[THE COAL THAT BURNS YOU]

ok, was it just me or does the most recent warriors books feel less than half of what they used to? i complain a lot about the series being harshly cut into "tell, not show" because i don't feel an emotional connection to any of the characters. the authors just tell us what happened. they don't go into the level of detail like the original series.

is it just me? does anyone else feel this way?

[thicketstar]

Hmm, well I haven't read anything past about half of the third series so I'm not sure I have a valid opinion. Could you maybe mention any specific books because I honestly don't even know how many series are out anymore O.O

[THE COAL THAT BURNS YOU]

the third series begins to dip in quality, but many blame the fourth series for when things start to get bad, the fourth series is bland, uninteresting, despite having a great plot arc... it COULD be great, if the authors actually went into detail and fleshed out the characters more. like sol. sol could have been a great villain, but he was never really explained fully. the 5th series is also severely dry, with only clearsky being the fleshed out character, and that's saying a lot considering he was A 2D bad guy. the 6th series is on its way, and many of the super editions are so lack luster they aren't even captivating. the best book was bluestar's prophecy, which was extremely detailed and used a lot of flowery language. the worst, in my opinion, being yellowfang's secret.

[little ulv]

no, i feel this way too. but it's not just warriors - a lot of fiction out there seems to have taken on this 'telling not showing' style, and it's disheartening to read something from an author(s) that you know were once good, and passionate, and brought you into the world they were writing about, and then suddenly, there's no more detail than if a nine year old wrote it for school. it's kind of annoying. i haven't read a lot of the books past the power of three, and while i probably will to just keep up to date, i have to say that the quality has really went down.

[THE COAL THAT BURNS YOU]

i've been sticking with classics for this reason, so i haven't actually seen the decline in writing effort, i suppose we are in the era of "fast food books," haha, since quick narratives are easier to get through?

[BADGERPAW]

hm, though it might just be me I thought things picked up a bit in the fourth series--well sorta. they had a lot of what I call swings-and-misses (don't get me started on the "final battle" I've never been angrier at a squandered apropos moment in my entire life tbh). I found Ivypool interesting and relatable myself, but there were a lot of places (like you said) where the Hunters seemed to barely touch on something and I'd get excited all "You've got something here!" and then there'd be no delivery, or the delivery would end up being so anti-climatic I'd be disappointed.

I did like Dawn of the Clans though--in terms of story-telling and characters it was a lot better. I'm hoping that the newer series will go in that direction a bit because I actually cared about (and hated) many of the characters in that particular series. I'd like to see great character ideas like Ivypool get some justice to her and I'm interested to see where they go with Sparkpaw and Alderpaw but -shrug-

There were some good arcs, but agreed a lot of the time they just seemed to... tell it really quickly. The emotional build-up tended to be lacking (even for big things like Hollyleaf's arc which was pretty good) and gave the whole series an air of being rushed (PARTICULARLY THE LAST BOOK, which honestly should have just been happening over the course of the entire series not really quickly in the last few chapters ugh).

SIDENOTE: honest to god the first thing I want to do with my degree is contact them somehow and BEG them to let me please please please just read their things before they publish them to make sure they're not completely messing up the continuity. I am absolutely mortified at Graystripe calling Mistyfoot his daughter, utterly horrified, there is no excuse that is ignoring two incredibly major plot points of the first two series I cannot believe this happened

OTHER SIDENOTE: if you like Warriors actually I really recommend Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams. It's phenomenal and has really good lore in it (The Wild Road by Gabriel King is also really good). Those are both cat fiction geared at older audiences but I loved them because they really appealed to the part of me that dug the first Warriors series ;A;

[THE COAL THAT BURNS YOU]

i really thought bramblestar's storm was the next best super edition beside bluestar's prophecy. bramble basically reminded me of simba in tlk2, where simba is trying to do everything mufasa would have, or at least should have. it gave bramble a side we'd never seen, a side that revered firestar, despite his kinship with tigerstar. i think bramble was one of the few characters who was clearly well thought, because his entire arc was "do you defy your heritage or acknowledge it needs to change?" because the big question was: would bramble walk in the shoes of tiger, or set a new path for himself?

as far as series 4 goes, i think the last few books were good, with the sol arc and the battle, but the series itself was severely jumping off the deep end. i think most of us "oldies" do not embrace or accept the "magical power" idea the erins threw in order to compete (i assume) with other anthropomorphic fantasies and fit themselves into the "fantasy" genre better? i mean, honestly--if you compare warriors to redwall, warriors falls on its face. HARD. just because it's a "children's series" doesn't mean it should be written ONLY for children :/.

[Deleted]

i began losing interest in the books a short time after the clans moved to the lake. i think i stopped reading all together when lion, jay, and holly became warriors (tbh, i don't even remember their warrior names) - or whenever hawkfrost. i can definitely feel where you're coming from though, i stopped having a connection with the characters. i mostly found that the older characters i was fond of completely lost their personalities when the viewpoints shifted into the next generations. firestar was amazing and you got to see his growth - and then he turned into a flat, dimensionless character when the focus shifted away from him. and so on and so forth.

i also never really got into the whole powers deal, so there's that. beyond that, i have no idea what the series became, because i didn't keep up with it.