The book, called "Ember's End," is the finale of a four-volume tale known as The Green Ember series. The saga details the battle of noble rabbits against their murderous enemies - primarily large birds of prey, but wolves, other rabbits, and other creatures as well.
IF you are considering reading this series ever, STOP reading now, for there will be spoilers.
Consider yourself warned.
Today's conclusion was a big moment for me. I think it's the first time I had to wait for the next book in a series to come out. This marks the first time I ever pre-ordered a book. This is not the first time, but it is one of the bigger times I felt like I had a story that I could potentially spoil for others. And this is one of the only authors with whom I have corresponded on their works. There were many firsts with this series. One of the biggest "firsts" happened with the first book, however. Two years ago, when I first began reading the original, "The Green Ember," I had serious flashbacks to another series I had loved to read while growing up: the Redwall series, by Brian Jacques.
There will not be a bracket for these two series (at least, not at this time), but I would like to compare and contrast them and their respective qualities.
Similarities
It might be best to point out what it is about both sets of books that reminds me one of the other. Both Redwall and The Green Ember series are anthropomorphic accounts of woodland creatures in a "medieval" setting - think swords, catapults, battles, etc. Both series include characters that are noble and vile, and the main conflict generally centers on the battle between good and evil. Herbivorous creatures in these tales are generally on the side of "good," and carnivorous creatures generally fall in the realm of "evil" (a notable exception in the Redwall series being the otters, who are "good" creatures). As one can see, the essential trappings of both series are very similar in a general sense.
However, story structure and other elements line up amazingly well, too. Quests are a big part of these stories, as are the singing of songs and even messages or visions related through dreams. Seer characters and religious orders pop up in both, as do references to ancient heroes of the past. In both sets, stories/the story usually begins with some group of young creatures - innocent and happy - who find themselves plunged into danger and in need of some serious maturation. I would also like to point out that the reader can detect definite improvements in the authors' respective writing styles as one progresses through the series. Illustrations are featured in both sagas.
Even with these similarities, though, I have decided that there are some areas of weakness in both series, and these weaknesses are highlighted because those same areas are often relative strengths for the other work.
What Redwall Does Well
The Redwall series has a lot going for it. It includes 22 books and features a wide variety of creatures in its cast, including mice, hares, badgers, otters, squirrels, shrews, moles, hedgehogs, ferrets, rats, weasels, foxes, wildcats, and others. When I read the books, I felt pretty comfortable with my assumption that Jacques included most of the forest creatures to be found in Great Britain in this series, and therefore figured I had something close to a complete picture of the world. And his world-building was pretty good. As there are many books, and they are all stand-alone stories (but sometimes featuring connections via characters carried over from the previous story in the timeline), a lot of time passes; the maps are different in details, but the main locations stay the same. Redwall is pretty central. A path runs by it on one side, and open space lies on another, with Mossflower wood reaching around other parts of it. Salamandastron is in the south. The sea is to the west. In these essential respects, Jacques stays consistent.
Jacques also works well with multiple story lines. In a typical book, he would have two to three storylines going at once. There is always one for a stationary location - usually Redwall or Salamandastron - which is typically under attack, one for the questing group, and sometimes one for the villain. These lines diverge and remain separate for much of the story, but they converge at some point or another. Jacques switches between storylines easily and did not really spend too much time on one over another. He made use of these breaks to build suspense when appropriate - this is good, but as we'll see later, he does not take it to the level of The Green Ember.
I'll finish up with some of my favorite parts of the Redwall books: food and festivals. Jacques' books are full of delicious food descriptions. I have never tried deeper'n'ever, turnip'n'tater'n'beetroot pie, but I would pay money to have my own slice. Listen to the musicality of that name! Feast descriptions are paragraphs long and give details about everything from the cheeses and main course to the drinks and desserts. Jacques knew how to describe a spread, and he never disappointed me in that regard. Finally, one of the best parts of the book was the end. At the conclusion of every Redwall novel, there is a celebration. Yes, there is food, but food alone does not a festival make. The party lasts for multiple days, but length of time does not create a proper feast, either. Perhaps the most important element in these feasts is the sense of homecoming. After suffering many trials and surviving manifold dangers, the heroes return home to Redwall and celebrate with their loved ones. The friends who were left behind at the Abbey often have to wait a long time to see their return, and Jacques builds the sense of expectation beautifully. After impatience and longing, all are reunited and healed, and the time to celebrate begins. The festival requires many elements to achieve the right tone: food in abundance, joy and games, good company, sometimes the bittersweet remembrance of fallen friends, and a sense of peace achieved. There is usually some afterword that details how happily things have developed at the Abbey since the threat of evil was destroyed, and then an invitation to the reader to come visit Redwall Abbey again. This final note often breaks the fourth wall, but it feels nice to be considered "welcome" the next time I read a Redwall book.
What Redwall Does Not Do as Well
While I noted that Jacques had been pretty consistent in world-building as far as locations on the map go, I would say that there are some internal inconsistencies that I have noticed. In the first half or two-thirds of the series, he refers to the afterlife as the "Dark Forest." It seemed to me that all creatures, whether good or evil, ended up in this place after death. However, there comes a point when he drops references to the Dark Forest and refers to "Hell" or "Hellgates" for evildoers and...well, there's no reference to any afterlife regarding those who lived well. Another case of inconsistency occurs with the characters of "Mariel of Redwall" and "The Bellmaker." These stories are some of the few that actually happen very close in time to each other, and therefore, there's a lot of carryover in the character department. Unfortunately, if one reads these books one after another, the reader feels that the Mariel and co. of one book are very different from the Mariel and co. of the other. Looking at publication order, Jacques wrote other books in the series between these two, so my guess is that by the time he made it back to the same characters, he'd probably lost a sense of their unique qualities, which resulted in some pretty flat characters in "The Bellmaker." These are the main consistency errors that come to mind for Redwall.
What The Green Ember Does Well
The Green Ember series includes four full-length novels and follows a single storyline. S. D. Smith wrote smaller novellas that supplement the reader's background knowledge of the world of Natalia, but my focus will be on the four main books. As a whole, I think the series' main good quality is that it is an exciting adventure from start to finish. There is nothing formulaic about them, even if you can sometimes tell what direction the story is heading in or what will happen to a certain character. Every location was exciting for me to explore in my imagination. I'm not quite sure how he does it, but reading his books was almost like a feeling of addiction for me - I really did not want to put them down (placing chapter breaks and switching storylines at critical moments probably helps). I needed to know what happened next. Smith, like Jacques, did some great world-building, and his maps are definitely helpful references.
Another area in which The Green Ember excels is in keeping focus in its long-arc storytelling. I sometimes felt like I was being hit over the head with his theme, but the idea that the heroes endure all this suffering for the hope of the "Mended Wood" is well established from the beginning and continues throughout the books. Smith does something that Jacques did not accomplish - and did not even really attempt - he tells one lengthy story. Writing stand-alones is no bad thing, but Smith took on a large project and did well on it.
Character development is an area that, compared with Jacques, Smith does a great job with. Some characters are a little more flat, but the main ones, particularly Picket and Helmer, definitely see a lot of change. And while both Redwall and The Green Ember paint some pretty high stakes, I would say that The Green Ember wins in making the odds feel impossibly daunting and creating a sense of desperation should the heroes fail. In some ways, the dangers faced by Green Ember characters feel more real than those faced by Redwall characters. There is a better feel of the politics involved to get things going of the real disagreement that happens even when people are on the same side. And, in moments when characters might be prone to despair, Smith never fails to present voices of hope that say that things may turn out right in the end.
What the Green Ember Does Not Do as Well
One of the main things I missed from The Green Ember was the variety of creatures Jacques presented. In Natalia, there seem to be four main creatures: rabbits, birds of prey, wolves, and lizards. That's it. The story was plenty riveting with this limited palette, but I couldn't help but wonder what the story might have looked like if there were other kinds of creatures invested in this war.
Another element I struggled with was how Smith handled storylines. He would spend multiple chapters at a time focused on one group, then cut to a completely different set for a while. This was a good strategy for building suspense, but I think this technique also led to some important moments happening offstage, such as when Heather's father shows up and we discover he has been appointed as the new Tunneler, a vital position that was the result of a fraught decision that the reader does not get to see. To have shown more of the scene would have slowed down the narrative, but I felt like there were several deus ex machina moments that came from this style of writing.
Granted, at the end of the fourth book, Smith credits Tolkien as his "master," and as a major Tolkien fan myself, I definitely had his idea of eucatastrophe in mind while reading Smith's books. (Eucatastrophe is the occurrence of everything suddenly and completely going right when is seems like it will go wrong; it is the opposite of a catastrophe.) However, there were more instances of this device than I thought were good for the story. At the final battle, there really did need to be a eucatastrophe for anything good to survive (refer above to heightened stakes), but the appearance of a miracle flower that just happens to heal terrible wounds...the fact that some random character who appears out of nowhere just happens to have a bag of its seeds...that was a little much.
Along with these elements, I felt there were some loose ends that Smith did not tie up, specifically in "Ember Falls." Who is the Pilgrim? Emma knew, but I did not at the end. What happens to the things Heather stuffed into her bag in the dragon tomb? What was rabbitkind's best defense against the dragons, to which Lander referred? What were the significance of Heather's dreams? The list goes on. Perhaps these were intentionally left as mysteries. Maybe Smith has some more writing to do about these questions, but for now, it seems like I'm not likely to get any answers quickly.
This last point I will bring up is flavored so much by my experience with Redwall, so I don't know how fair it is for me to mention. However, I will do so, now that I have given warning about my bias. The ending of The Green Ember series was good, but it didn't have the unbridled joy I expected in a Redwall book. Maybe it was because there was not a good description of the food at the feast - for while food does not make a festival, it is a necessary element of it. Maybe it was the fact that I wasn't able to just sit and revel in the moment with the characters - it was on to the next bit of denouement before we'd really taken in the happiness. No one sat and just enjoyed the day - it was a lot of action and doing to the very end. But at least all ended well, and well beyond belief.
And actually, I have one last point: SO. MUCH. CRYING. Weeping is a great way to express deep emotion, but...there was a lot of it.
Conclusion
Redwall and The Green Ember: is one series better than the other? No. They may be better in some respects than the other when the two are compared, but they are excellent adventures about heroic deeds in the eternal battle of light against the darkness. I realize I spent a lot of time picking out flaws in The Green Ember series, but this post has been something of me pouring out my thoughts on the final book, "Ember Ends," which I just finished. None of my friends have read the final book yet, so this is my chance to "talk" about it, in a way. Don't let the number of words written in one section of this review be taken as indicative of the worth of either series. Both are excellent, and if someone enjoyed one, I would definitely recommend the other series to them. It's hard for me to switch gears and turn to other books, but I hope to dive into a Redwall book soon. Maybe I'll reread The Green Ember series in another year or two. In any case, I think I will write another letter to S. D. Smith and thank him for his work. It's important to let people know when we appreciate something they have done.
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