# Favorite red wall books?



## I Am That Is (Apr 6, 2012)

If you haven't figured it out already, I'm something of a red wall fan. So tell me, out of the 30 something books, which one is your favorite?


As for me, it's either Outcast of redwall or legends of Luke.


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## Ad Hoc (Apr 6, 2012)

Mossflower. It was the first one I read. While I enjoyed the others, none quite had the same magic for me. 

Legend of Luke was pretty cool though too, yeah.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 6, 2012)

That's near the top of my list. I actually have a copy from the original  set, published right after it came out.


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## Aldino (Apr 6, 2012)

Taggerung! People its all about Taggerung.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 6, 2012)

I'll have to re read that one. Either way,  people tend to think that fans of the first two books just like them because of the tv series. I liked those 4 (redwall, mattimeo, mossflower and Martin the warrior) long before those aired.

Its sad that the author died. I find myself wishing he had continued the ever expanding collection of awesome books.


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## Aldino (Apr 6, 2012)

I'm a huge fan of the books and I never knew about the tv series at all. How is this possible?


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## I Am That Is (Apr 6, 2012)

Aldino said:


> I'm a huge fan of the books and I never knew about the tv series at all. How is this possible?



Really? There quite old, and available on netflix and YouTube. Heres a link:





On second thought, I don't want to get banned. If you don't have Netflix, just look up red wall on YouTube. It should be the top result.


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## Aldino (Apr 7, 2012)

I'm watching these as we speak. If these ruin the books for me though we will have words though. Also you have to do something pretty bad to get banned by mods I wouldn't fret.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

Their not horrible, but they need improvement. Keep in mind these are rather old. Not as good as the books, but not bad on their own.


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## Aldino (Apr 7, 2012)

Oh, god these take me back. I'm a fan for life of these now. Also we are getting off track from the original topic. Let this be the last post about the videos unless you PM me.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

GLad you liked them. Anyway, what do you think of the latest book, the rogue crew?


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## Aldino (Apr 7, 2012)

That may be one of the few ones I haven't read. What species is the main character?


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

Aldino said:


> That may be one of the few ones I haven't read. What species is the main character?


It's his last book 
the main characters are sea otters. 

Its really sad he died, I heard he was in the middle of working on something big when he passed


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## Aldino (Apr 7, 2012)

Does he have a son or someone that will finish it? J.R.R. Tolken's son finished his last book and it was amazing.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

Aldino said:


> Does he have a son or someone that will finish it? J.R.R. Tolken's son finished his last book and it was amazing.




I don't believe so. Even if he did, I'm not sure it would be quite the same.


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## Catilda Lily (Apr 7, 2012)

I don't think I've ever actually read any.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

It's never to late to try! It's hard to gauge how many people actually know about it, because no one mentions it unless its brought up specifically.


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## CampionL (Apr 7, 2012)

My favorites?

Mattimeo, Martin the Warrior, The Bellmaker, Salamandastron, Outcast, Long Patrol, Taggerung, Rakkety Tam, High Rhulain, Eulalia!, Doomwyte, and The Sable Quean. I've only partially read The Rogue Crew, so I can't comment on that yet.

I can say that the last 5 on that list is where Jaques took Redwall darker and edgier, and IMHO, makes a more fulfilling read---not that the others didn't have their charm. Jaques DOES play with a dark premise and setting starting with Mattimeo, but he really only touches upon in in some books up until Taggerung, which was not really dark, but did flirt with it. However, he starts laying into dark heavily in Rakkety Tam.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

Ah, Rakkety tam. That one was too, although Its been a long time since I've read it. Didn't the antagonist get his head lobbed off with a shield? 
I do agree with the darkness aspect. Earlier on, it was more of a good versus evil black and white conflict. No one was truly evil, If you know what I mean. Doomwhyte was another good one.


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## jcfynx (Apr 7, 2012)

Redwall is how I got into animal people in the first place, in the Internet bronze age of 1996. Before some of you were born, perhaps. Gosh that makes me old.

I personally Jacques' sophomore work, Mossflower. The original Redwall was too unpolished and lacked character; later books were mostly rehashes and prequels using the same cookie-cutter characters. Martin the Warrior was to be the basis of most of his future heroes and heroines. Most authors seem to blow their best ideas on their first novel; Jacques seemed to plateau with his second.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

hm... That's true when you think of it. Although not all of the sequals are cookie cutter martin characters. An example would be Outcast of Redwall. The main character was evil yet not.


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## CampionL (Apr 7, 2012)

I Am That Is said:


> Ah, Rakkety tam. That one was too, although Its been a long time since I've read it. Didn't the antagonist get his head lobbed off with a shield?
> I do agree with the darkness aspect. Earlier on, it was more of a good versus evil black and white conflict. No one was truly evil, If you know what I mean. Doomwhyte was another good one.



It wasn't lobbed off, per se. Tam didn't intend for the shield to do so, but with how they landed, it's how things worked out. Something of a duex ex machina, but a rather effective one.

I would agree that no one was evil; they were just going about their daily lives. However, with how many of the books play out, it's much like saying that a rapist is not evil; what they do is. Now, that said, there were some in the horde that actually had good hearts, and lived with the Redwallers full-time. 



jcfynx said:


> I personally Jacques' sophomore work, Mossflower. The original Redwall was too unpolished and lacked character; later books were mostly rehashes and prequels using the same cookie-cutter characters. Martin the Warrior was to be the basis of most of his future heroes and heroines. Most authors seem to blow their best ideas on their first novel; Jacques seemed to plateau with his second.



You're right, in that that plots did tend to mirror each other in many of them. This the beautiful aspect of the latter 5 that I posted; they don't follow that formulaic plot anymore, and are pretty original. The latter 10 books get away from having puzzles thrown in to fill time.

As for the heroes, yeah, in many of the books, they do seem cookie-cutter, but with their own unique quirks. I can't blame Jaques for doing so since it's a common character archetype progression to go from meek to brave. Plus, you do have to remember that Redwall IS meant for the 8-12 crowd. You can't get too deep with your characters in that age range. 

The hero gamut does run the full range:

Several were meek abbey dwellers, who wouldn't hurt a fly, are generally young (10-14-ish,) and are thrust into things by premonitions of Martin. (Too many to name)

Some were promoted from within the family. (Mattimeo, but he proved his worth earlier.)

Several were outsiders who reluctantly took up the cause. (Rakkety Tam, Mariel)

Several were born bad-ass to begin with. (Rakkety Tam, Mariel, The hares who took up the sword)

Mariel is an exceptional bad-ass since she used a ROPE.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

Yeah. The riddle thing did get a bit annoying, since I guessed them chapters ahead of the characters. Its good he started to branch off of the typical hero/heroine line, as they were rather predictable. Mosssflower is indeed one of my favorites, and one of the first one's I'd read. As I said before I found a copy from the original publishing year. As for the rogue crew, I haven't finished it either, so I have yet to pass judgment, but some of his most recent books such as Doomwhyte I enjoyed and seemed to lack that Martin path the others had.


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## Aldino (Apr 7, 2012)

In all honesty the only thing I could say negative about the series is the songs and riddles. They can get repetative and annoying in some of his novels.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

Oh, don't get me started. I Usually skim over the songs, and the riddles are more of a subplot due to the fact that they are usually blatantly obvious. At least we don't have to actually listen to the songs.


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## CampionL (Apr 7, 2012)

I Am That Is said:


> At least we don't have to actually listen to the songs.



You haven't seen the Audio books, then.

Actually, since I mention that, what frustrates me more than anything with the audio books is that for the young characters, it's done by voice actors who don't even make a decent attempt to sound young. Dammit, if the character is 10-14, give the role to someone that can actually pass that character as 10-14, or use a real kid! It's not hard.


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## Vivian Ferrox (Apr 7, 2012)

Oh God, I love that series! My favorite Redwall book would be _Triss._My teacher let me borrow it and I soon became hooked on the series!


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## I Am That Is (Apr 7, 2012)

Vivian Ferrox said:


> Oh God, I love that series! My favorite Redwall book would be _Triss._My teacher let me borrow it and I soon became hooked on the series!



Interesting. I found out about the series long ago, my sister gave me _Lord Brocktree _for my bday. Got hooked, and started checking them out at school, and they had every book that was available back then, so I read most of them within the span of 1 or two months XD.


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## Zydala (Apr 7, 2012)

Mariel of Redwall was my favorite - always wished there were more female main characters  I think Mossflower would be my second favorite. I maybe read seven or eight of them? I think - Redwall, Mattimeo, Mossflower, Martin, Outcast, Mariel, The Bellmaker and I _think_ I read Salamandastron but I can't remember enough to actually say I did haha. If there were more female protagonists after those then I just didn't read about 'em I guess haha.


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## Aldino (Apr 8, 2012)

Yeah I agree. If Redwall ever came out on audio book I would never listen too it.


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## Ad Hoc (Apr 8, 2012)

Hey, when did everyone start reading them? I started when I was 10, I think. I have a younger cousin who I've always meant to introduce to them, but he's 14 now (I don't see him often) and I dunno if that's too far outside the age window to really get hooked.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 8, 2012)

Well, It was my 12th birthday when my sister gave me that book. from there I checked them all out at my school library. I'm sure the librarian thought I was strange, because every other day I returned and checked out another one.


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## Ad Hoc (Apr 8, 2012)

Google is telling me that the recommended age group is everywhere from 8 to 16. In retrospect, I remember my pa used to read them after I did; he would have been in his 40s. It was really light reading for him (dude's read tomes like Atlas Shrugged and Anna Karenina) but it must have been enjoyable or he wouldn't have kept it up. Maybe it really is an all-ages book.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 8, 2012)

Really? My parent's always got irritated when I read them. They don't like anything much other than non fiction or historical fiction. But yeah, they are not the most challenging, They were easy when I started reading them, but then I've been a big book nerd for a long time, and was scoring 15000 in the lexile scores back then 0_o

Also, I know Ad Hoc from somewhere. Isn't it a networking thing?


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## Ozriel (Apr 8, 2012)

Aldino said:


> Yeah I agree. If Redwall ever came out on audio book I would never listen too it.



Compared to most audio books, it isn't bad. The Audio Book adaptions were on the radio too before, and later adapted into audio CDs. I liked listening to them and I managed to save "Taggerung" on my Ipod.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 8, 2012)

I went on audible and found out that almost all of them are on there. I might buy one, seeing as they were narrerated by Brian Jaques. Although listening to a sample, the sound quality is rather horrible. 
EDIT: forgot how old the books were *facepalm*


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## Ad Hoc (Apr 8, 2012)

I Am That Is said:


> Really? My parent's always got irritated when I read them. They don't like anything much other than non fiction or historical fiction. But yeah, they are not the most challenging, They were easy when I started reading them, but then I've been a big book nerd for a long time, and was scoring 15000 in the lexile scores back then 0_o
> 
> Also, I know Ad Hoc from somewhere. Isn't it a networking thing?


My pa is one of those rare, wonderful people who never lost their curiosity. Dude reads Tolstoy as happily as he reads Harry Potter, there isn't much he won't give an honest try. 

I don't really use the name Ad Hoc outside of furry circles. It's a Latin phrase meaning "for this," generally used in reference for solutions to unexpected problems or situations. I'd be surprised if you've never heard it before, i.e., "an ad hoc decision," "an ad hoc solution," etc., (I used it as a name because I couldn't think of a different one; it's an "ad hoc" name, ha. Ha. Ha. :B)


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## I Am That Is (Apr 8, 2012)

hm... Your lucky to have a dad like that. Mine is rather detached, and talking to him is almost more awkward than with strangers. On my birthday he asks me how old I am, because he forgot. Just things like that. I was sure Ad Hoc is a networking term.

Ah I knew it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_ad_hoc_network


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