Saturday 31 January 2009

Eulalia! By Brian Jacques





With this being the 18th book in the Redwall series, Jacques has settled into a comfortingly familiar style of story-telling.

For those who don’t know, the Redwall books are a cross between fantasy and medieval action/adventure stories with all of the characters being animals. Each type of animal has its own general personality, with the characters themselves being individuals. So rats, ferrets, weasels and other vermin type creatures are always the villains, roving bands of raiders or pirates. Moles are somewhat country-bumpkin like with their “boo-urr” speech patterns. Badgers are fierce warriors, otters are playful and good fighters. Hares are posh, stiff upper lip “what what” types who fight for the badger lords of Salamandastrom. My personal favourites have always been the GUOSIM – Guerrilla Union of Shrews in Mossflower. A bunch of homicidal, easily enraged shrews with rapiers.

This particular book doesn’t mess with the pattern of previous books, there are two major hero stories, we also follow the villains (2 bands of them this time) and Redwall Abbey is in danger. Like I said, it’s all very comfortable. However, I don’t read Redwall books for something new each time, just like I don’t expect an episode of CSI to turn into Battlestar Galactica and Jacques has become a master at these stories.
Each of our heroes are likable, this time a hedgehog taken in by the Abbey exiled for a season for stealing, or borrowing as he calls it. A hare called Mad Maudie, regimental cook and troublemaker, also sent away from her home of Salamandastrom on a quest.

The characters are well drawn, as I’ve come to expect from these books, and the author still has no qualms about calmly killing off one you’ve grown to like without remorse. It’s the constant sense that any of the characters could be killed that keeps it exciting.

This isn’t the strongest of the series, but it’s by no means weak. If this was your first Redwall book, I have no doubt that you would hunt down the others to read and enjoy. The story isn’t quite as dense as some of the previous ones and it felt a little rushed through to me. I’d have liked a few more events fro the heroes to battle through and the final battle doesn’t quite reach the heights of previous books.

This makes it just a solid entry to the series, without the truly memorable characters or deaths from some of the earlier books. Don’t let that put you off though, it still entertains and rattles along at a good pace. What more would you want from an adventure story for children?

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