Looking at it one way, I don’t have a favorite because they all seem like different chapters in one big story.  But I can come up with a few that stand out for different reasons.  The book that was the most fun to write was “The Never War” because I loved going back into real history and doing the research about a time and place that fascinate me.   The book that was the most difficult to write was  “The Quillan Games”.  Coming up with all of those wild games, creating the rules, and then having Bobby play them was grueling.  I certainly don’t have a LEAST favorite book, though I can say that my least favorite cover was the one I call:  “Bobby the Blue-Eyed Reindeer”.   Yeesh.

But favorite book?  Now that they’re all complete and I can look back on the whole story, I guess maybe there is one that stands out.  I think I like it because it had a little bit of all the books in it and it tied up the whole story in a way that I had always planned on, but was never sure that it would actually work.  The fact that it did work is very satisfying.  There were a few scenes in that book (I won’t mention them here because I don’t want to write spoilers) that actually get me choked up.  More than a few scenes.  It was an incredibly rewarding experience to tie together all the loose ends, answer all the questions, and complete an epic story.  So under pressure, I would have to say that my favorite Pendragon book is The Soldiers of Halla.

The final chapter of The Soldiers of Halla has been talked about and discussed quite a bit.  Some love it.  Others hate it.  Some understand it fully.  Others don’t get it.  I’m not going to explain it all here because I’d prefer that readers draw their own conclusions.  But I will make a few comments.  First off, I don’t consider the ending to be a cliff hanger.  Not even close.  The story is very clear about what is going to happen next, and that is that Bobby will soon go to Solara and Courtney will not be far behind.  To understand how the events described in the last chapter could have happened, you have to look at the end of the second to last chapter.  Bobby lamented to Uncle Press that after all they had been through, it seemed unfair that the Travelers were not being allowed to live the normal lives they fought so hard for.  All they wanted was a little bit of time to live those lives, which in the general scheme of Halla, wasn’t much  . . . and Uncle Press agreed with him.  How that was able to happen, and what all the implications are, I’ll leave that up to you to debate and decide.

I’ll say one other thing, and that’s about the guy who delivered Bobby’s journals to him in the hospital.  Short of actually writing his name, I pretty much described exactly who it was.  From the events that unfolded in the hospital room with Bobby and Courtney kissing and being interrupted, to his physical description, to Bobby recognizing him, to him saying that he had nine other journals to deliver, there is no other possible person that could have been…but Uncle Press.