I love a good saga about rabbits or moles
or mice: I love it when we are invited into their mythology and their sagas.
All those Watership Downs and Duncton Quests and Redwall Abbeys. Kieran
Larwood’s projected ‘Five Realms’ series (it’s a series! Hurray!) promises to
be a bit different in that it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world. Humans are
gone. Huge rabbits have the run of the world. It’s a kind of Planet of the Apes
scenario, with bunnyish tendencies.
It’s
a rollicking great ride this first book, with hardly a second wasted, right
from the arrival of the old story-telling rabbit in the snow, to the final
battle with rescues and magical reversals galore. It’s a lovely mash-up a
warmly familiar elements from Richard Adams and Tolkien – but with touches taken
from Star Wars, too. All of this brings a pleasingly epic quality to the
adventure.
The
thing that elevates it all above more perfunctory by-the-numbers fantasy
adventures published in recent years is the characterization. I absolutely
believe in everyone we meet here. They’re all archetypes – and recognized as
such within the story, but each one is wonderfully vivid. The three young
rabbits forced to flee their ruined home at the start – Podkin, Paz and Pook –
are immediately recognizable. What happens to the life and home they have known
is horrifying, right at the start. What happens to Podkin’s ear when they
escape is actually painful for us to read.
Our attention
stays absolutely fixed on them as they careen through the wintry wilderness
from haunted burrows to witchy hideouts. All the characters they encounter are
just as well drawn, too, I think – Mish and Mash the dwarf acrobats, Crom the
blind and noble soldier, Brigid the mysterious witch rabbit. And, above all of
them, the terrifying figure of Scramashank the Gorm Lord – a rabbit chieftain
possessed by some demonic force that manifests itself from under the earth. His
zombified hordes are rather like the Borg from Star Trek with their hideous
meshing of iron and necrotic flesh.
Who’d have thought
the spectre of Borg Bunnies hunting down the cast of Watership Down could ever
be so riveting..?
I reckon there’s
something special about this series, and I’m glad to catch it at just the right
point – with the second volume newly published, meaning I don’t have to wait
too long for the next instalment.
Comments
Post a Comment