Triss

Enslaved by the evil ferret King Agarnu and his daughter Princess Kurda—slavers of shackled hundreds—the brave squirrelmaid Triss, along with Shogg the otter and Welfo the hedgehog, plans a daring escape by sea.

At the same time, far away in Salamandastron, three young companions, Scarum the hare, Sagax the badger and Kroova the otter, are driven to sail away from their mountain home, too, but for a different reason: they are seeking the adventures of their lives! Something far from family and home.

And in Mossflower Woods, a pair of wandering Dibbuns accidentally discovers the long-lost entrance to Brockhall, the most ancient hall of the Badger Lords.

The journeyers could not seem more remote from one another in pursuit or kind. Yet fate relentlessly draws them together when, in her flight from Kurda, Triss happens upon Redwall, and the abbey creatures discover a new hero in her. Someone brave enough to carry the sword of Martin and face the evil that threatens them.

Jacket copy from “Triss”
by Brian Jacques

I haven’t read all the Redwall novels. I read the first one, and one or two others. This is the fifteenth [!] book in the series.

The Redwall novels always make me think of the Tolkien novels and the American novel “Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH.” (“Mrs. Frisby And The Rats of NIMH” isn’t just my favorite talking animal novel, it’s one of my favorite books of all time.) But Brian Jacques writes without the heavy, portentous seriousness of those books. The Redwall novels are fun adventures. Bad things happen, but there seldom is the shadow of an all-encompassing doom looming over the story. I don’t like to compare books and films, but in this case I think the tone of the Redwall books can best be compared to the original release of the first ‘Star Wars’ film, before that saga got all complicated and dark with the ‘I am your father’ crap.

I’m reading “Triss” just because I liked the sound of, ‘the brave squirrelmaid Triss.’

I like brave squirrelmaids. But I haven’t met a brave squirrelmaid for a long time. Until a brave squirrelmaid comes my way again, this novel will have to do.

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