Are the earlier Redwall books the best?

[Osu]

I genuinely enjoyed all of the books, but I did notice a change - or something - that seemed to occur with Triss onward. When I was younger, I preferred the older books; now I'm old, I prefer the later books. Totally know where the OP's coming from, though!

[James Gryphon]

Thinking over it, I think I understand a little better why I don't like Lord Brocktree enough to make it (and not Legend of Luke) the last "original" book. Don't read if you don't want to see some criticism of it (from my perspective).

Firstly, in Mossflower, Salamandastron is almost a mythical place. Sure, we see it become a much more habited and "down to earth" place in Outcast of Redwall and Salamandastron, but both of these take place quite a while after Mossflower and the change is understandable, something that might've come from a combination of the last surviving Long Patrol hares working to keep the mountain alive (by bringing in more hares to make up for the lack of their Badger Lord, who most of the mystical aspect comes from in the first place), and Sunflash's reign over the mountain.

Boar's Long Patrol is the smallest one we ever see in the series, consisting of exactly ten hares, all of which are known by name, and two of which are too young to fight. Because of this numeric disadvantage, the great Badger Lord influenced the seascum through fear and a kind of trickery, instead of just brute force. When you hear about the chamber Boar built, and the dragon head, and the echoing cave, and everything else, one would logically assume that previous Badger Lords like Boar ruled in much a similar way, or by using other, similar small-scale methods to enforce their rule.

Lord Brocktree, though, turns all of these reasonable assumptions upside down by showing us that actually Boar's Long Patrol was a freak exception to the rule, as every other Long Patrol in history -- from his grandfather to his father to his grandson and all the way down -- have been run about the same. The Long Patrol as a large, active military force has apparently usually been the case, to the extent that forty hares (several times Boar's force) was considered a weak patrol at the end of Stonepaw's time.

There's no reason I can see why the Long Patrol, a large, active force at the beginning of Lord Brocktree's reign, should be down to less than a skeleton crew all the way through his son, Lord Boar's reign (unless of course Boar was so bloodthirsty that he wanted to reserve all of the vermin-killing solely to himself, and so sent all the spare hares away ).

So the entire thing of having a massive Long Patrol, and Salamandastron a regularly-visited part of the world, before Boar's time strikes me as an anachronism -- from reading Mossflower, Salamandastron strikes me as being an almost magical place. Outcast of Redwall and Salamandastron made it more approachable, but I'd expect, from going back to Lord Brocktree's time, that it would be just as remote and removed a place as it was in Mossflower. Instead, when the book came out, it was revealed that it was basically the same bustling community we see during Sunflash's time, and that seems a bit backwards to me.

Secondly, Dotti Dillworthy. In human terms, she's basically like a seventeen-year-old girl, maybe a bit older. Having her achieve all the things she does, and work up her way to easily become General, doesn't seem quite realistic to me; even Tammo was only a Captain years after the events of The Long Patrol, and I don't think he can realistically be much less qualified than her.

Specifically, beating Bucko Bigbones seems kind of a stretch to me. It's been a while since I heard the story, so my memory might be a bit foggy on this, but it strikes me as like the aforementioned teenage girl fighting a champion heavyweight boxer. I don't care how good the girl is, and how much the boxer's been slacking off in his training; realistically she isn't going to win.

Finally, although I guess this is more personal taste, the "Blue Hordes" were kind of overkill. It's easily the largest horde in Redwall-series history; larger than Cluny the Scourge's, larger than Damug Warfang's, even larger than the previously largest horde, Ferahgo the Assassin's 4,000 Corpsemakers. Compared to the size of Verdauga Greeneyes' contemporary Thousand Eyes Army (which was several hundred vermin, at most), it seems a bit much.

What's worse than that, though, is that after making them be the biggest horde ever, the plot doesn't do much with it. They beat an anemic Long Patrol (but the other hordes I mentioned could've probably done that too), and then proceeded to slowly starve to death, until Lord Brocktree's army came along to finish them off.

Ungatt Trunn may think himself to be a great warlord and conqueror, but he's actually not particularly competent; from the little I've seen and heard about him in Mossflower and Legend of Luke, Verdauga could've done ten times as much with a tenth of Trunn's force... which is disappointing. Ungatt Trunn, as the first villainous, adult, healthy wildcat male in the series, is the best chance the plot ever had to show us what Verdauga might've been like in his younger days, but it clearly doesn't do that.

So that's probably why I feel how I do about Lord Brocktree -- I'm not saying it's an awful book, just that it wasn't what I expected from a book about that time period, and it's kind of disappointing to me.

[DanielofRedwall]

They are all absolutely epic, but most of the early books are my favourites (Redwall, Mossflower, Mattmieo etc). However, Rakkety Tam also rank very high, which are a lot later. I'm almost finished the Rogue Crew, and that is an epic book!

[Skalrag of Marshank]

I think the older books are the VERY best. I love all the books (I'm working on Triss) but my absolute favorites would have to be Redwall, Mattimeo, and Mossflower.

[daskar666]

I liked the blue hordes for their size, but their defeat was probably the biggest disappointment in the series. I expected a HUGE battle not...

[Skalrag of Marshank]

Yeah. Big blow to cats every where.

[sabretache5611]

I liked the blue hordes for their size, but their defeat was probably the biggest disappointment in the series. I expected a HUGE battle not...

I have to agree with that.  Though I think it would have been pretty hard for Brocktree's army to go head to head with Ungatt and win...

[martins#1fan]

Yes Jacques' earlier work is better in my opinion, however
The Sable Quean is one of my favorites.

[Nightfire]

I'm not quite sure. I think that Mr. Jacques actually got a clearer idea of where the storyline was going after the first three books. Like how in Redwall, there were horses and pigs and a beaver. Those animals just seemed kind of out of place. But in the later books, I loved High Rhulain, Rakkety Tam, and Taggerung. Mossflower if my favorite out of the first three books though.

[DanielofRedwall]

I thought the Taggerung's "war" scene was disappointing...

[The Lady Shael]

James, I wish you were around in the Terrouge days! Your analyses are very thorough and interesting to read.

For me the "cutoff" point is between Taggerung and Triss. I loved Taggerung because of the concept of the Juska tribe and the plot was interesting to me (a goodbeast being raised by vermin). Most importantly, it was the last book (that I read) that had characters I already knew (Cregga was still alive). Every book after that took place seasons and seasons after the previous book, and it just felt like I was reading random fanfiction, not a book series. It made me feel like he wasn't familiar enough with his own series to include the same characters in multiple books, and instead had to make up completely new characters each time.

I haven't read the more recent books though. I don't even think I finished reading Rakkety Tam.

[daskar666]

I liked the blue hordes for their size, but their defeat was probably the biggest disappointment in the series. I expected a HUGE battle not...

I have to agree with that.  Though I think it would have been pretty hard for Brocktree's army to go head to head with Ungatt and win...

Helm's deep much?

[Skalrag of Marshank]

I thought the Taggerung's "war" scene was disappointing...

Yay! I'm not the only one!! It would have been a lot more interesting for him to go one-on-one with Sawney Rath, like Matthias' battle with Cluny.

[daskar666]

I thought the Taggerung's "war" scene was disappointing...

There was a war scene?

[Skalrag of Marshank]

The part where he killed Vallug.