Doomwyte

Doomwyte


By: Brian Jacques
Reviewed by: gothiclolitamaiden, 16
Rating: It was alright...


“Stolen by a notorious thief years ago and hidden away, a young mouse convinces the creatures of Redwall Abbey to go on a perilous hunt to find the fabled treasure and return it to its rightful owner; forcing Bisky and his fellow Redwallers to come face-to-face with dangerous snakes, hungry ravens, and other vicious creatures to complete their task.”

I’m a big fan of the Redwall series, but the last couple of novels published in the series have been lackluster, especially when compared to their predecessors. When I picked up Doomwyte, I remained optimistic that maybe this book would be more original. Alas, I was disappointed. Maybe I’m getting older, and I just can’t enjoy Redwall like I used to, or maybe all of the themes and characters are starting to get repetitive.

Some of the components found in just about every Redwall book so far are adventure, revenge, epic quests, riddles that send the characters on epic quests, monsters, cruel baddies, ships, big swords, feasts, and lovable characters. It sounds like a good formula, but the ingredients are combined in the same way in almost every single book, which gets too predictable.

After reading the Redwall books for a long time, I’ve started to realize that all of the characters and villains from the different books in the series are basically the same, they just have different names and sometimes switch species.

Previous Redwall books have usually started out kind of slow, but picked up the pace as the story unfolds. Unfortunately, the pace of Doomwyte never really sped up for me. It might have been because I’ve read all of the books and know what to expect, but I think the books are slowly losing that charm they once had. I hate to say it, but the author might need to rethink his plotting strategy when writing these books.

There’s another book coming out soon, and I will read it, partially out of my loyalty to the series and partially because I really want to be pleasantly surprised by the next installment. I remain optimistic about Redwall, because I am really fond of the series, despite my complaints.



Recommended to: Dedicated Redwall fans, children. Little bit of violence, but not much else.