Book Look: The Mistmantle Chronicles (Again)

This post has more indepth than the post previous about this series. So I've deleted that one.

These books are more in the vein of the Redwall series, but with no animal species dictated as the 'evil' ones and others as the 'good' ones. There's a heavier slant on religion, a fake one, but religion nonetheless.

Spoilers for all 5 books.

Urchin of The Riding Stars

We are introduced to a lovely little place where animals work happily, ruled by a king and queen, there's fresh food and water everywhere. Boats and toys are made by otters by the coasts, moles dig tunnels, and peace is kept.

Until the crown prince is found dead and a captain is framed for the murder.





Urchin and the Heartstone

This introduced another island - Whitewings, and mentions of Ashfire, where squirrels lived on an island with a volcano before evacuating. One of the more disappointing things about this series is that, outside of Mistmantle, only the aforementioned islands and Swan Isle are mentioned.

They're talking animals not bound by the good/evil dichotomy of the Redwall books. Give us some more of that!

The Heir of Mistmantle

One thing I particularly like about this series? Besides the aforementioned dichotomy, the animals are often on a scale of gray. There's quite a lot of xenophobic attitudes that are met with others pointing out, time and time again, that the refugees are perfectly nice and helpful people.

Urchin and the Raven War

This book made me realize that many of the 'star' animals are not the ones who get the kills in this series. They don't get many glory moments.


Urchin and the Rage Tide

This is probably the most solemn, and most parallel to the first book. Two beloved animals of The Circle and Captaincy want to be married and need the king's permission. A squirrel is deeply, mentally disturbed. The King sacrifices himself for the religion they all believe in. Seriously, they try to dress it up, but 'animal sacrifice for religion'.

There was always an obvious undercurrent of religion in this series, but the past two books really amped it up.

 That gets me especially because Crispin is my favorite character in this entire series. You know how I like my 'noble, elected royals who have a 99% approval rating and die at the end' trope.

It does feel like there's a lot of nothing happening until the last 3rd though.

This is still a series I enjoy and love.