Duncton Wood

[Mara the Wolf]

Has anyone ever read the Duncton Wood series? What's it like?

I've heard of other fandoms similar to Redwall, like Guardians of Ga'Hoole and Warriors, but the only ones I've read are Guardians of Ga'Hoole (not all of; I stopped after The Coming of Hoole). But, I've been thinking of get some animal literature (and a few movies) that I've recently learned of, like Welkin Weasels, Watership Down, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, The Rats of NIMH, Tailchaser's Song, Silverwing, Warriors, and The Mistmantle Chronicles.

However, of what little I can find on Duncton Wood, it's very heavy on religion (and honestly sounds more like "Convert to Christianity, or be damned to Hell!", if the summary of the second book is anything to go by), and has more graphic violence than Watership Down (like the "snouting" [moles dangling from their snouts in barbed-wire] in Duncton Quest).

Here's the descriptions:

Duncton Wood:
Duncton Wood is a novel by William Horwood about moles that live in the English countryside - specifically, the fictional Duncton Wood in Oxfordshire. The moles revere and worship monoliths and standing stones, and, as such, many mole communities are founded around them.
Of course, that's not all.
The story focuses less on epic tales of the mole lands and more on the love story of two moles, Bracken and Rebecca, daughter of the tyrannical Mandrake. The first book follows them from life to death, as well as the highs and lows that the Duncton System go through in the meantime.
Almost a decade later, the author wrote two sequels to the original novel, focusing on the son of the original protagonists. These books, Duncton Quest and Duncton Found, round out the first trilogy, called the Duncton Chronicles.
Two years after the publication of Duncton Found, Horwood wrote another sequel, entitled Duncton Tales, set around a century after the original books. This, in turn, led to another trilogy, called the Book of Silence.
Basically, think Watership Down, but with moles and even more Nightmare Fuel.

Duncton Wood: YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary):
Audience-Alienating Premise: These books might be a hard sell even to Xenofiction fans due to moles lacking the widespread appeal of cats, dogs, rabbits, wolves, deer, dragons, unicorns, or gryphons.
Moral Event Horizon: Mandrake's aforementioned killing of Rebbecca's newborns.
But lest us remember this was an act planned by his adviser, Rune. Later on, Rune will kill Bracken's children, with the exception of Violet, and blame it all on Mandrake.
Nightmare Fuel: Woe are the youngsters that get attracted to this book by the promise of cute moles, for this is what await them inside: gory violence (in Watership Down levels, by the way), infanticide, parental incest/rape, cannibalism (both out of necessity and pure evil), the Dark Sound, horrible depictions of plague, and so many deaths it's hard to count.
Recycled IN SPACE!: Watership Down.... WITH RELIGION AND MOLES!!
The Woobie: Many examples throughout the series, including Rebecca, Tryfan, Spindle, and even arguably, Mandrake

Duncton Quest:
The second book of the Duncton Wood series, Duncton Quest tells the story of Bracken and Rebecca's son, Tryfan, as he leaves Duncton toward the Uffington system to become a scribemole himself. He arrives in Uffington with Boswell to find the place thrashed and devastated by the followers of the new religion of the Word, a rival of the Stone that rose from ancient times from the same source as the Dark Sound. He's then sent with Spindle to visit every one of the seven sacred systems to try and renew the faith in the Stone, accompanied by different Ragtag Bunches of Misfits to Buckland, back to Duncton, into the mysterious and oft never visited "twofoot" system of Wen and into the depths of the evil system of the Whern.

Duncton Quest: YMMV:
Nightmare Fuel:
15 pages in, and we're greeted with two moles "snouted"(i.e. left hanging by their snouts) in barb wire, the wind making them sway, adding some very creepy liveliness to the scene.
"Scalpskin" in Buckland. It's a horrible skin disease that's only fully described once(in a mole that's in the latest stages of it), but the fact that it's ultimately lethal is very clear. That the grikes use it as some sort of psychological torture by sending Stone believers into disease-ridden tunnels is the icing on the horror cake.
The Wen, oh the Wen! If "twofoot system" doesn't sound scary enough, it has carnivorous rats, cats and dogs, crazy-dug tunnels that twist and produce weird sounds and, of course, the ancient mole system that managed to thrive in there. Which is filled with lecherous old males and very jealous old females that eat the pups of the only healthy and young female in the whole system when she manages to mate.

I don't have a problem with religion in literature (I love The Chronicles of Narnia, and they're practically filled with "Convert to Christianity!/Even if you don't worship Aslan/Jesus, if you're a good person, you get to go Heaven" stuff), and I'm more than fine with violence in fiction (how else are you supposed to show your villain(s)'s evil? [Besides rape]). But when the description for the second book sounds like something that's extremely  religious and extremely graphically violent, well... Doesn't sound like a good read.

Anyone who's actually read the books like to say what it's really about, and is the religion heavy-handed?

[MeadowR]

Unhelpfully I am going to respond only to say that I have not read the series. I did, however, own the book for a time. I just couldn't bring myself to read it because I wasn't particularly interested in moles then! But yes, if anyone wants to recommend it now?

[MathLuk]

Hmm... Duncton is written by William Horwood. I've read his duology about wolves, which contained a few quite unsubtle anti-religious passages. So I don't think Duncton is trying to push a religious message onto the reader. It could be him pushing an anti-religious message, as the religion is quite creepy, or he could be that he chose to write religious horror because it was scarier than 'vanilla' horror. In any case, I hope you enjoy the book.

[shisteer of nothing much]

I have not read it, sorry. It sounds a little bit on the graphic side, to be honest. I am highly appreciative of moles, though, so that's certainly a point in its favour.