Willow (TV series)

Occurs over two decades after the events of the film, and continues the adventures of the eponymous halfling sorcerer Willow Ufgood as he travels with future Empress Elora Danan and others beyond their home. Was fairly beautiful and enjoyable, and I would continue watching it were it to continue in some format (supposedly canceled or on hiatus).

Salamandastron

Salamandastron by Brian Jacques
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like other Redwall prequels, Salamandastron opens with characters in the "present," a Nameday for the season being imminent, the Dibbun mole Burrem wanting a dormouse friar to tell him a story, after which the action goes back into the past. The main action opens with the weasel warlord Ferahgo the Assassin fresh from killing a badger husband and wife, Urthound and Urthrun, in the Southwest Forest, with their offspring, a striped badger and an albino, left to fend for themselves. Seasons pass since this winter, with Lord Urthstripe governing Salamandastron alongside his adoptive badger daughter Mara.

In the meantime, Abbess Vale succeeds Abbot Saxtus as head of Redwall, with the Abbey having gone without a badger Guardian for some time since the death of Mother Mellus. Samkim the squirrel and Arula the mole cause mischief and are punished by working in the Infirmary with Hollyberry. Mara, being rebellious towards her foster father, is on the road with the hare Pikkle, with a weasel named Klitch and a ferret named Goffa from the Southwest Lands offering to join their entourage and wanting to see her adoptive home of Salamandastron. When she returns home with her companions, Urthstripe is outraged with ferrets, weasels, stoats, rats, and foxes considered "vermin."

Back at Redwall, stoat deserters from Ferahgo's army named Dingeye and Thura are invited into Redwall for their Nameday feast, although things predictably go awry, and the remainder of the novel is slightly predictable especially if seasoned readers of the series have read other books, whether prequels or sequels to the original Redwall alike. It's certainly not a bad novel and can satisfy the drought of fantasy novels featuring talking animals, although as with other entries of the series, it depicts specific animals in black-and-white terms like Tolkien did so in his Lord of the Rings books. Even so, fans of the series will take delight.

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