Warriors: Into the Wild
The Warriors series, Book 1
Erin Hunter
Avon
Fiction, MG Fantasy
Themes: Anthropomorphism, Felines
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Description
In the woods at the fringes of Twolegger lands, four Clans of cats have lived for countless generations, meeting every full moon to renew the truces between
their kind. Lately, the long-held territory borders have been shifting. ThunderClan is feeling pressure from all sides. The RiverClan hunts on the edges of their
land, violating the ancient warrior code. The WindClan of the open plateaus seems to have vanished altogether. The dark ShadowClan is becoming more and more
aggressive, and it's not long before ThunderClan warriors start dying. If the Clan cannot defend its home, it will fall.
Rusty, a housecat, lives a peaceful life with his Twolegger family. Dreams of forests and wild prey haunt him, and he's becoming increasingly unsatisfied with his
belled collar and kibble food. One night, he ventures beyond his yard into the woods, seeking adventure. He finds an apprentice of the ThunderClan, and, after a
scuffle in which he acquits himself quite honorably, receives a most unusual offer to join the wild cats. Rusty jumps at the chance to live his dream, but the other
Clan cats don't think much of this "kittypet" from the Twolegger nests who thinks himself their equal. Rusty soon finds himself faced with the dual challenges of
learning to survive among the wild Clan cats and facing the growing dangers to his new home. Will a pampered housepet ever make it as a ThunderClan warrior? Even
if he does, will there still be a ThunderClan around to grant him full warrior status?
Review
One look at this book, and I can guess that Hunter has probably read Tailchaser's Song and other animal fantasy stories a time or two. Fortunately, she
takes the concept of feline culture in her own direction, and resemblance to other works fades as the story progresses. She earns marks for not having all animals able
to talk to each other. Cats only know cat speech, and aren't trading words with dogs or foxes. She fails, however, in a way that pretty much every feline story author
fails: tortoiseshell and calico cats are almost invariably female, and those very few which are male are usually sterile. Tortie/calico toms are therefore very unlikely
creatures, and yet every single book-length cat story I've ever read has at least one virile, impossible tom in these colors. Why do no authors pick up on this very
simple cat fact, when they go on to wow us with much more obscure cat and breed details? It's a fairly minor detail, but still...
Rusty and his apprentice pals also suffer from a common ailment of not connecting dots until the climatic final moments, but that trouble is hardly restricted to
talking-animal stories. I wasn't particularly shocked by the revelations that Rusty finally came to, but his companions were.
Predictability aside, this was a fairly good story, nicely paced. Younger readers will be much more absorbed than I was, I expect. I'll admit I rated it with the target
age in mind; if I had read this when I was at the target age, I think it would've ousted Tailchaser's Song as my favorite cat story. Even now, I found it
imaginative. Many adults will be less willing to suspend disbelief and accept cats who use cobwebs and basic herb lore to treat wounds, or look to the "StarClan" in the
night sky for guidance. There are more books in the series (many, many more books), and if I find the next one cheap enough I might consider picking it up. Just
to see what happens...