Redwall

I recently started rereading the Redwall Series. At work, I don't need to bring a bag if my book can fit in my pocket, so the Redwall series is perfect since I have most of them in paperback, and the only ones I don't have are, in my opinion, not that important anyways (the author has kind of lost his vision and is no longer producing the same quality work).

I just finished the first book, Redwall. It was entertaining, but I have realized that it is not as good as I remember it. The story is fun, but I can definately tell it was the first attempt.

A lot of sentences have exclamation marks!
And they form new paragraphs on their own too often too!

There are also some continuity errors, especially in the size of the animals. (In no other book would an entire rat army fit inside one wagon driven by two horses.) Also, some plot advancement is too good to be true; riddles are solved too easily, and some character development needed for plot advancement is not realistic.

But for all its problems, it still remains a favorite of mine, especially since it started my love of reading. It is also necessary as it lays the groundwork for the series-- the later books build off each other (in each one, the younger generation grows up to be the older generation in the following sequel), and the prequels all have more meaning when you know the future events. A good concept comparison is that Star Wars I-III are a lot better if you have seen IV-VI first, although the cheese factor in the first three don't compare to the Redwall series at all. Except that a mousethief in Mossflower loves cheese more than anything. I have also begun reading Mossflower, and many things in the writing style in Redwall that annoyed me are noticeably less poignant. I fully expect the series to continue to improve as I read in this manner.

It is also fun to reread it simply from a nostalgic point of view. Redwall introduced me to the world of reading, and it is fun to get back into it again.