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Albertosaurus Rex · Feb-08-2011, 08:06 AM (UTC)

Renowned children's author Brian Jacques dies, aged 71. Even though I never knew the man personally, I am actually shattered by this news. His Redwall books were a huge part of my life when I was growing up. I loved those books more than any other book in the world.

Mr. Jacques, you will be missed.

**Farseer** · Feb-08-2011, 08:27 AM (UTC)

I have never read any of his works but I wouldn't mind delving into his 'Redwall' and 'Castaways of the Flying Dutchman' stories one day not too far away. I've heard lots of good things about them...

'thul · Feb-08-2011, 08:43 AM (UTC)

something about that name is familiar, but its not the redwall books (these beings have not read them)

Albertosaurus Rex · Feb-08-2011, 09:25 AM (UTC)

He hasn't written all that much outside of Redwall. There's the Castawys of the Flying Dutchman series Farseer mentioned (Three books, but I don't think it's intended as a trilogy. However, with no more new entries ever coming out, that's what people will inevitably call it). Then there's two collections of scary stories for children and a few picture books.

Interestlingly, he also published a few collections of poetry before making his big break. He never mentioned these afterwards and it was up to one very enthusiastic fan to find out more about them, after first stumbling across one by accident. There's a whole category devoted to these at the Redwall wiki.

'thul · Feb-08-2011, 09:46 AM (UTC)

These beings may have read the first book of that castaways series, but that was many years ago.

Atthis · Feb-08-2011, 11:18 AM (UTC)

That is sad news. Although I have never read any of his books, my sister was always a huge fan of his Redwall series. She always really wanted me to read them, but somehow I've never gotten around to it (I think the number of them scared me off a bit).

On the subject of children's books about mice, has anyone ever read the Deptford Mice books by Robin Jarvis? These were the books of my childhood. I absolutely adored them. But they were so sad! - I used to cry myself to sleep after reading them.

Albertosaurus Rex · (This post was last modified: Feb-08-2011, 12:04 PM (UTC) by Albertosaurus Rex.)

The number is indeed somewhat intimidating. However, most of the books are stand-alone adventures. Only two of them are direct sequels. (Mattimeo is a sequel to Redwall and The Bellmaker to Mariel of Redwall.) Often many years pass between books, so that characters who are youngsters in one book may be old in other books. The most recent books have even larger gaps between them. Triss is set six generations after The Taggerung. Books after that change the cast completely without even informing us how much time has passed between.

Anyway, to keep a long story short: it's not one continuous storyline, just many books taking place in the same world.

**Farseer** · Feb-09-2011, 09:08 AM (UTC)

If only I'd been able to come on before I left for a school event this morning! Down

I left at 4am and not long returned home (almost 6pm here) as it was an eight-hour drive just to get there and back. While at school, I was searching in the library to see if a copy of The Golden Fool was in (as my husband is up to it and so is one of my sons but I only have the one book copy and neither one really wants to read a Kindle for PC version! Smiling

). TGF was not there but on a shelf in the same section I came across...the Redwall series! Clapping

There were so many books there that I didn't know which one to choose as my 'first' and so I left it until I could come back and ask you about chronological ordering, AR. Thanks for explaining all of that. I will have the school send me a couple of the books via the post.

Atthis, I have heard of the Deptford Mice books but have never read any of those either.

Albertosaurus Rex · (This post was last modified: Feb-09-2011, 01:36 PM (UTC) by Albertosaurus Rex.)

That's so good to hear. Allow me to say one more thing, though. The Brian Jacques fanboy in me is rearing its head again.

While it is true that the books can mostly be read in any order, I think it's most rewarding to read them in publication order. I'm also providing the in-universe chronological order.

Publication order

Chronological order

When Brian Jacques originally wrote Redwall, he thought it was only going to be a single book. As a result, things work a little differently in that book. If you read a lot of Redwall novels and then come back to the first one, you will notice some discrepancies. For example Cluny, the villain of the book, is mentioned in later books, but any mention of the horse he and his horde of rats used for transportation is carefully avoided because the later books make it clear that there are no horses in this world, let alone domesticated animals. Only when writing the second book, the prequel Mossflower, did Jacques really flesh out his world and defined how it operated.

Earlier books in the series have more connections to each other. For example, Martin the Warrior is a legendary figure in the first book, but the books Mossflower, Martin the Warrior and The Legend of Luke flesh out his life. Likewise, as I mentioned before, some characters appear in multiple books, often introduced as youngsters and the later featured as aged characters. After The Taggerung, both kind of connections became much less common and in my opnion this made the series less interesting.

That was it. Happy reading!

**Farseer** · Feb-10-2011, 12:04 AM (UTC)

Oh, that's fantastic, thanks AR. Thankful

Redwall, Mossflower and Mattimeo it is then!

It will take a couple of weeks for them to reach me but I am looking forward to getting stuck into the series (and would even drive back and get them ALL if it wasn't so far and I didn't have 1000kms to drive in the opposite direction tomorrow!).

I have to say that the books did look well-worn (though also well looked after)so many students over the years have obviously found pleasure in them.

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