane’s “utopia” are the only thing keeping all-out evil at bay. Realizing his mistake, Saint Dane is now frantically searching for them so he can get rid of them for good. But they are the only hope for Halla, so Bobby and the other Travelers are also searching for them. They plan to use the exiles to defeat Saint Dane.

Nobody who has read the previous nine PENDRAGON books isn’t going to pick up book ten, so I won’t suggest that you don’t read The Soldiers of Halla. I’ll just say that while there were a few shivery moments (even though I had predicted some of those moments, they were still effective), and while I was glad to learn what happened to Bobby and his friends in the end, overall I was slightly disappointed. Compared to the best installments in this series, The Soldiers of Halla often feels chaotic and messy. There is way too much time spent on the dull existential parts, the final show-down between Bobby and Saint Dane is kind of anticlimactic, and one of the romantic subplots was inexplicably dropped. But at other times the story is fun and exciting, Mark’s character development is gratifying, and the ending is sweet and conclusive enough to satisfy most fans.

The main strengths of the PENDRAGON series is its likeable, relatable characters — especially Bobby, Mark, and Courtney — its fast pace, imaginative settings, subtle (mostly) teaching moments, and its eventual theme of redemption. The major weaknesses, which I never managed to get over, were its sloppy plotting (especially toward the end), really stupid villain, and post hoc explanations.

The PENDRAGON series will certainly appeal to many in its teen target audience and I heartily recommend it to them. However, it probably won’t impress adults too much, which is fine, though my preference is for books that manage to do both, and there are plenty of those.

William Dufris’ audio performance of the entire series, especially after the first couple of books was excellent. The Soldiers of Halla is about eighteen hours long.