Okay, so maybe I’m not a fair judge, as I haven’t read the first four books in the series, and maybe I would like it better if I had, but the reality of series is that students don’t always come to them in order, and each volume really needs to be able to stand alone in my opinion.  This one didn’t.  There’s no explanation of characters or plot — it just picks up in the middle of some adventure with some kid trying to rescue his friends, but there’s no character development to get me to care.  Maybe if all of that had been addressed in the earlier volumes I would already care, but I didn’t.  Most definitely not recommended unless you get the whole set, and I still don’t know that I’d recommend it.