“The Rogue Crew” by Brian Jacques

This is the last book in the Redwall series, Jacques died after finishing it. I think it’s a great tale to end on.

The Rogue Crew from the title refers to a gang of otters up on the High North Coast who spend their time fighting vermin and all that jazz. There’s a bunch of comparisons made to the Long Patrol hares since both groups are rather regimental in their ways and devote their lives to fighting evil. Unsurprisingly, they end up teaming up to fight their fiercest foe yet: the Wearat Razzid!

Meanwhile back at Redwall there’s a hedgehog who steals a whole fruitcake and then has dreams of the Wearat arriving in Mossflower! (I find this whole scenario funny.) Turns out that the Wearat has stuck wheels on his ship so that it can travel over land as well, and then he decides to head for the Abbey because that’s what all of the vermin gangs do. There is also the wonderful addition of a peaceful tribe within Mossflower, the Fortunate Freepaws who give aid to the heroes as well. I like to think that they would recur if there were any books after this.

Now there’s a lot of deaths in most of the books, but I think that there’s a couple rather poignant ones in this particular book. Warriors and the older characters die all the time, but the deaths of peaceful creatures is rarer. Seeing as how this is the last book we have, I feel that it’s appropriate.

This was a great story to go out on, you can see Jacques’ commitment to continually build this world through his creation of the Rogue Crew, but also he keeps to the history of the series as well. I got rather emotional by the time I hit the end with the reminder that Redwall Abbey will always have its doors open to any weary travelers with good hearts. I hope that Jacques is there now.

“High Rhulain” by Brian Jacques

Going out of order just a bit here, this one was published before Eulalia! but I didn’t get my hands on it until now. Whoops.

Personally I just find the whole premise of this one just a bit odd. The idea is that an otter at Redwall realizes that her destiny is to be the queen of this island of otters that are being enslaved by cats. So she travels there, frees them, and stays to be their ruler.

I guess Jacques wanted to show more of otter culture, and demonstrate how Martin the Warrior isn’t the only mythical figure in the Redwall universe. However I just have so many questions. First of all, why are all of these otters ok with having some random otter chick show up and rule them? She has no idea who they are, and hasn’t had to endure the years of slavery that they have had to. No one is making her do this either, she is doing this because she wants to, which seems suspiciously ambitious to me.

Having said that there’s more riddles in this book, which is always fun. And we are going back to the trope of freeing slaves which hasn’t really been seen since Martin the Warrior or Mossflower. There are also a lot of bird characters in this book, and I’ve always been curious about the birds in this series.

The character who takes the cake here is the possibly schizophrenic hare Cuthbert Blanedale Frunk. After the death of his daughter he begins to suffer from some mental problems, mainly that he changes his identity from time to time. Sometimes he’s a shrew sailor, or an otter captain, or a Long Patrol hare, or even a hunting badger! Despite this, the other creatures greatly respect and admire him and go along with his different transformations. I think this series as a whole does a great job of portraying characters with disabilities, I wish that there were more instances of this.

This isn’t one of the more popular Redwall books, and I can understand why. Most of the action isn’t at Redwall, and the whole otter queen thing is a little odd. However, there are some buried gems here, if you bother to look for them.

“The Sable Quean” by Brian Jacques

I really loved this book! It’s similar to the previous one I discussed in that it has a lot of shout-outs to previous Redwall stories. The characters are also excellent, and we have a new villain in the form of a sable. I don’t think there are sables in any other Redwall book, so this is fun!

First of all, there are a lot of references to Mossflower a very early story about Redwall being founded. Not to give too much away, but Corim is mentioned and even plays a significant role in the plot. The Dibbuns Against Bedtime are still at it in Redwall Abbey, it’s wonderful to see that group working their chaos.

Of course, the main aspect of this story that I loved were the characters. We get to see our first warrior mole here, in the form of Axle. He’s also the first creature that we’ve seen who is affected by the bloodwrath who isn’t a badger. Bloodwrath is when the love of battle clouds your judgement and you keep on fighting, until you die basically. It takes a strong creature to bring someone out of it, make them see sense and stop fighting. Moles often get left aside in these books, with their funny accents and love of being underground we rarely see them fight. However, Axle defies these conventions and shows that he can scrap with the best of them!

Another character who defies tropes is Buckley. Buckley is a hare from Salamandastron, but he doesn’t talk like the hares, running around saying “wot wot” and constantly eating everything in sight. That trope is soundly filled by the other hare, Diggs. Personally, I feel as though Diggs deserved a little better treatment. He is constantly made fun of, and even though we are told that he’s a great fighter, we never see him take out any vermin. He wanders into a kitchen with four vermin in it and is knocked out! I think that he probably could have taken down at least one of them. Having said that he does play a key role in some conflicts, so I guess I could forgive this.

The final trope buster that I want to talk about is the mad hedgehog. Hedgehogs are usually the good guys, although it can vary slightly, some are more self-serving. But for all that, I don’t think there’s another hedgehog character out there who is just plain evil. The one we find here is brutal, he kidnaps some kids and tries to make them his slaves. He even threatens to throw a baby mouse to a bunch of pikes!

Finally this isn’t a character, but the ending is rather unconventional for fantasy books (although it does stick with several themes that run throughout the Redwall series). Buckler goes up against the big bad, Zwilt the Shade, an evil sable. He had killed Buckler’s brother previously, so Buckler had sworn to kill Zwilt himself. Zwilt grabs a baby hedgehog as a hostage and threatens to kill him unless Buckler gives himself up, which he does. Zwilt is just about to kill them both when Clarinna, Buckler’s sister-in-law, stabs him with the sword of Martin the Warrior. Clarinna claims that she didn’t remember anything, that it was the spirit of Martin acting through her. This is unusual for several reasons, first of all, the act celebrated here is not defeating an enemy, but Buckler’s willingness to give himself up for the baby. Second of all, it isn’t Buckler, the warrior hare, who deals the killing blow but Clarinna, a hare who has lived on a farm for several years and wants to live a peaceful life. But this killing blow also isn’t really attributed to her either, but to Martin the legendary protector of the Abbey. What this means is that peacefulness and love are celebrated, far above fighting and murder which end up self-destructing in the end.

(This is actually related to the idea of the bloodwrath, which afflicts mighty warriors and indicates that there is something self-destructive in violence. Very insightful for a children’s series. In other books you also see the big bad being killed indirectly, or even at their own hand, just to show how destructive violence and evil wishes can be. Even in this book, the way the Sable Quean of the title dies is with her own poisoned dagger, not directly from any good character.)

Having made it this far into the Redwall series, I think this indicates how Jacques started playing with the conventions and tropes of his books. We clearly went through a bit of a cookie cutter phase, thank goodness that with these two books we have come out of it and emerged into a phase of playing with and even defying his conventions rather than sticking to them. Which makes me love these books even more.

“Doomwyte” by Brian Jacques

Honestly this story is just what I’ve wanted in a Redwall book recently. Jacques here returns to the format of some of the earlier stories: with riddles and quests and friends!

We first meet Bisky, a young mouse from Redwall who is telling a story about Gonff, Prince of Mousethieves, stealing the eyes from a raven and a snake. Gonff appears throughout the story, Bisky claims that he’s a descendent of him, along with old Samolus Fixa. Some of his descendants were banished from Redwall for stealing, creating the Gonfelin tribe of mice! Having Gonff back in is great, Jacques once said that he was modelled after the author, and is one of his favorite characters.

A new tribe of mice outside of Redwall is a welcome addition to the world, it’s been so long since we’ve been introduced to any novel ways of life outside of the Abbey. The Gonfelins are a band of mice who steal, but are honorable about it. They’re rowdy and humorous (all of their names end in “o” for no particular reason I can tell) and I really hope that they’re in more stories.

The main quest is to find these jewels that Gonff stole from a raven and a snake, which involves following riddles and clues to their locations. It’s so nice to watch characters solve a riddle again! And having some of them throughout the Abbey is very reminiscent of Redwall with the clues to Martin’s sword hidden around.

Speaking of connections to other stories, the Painted Ones have returned from Mattimeo and are antagonizing our heroes again. They haven’t changed a bit. The snake Baliss is compared to Asmodeus (from Redwall) a number of times as well. On a happier note, the Dibbuns Against Bedtime (from Triss I believe) are back at it once more. It’s so nice having connections to the previous books, reminds you that this is all part of one universe.

The story in general is wonderfully written! There are many characters, each of whom gets their chance in the spotlight as the riddles lead on, and various foes come into play. This fleshes out all of them into their own personalities, and I never got them mixed up as a result. There’s the owl that joins the Abbey, the first (and only) dormouse Abbot, and a hare from the north that becomes Abbey Warrior. The characters have always been the best part of this series, but since they are in a plot that serves them well all of them become twice as lovable.

I think I have gone off about this enough, I really enjoyed this story, it’s a classic Redwall tale that plays off of the fun tropes. So it remains connected to the rest of the series, but goes off on its own enough to establish it as its own story.

Variations on a Theme: Songs to Belt

With this playlist, I tried to highlight songs that you don’t usually think of when you want to just scream along a little. Everyone knows the Ke$ha and the Madonna ones, but I hoped to introduce you to a little something different to pull out the next karaoke night.

1. “Hollywood” by Jukebox the Ghost

This is actually one of my favorite songs from this band. The contrasting styles present, and how well it illustrates the subject of the lyrics, make it stand apart from the rest. The song is about how having a Hollywood relationship would really just break your heart rather than be like it is on screen. So there is the slow, dramatic intro, and then a rollicking chorus that interjects. It is so fun to sing along to (the repetitiveness helps as well) and to just belt a lil.

2. “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” from Anything Goes!

Similar to the last one, this song starts off slow and then really gets going. Anything Goes! is one of my favorite musicals, with music by the impeccable Cole Porter. This part of the musical is when the characters seem in dire straits, but then the token nightclub singer comes out and sings a rousing chorus to get everyone in good spirits again, this time with a hefty dose of spirituality thrown in. I think it’s wonderful, and having been in the chorus for this number it is iconic and so much fun!

3. “Oh! Darling” by The Beatles

This is Paul’s song to his wife, Linda. It’s also a bit of a pastiche, not exactly the Beatles’ usual style. It was also written while they were in the middle of breaking up, so there is very little Lennon influence on this, awkwardly enough. It’s definitely not my favorite Beatles tune, but it’s so fun to sing along to.

4. “Water Under the Bridge” by Adele

An Adele song was probably a prerequisite on this playlist. Nearly everything that she does sounds great and involves belting. I particularly like this one because I think it keeps being overlooked. Think about it, usually other songs come to mind when you think of Adele. But the balance of this song and the harmonies are just so good here!

5. “Take On Me” by a-ha

Often covered, here’s a-ha’s biggest hit! It’s inspired things like this funny video among others. I still think it’s so good, and if you are saying that you haven’t done that silly dance while screaming the lyrics you are either lying or haven’t really lived yet. Get on out there and do it!

6. “Schumacher the Champagne” by The Wombats

I love this band and all that they do. This is from one of their earlier albums, and it’s just such an unashamedly sleazy song. It’s so satisfying to scream “take me as I am! Or not at all!!!” and own your faults.

7. “As We Stumble Along” from The Drowsy Chaperone

“The Drowsy Chaperone” was a musical made to embody all of the tropes of the musical genre. And this was made to be the rousing number. So of course it’s on this playlist. Seriously though, I love this song and this whole production in general. Because even though it was made to be a cliché, it’s still so relatable and good!

8. “The Good Life” by Frank Sinatra

There had to be a Sinatra song on here. This is one of his lesser known ones, still a fun song to sing and belt to. Especially the end. One of the issues I ran into with this playlist was that it just keeps building so it’s hard to put some kind of a progression to it. Thankfully, this song starts more mellow so it flows alright and doesn’t just leave you constantly at the top of the hype.

9. “Movin’ Out” by Billy Joel

Billy Joel has a couple of good yelling songs out there, thought I’d throw this one into the mix as well. It’s so good and so gratifying to sing, very cathartic. Not many belting songs are so snarky as this one, makes a nice change.

10. “What a Catch, Donnie” by Fall Out Boy

Ah yes, this song. If you didn’t spend some of your pop punk phase with Fall Out Boy, you’re probably lying. It’s a classic, you all probably know it, just enjoy it.

And that the belting playlist done with! Hope it was cathartic and fun for you. Next month we will be covering classical saxophone pieces so keep an eye out for that! (Yeah I know that classical music is a drag, but classical saxophone is so underappreciated that this is happening.)