Warriors

Warriors by Erin Hunter (Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, Victoria Holmes, and Tui Sutherland)
HarperCollins - January 21, 2003 to present
Around 300 pages for regular, around 500 for Super Edition and 175 for field guide

Fire alone can save our Clan...

For generations, four Clans of wild cats have shared the forest according to the laws laid down by the powerful ancestors. But the warrior code is threatened, and the ThunderClan cats are in grave danger. The sinister ShadowClan grows stronger every day. Noble warriors are dying -- and some deaths are more mysterious than others.
In the midst of this turmoil appears an ordinary housecat named Rusty . . . Who may yet turn out to be the bravest warrior of them all.


I have calculated it, and there are a cumulative fifty-two books in the Warriors series to date (18 April 2013, as of the update), with seven more expected for release by 2014. I have not even read all of them. As a result of this, I am reviewing the series as a whole. The excerpt above is from the first novel of the first arc, Into the Wild.

The idea of having feral cats in the wild that act like cats with the exception of the use of language was rather original at the time, with the only comparative novels being Tailchaser's Song (which I have reviewed) and The Wild Road (which I am currently reading). Warriors is often compared to Redwall, but the Redwall series is much more anthropomorphic.

The authors who make up the pseudonym Erin Hunter have clearly studied cats, and it's evident in their writing. As someone who has a rather active cat who was feral for her first year of life, I know that she acts rather like a ThunderClan warrior. There are also a wide variety of characters with a wide variety of names, and I applaud the Erin Hunters on their creation of so many original names. Some fans boo straying from the original suffixes like -heart, -tail, and -fur in the later books, where -light, -frost, and -flight are used, but I think it allows for a wider amount of Warriors personalities.

Every time I think that the authors of Warriors are going to suffer from reversion to an overdone plot, they find something creative to do. The first arc is much about Fireheart of ThunderClan's struggle against the power of Tigerclaw, a power-hungry tabby with a penchant for revenge. The second arc is about the Clan's journey to a new home after humans attack. The third arc is about an ancient prophecy given to Fireheart about his grandchildren, and the fourth is more religious in a sense, as it deals with Warriors heaven and hell (StarClan and the Place of No Stars). The Super Editions deal with a forgotten Clan, half-warriors, and the older leaders.

Many characters, especially those in ThunderClan, can be highly developed by the authors' allowance to have a minor character take the lead, even if only for a few chapters at a time. The original arc may be devoted to Fireheart, but Cinderpaw is the real star of Fire and Ice, and Brightpaw and Swiftpaw of A Dangerous Path. There is no real star of the later arcs, as it is divided between cats, and Flametail, a formerly minor character, gets a starring role in Night Whispers.

Sometimes the authors may suffer from a bit of a relapse, especially with characters (Heavystep, a ShadowClan warrior, died three times). However, with so many books and characters, they're doing the best that they can.



Cumulative Grade: A-