I laughed, i cried, i loved every page!

I wish I could live there. Redwall is my favorite series, has been for some time, disregarding "children" niche label. Small line drawings add life and personality to "anybeast" people within.

Babies get tickled, face pirates. Brave perish.
Mouse Mariel returns, sought by father Joseph. Valiant otter Finnbarr captains the Pearl Queen.

In Redwall Abbey, feasts tempt any appetite. How can the detail of perhaps impossible recipes be so appetizing? Author skill. He paints hateworthy villains, human animals, a peaceful refuge where courage and perseverance built safety.

Typos
p 165 "Fillch shouted." but Fillch is already "slain" above, so could be "Silvamord shouted" or "One shouted", referring to "horderats

As much as I dislike Mariel of Redwall, The Bellmaker (the sequel to Mariel) is probably one of the better books in the series. It has that nice focus that Martin the Warrior had, despite its many characters and viewpoints, and the typical Irrelevant Redwall Sideplot was made more interesting by the inclusion of a “good” vermin, Blaggut.

Blaggut is one of the only vermin characters in the series that is a friend to the Redwallers. There are a couple of others, but he’s the one that stands out the most to me when I think of good vermin. The sideplot involving him and Slipp is interesting, and, like I mentioned above, makes the Redwall portion of the book bearable. I also loved the implication that evil must be, and will be, defeated by good. The Redwall series has a great aspect on justice that a lot of other books don’t have.

The only thing that really marred this book for me was perhaps the most obvious example of retconning in the Redwall series; namely, Rufe Brush. In Mariel of Redwall, Rufe was a strong, silent older squirrel who was a leader in the battle against Graypatch. He hung around with Oak Tom and the “older” Redwallers (as opposed to the “younger” ones like Dandin, Saxtus, and Durry). However, in this book, Rufe suddenly changes into this really timid, “young squirrel” who seems younger than Durry, Dandin, et. al, rather than older, and who seems to have no knowledge of fighting or courage or anything. It’s like the two Rufes are two completely different characters. I much preferred the Mariel Rufe, as this one was way too whiny.

Direct sequels seem to work out so well for Brian Jacques that I'm surprised he didn't do more. This book takes the strong cast of characters introduced in Mariel of Redwall and runs with them as he introduces more strong characters. The adventure is unique with grounded stakes, and the C-plot does a better exploration of morality question than the book dedicated to the task also while having a few scary moments that I always appreciate. It's one of the best in the series, top five at least.

More anthropomorphic animals doing horrible things to one another and consuming vast quantities of food. An oversimplification, but that's the series in a nutshell with meadowcream.
In a way, this book is 'more of the same' as the previous books. There's some bad, mean animals who want to have a despotic rule over all the others. However, what makes these stories work is the camaraderie between the characters and the richness of the world (still hung up as to the scale of these critters compared to each other - like that shark!?)
The standout in this story for me was the redemption arc of a sea rat. Something I've wanted to see since book one and glad to finally get.
This is probably my favourite of the series so far.

This was by far my least favourite in the series so far, it took me way too long to get through because I found myself just completely and utterly bored the entire time. The book could have been cut by 3 quarters and not lost anything important. I felt myself reading page after page of absolutely nothing happening and being lost. Lost not because anything complicated was happening but because it was so hard to pay attention to. There was always periods of dullness in Redwall books but they punctuated the action and adventure...this one seemed like a dull book punctuated with a few moments of action and adventure.

For one thing I could not tell you who the main character even was. The book is a revolving door of focused characters and I found myself forgetting some of the names. Was Mariel the main character? If so then there were huge swaths of the book she wasn't in at all. As for Joseph the Bellmaker, I can't even figure out why the book is named after him he seems like such a secondary character and didn't seem to do anything of special note at least not more so than any other of the 15 main characters. It almost seems like an arbitrary decision and that they tried to justify it at the end. It would be like watching Star Wars Episode 1 and at the end Yoda closes the book and goes and that was the story of Padme Amidala as told in the book Jar Jars adventure. You'd go wait she was supposed to be the main character? And why did you name it after that character?

That aside it also had other stuff that annoyed me about the other books. The mole speech and the bird speech is borderline unreadable and makes for frustrating reading everytime a mole or a bird speaks. And I still do not buy that there is a female warrior whose weapon of war is a rope...a little mouse swinging a rope isn't killing or even dazing a rat I don't care how special the knot in the rope is.

It had a few moments, to me it lost a lot of its charm and all of these books are starting to feel like they're all the exact same just getting progressively worse.

Methinks it's time for me to take a break from Redwall for a bit, although this means I won't get all of the intra-series references in the next bajillion books. But there's only so much repetition I can take before I start wondering if I've actually read this one already. Otters are scary but lovable: check. Rats are bad: check. Badgers are hell on wheels: check. There will be a sea voyage: check. There will be a tyrant who is cooked in his own pudding and good riddance: check. There will be a sadness at Redwall that is overcome by faith in...something...and a kick-ass feast: check.

The sad part about this particular book is that it does try to break some of its own molds: there's a rat who is only bad via company and is actually kind of good at heart. There's a mole who speaks without the strange Scottish rumble Jacques has decided moles have (which I happen to like, actually).

But even in breaking the norms, Jacques reinforces them. The rat is good but really only because he's a bit dim--even for a searat--and he is good but can't truly be part of the community, thus continuing to be outside and outcast (albeit by his own choice). And the mole is continually ragged on by his fellow characters and Jacques as narrator for being over-educated and rather stuffy; he has exceeded his station and can be tolerated but must not be fully accepted as who he is.

And it being called "The Bellmaker" is a little odd considering Joseph is very much a background character. I figured it would be about him and where he came from or something, as Martin the Warrior or even Mariel of Redwall was. But nope, it's a dad searching for his warrior daughter who is not more interesting but far more prevalent than he is.

The hares are better in this one, though. I like the hares.

So it took me a long time to read because I just didn't care all that much, which is sad because this one had some of the better characters of the last four or so of the series. But they just didn't have the plot support. Or the room to grow. Or enough references to deeper'n'ever pie.

Phenomenal read!

Another amazing story of Redwall! I've read these stories to my grandchildren over the years and they NEVER get old! THE BELLMAKER is one of my favorites because it sounds so real - introducing some real life tragedy within its pages that have garnered some wonderful discussions. Not to mention the attempts at making cordial, tarts, and truffles! LOL! A great book within a phenomenal series. A FIVE+STAR recommendation to be sure! Happy pages!

For me, I'm walking away disappointed. Some really fun elements and characters got bogged down by "bloat" and some really strange editing choices.

Positives included the way that Blagguts storyline finally delivered on the story we all WANTED from Dingeye and Thura previously. Finnbar stepping in as a loveable roguish pirate like we've never seen before. Joseph, the Bellmaker, getting to...sort of...be center stage.

But there's my problem. Even the titular character gets lost among parties that are too big to be tracked sensibly, a Mariel/Dandin storyline that wasted a hundred pages, a pair of villains which lacked definition, and a whole new lands which we failed to explore because we were also roping in a nautical adventure for the first time.

It all spread so thin.

For a more in-depth dive into everything, be sure to listen in as Collin, Trevor, Tiff and I dissect the story on the Books and Badgers podcast. And onwards to...oh no...The Outcast of Redwall.

*2.75 stars
I think my favorite thing about this story was Blaggut. It was nice to see Jacques break away from his vermin stereo-type and create a "good" vermin, even if there are implications that Blaggut is good because he isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch.
I actually didn't get a lot of interest out of the rest of the story, and I think much of that had to do with the fact that I have residual dislike of Mariel from Mariel of Redwall. Although the title is The Bellmaker, implying that there should be a focus on Joseph the Bellmaker, it wasn't a strong enough connection for me. I think if there had been more for the father x daughter connection between Mariel and Joseph, and a larger focus on Joseph's journey, it would possibly have made the story more interesting.

I still believe that I need a solely Dandin focused story, as I love this warrior mouse.

The Redwall books ought to be a perennial children's favorite. They are simple and formulaic, but it's a good formula! Jacques has a real gift for dialect, and culinary descriptions. I credit an early fascination with the Redwall stories for my modern-day feats of gastronomic delight. "Salad anna scone!"

One of my favorite Redwall books yet, especially since there is a searat who actually gets to have a redemptive arc! It makes it more interesting when you can't classify an animal as "good" or "bad" merely by species. There are 3 different storylines going on at once, which isn't unusual for a Redwall book, but Jacques does a marvelous job of bringing them all together.