Perhaps one of the darker books in the series so far, this story follows none other than Martin the Warrior himself, introducing the reader to the mysterious warrior's past. Martin and his new found friends must fight to overthrow the evil Badrang who rules Marshank, enslaving innocent woodlanders and treating them cruelly. As with all of Jacques books, each and every character from Rose the mousemaid, to Boldred the owl, truly come to life on the page. While the story is told from several different characters' points of view as per usual in the series, the entire storyline surrounds Badrang and the battle to overthrow him.

I'm not crying! You're crying!

Wow, this book is so amazing. The adventure, action, and all the feels.

"It's a long hard road ahead for you, little warrior. Enjoy a happy day while you can."

—Boldred, Martin the Warrior, P. 267

"Don't think about what you could have done, concentrate on what you plan to do; it is more useful."

—Boldred, P. 335

The ability of Brian Jacques to create an entirely new world that is bursting at the seams with deep, suspensefully plotted adventures, characters overflowing with originality and life, and epic, imaginative quests that could appeal to even the most hard-nosed literary cynic has almost no equal.

For nearly four hundred pages in Martin the Warrior we the readers follow on an action-packed, tightly written adventure novel, leading onward through surprising twists and turns that left me, personally, breathless and with a pounding heart. The world of Redwall is as perfect as the creation of a literary world can get, and when one thinks that the author could not possibly jam in any more exciting adventure, one will look at the page and see that he is less than halfway through reading the book!

The feeling and perspective of Martin the Warrior will resound loudly with the reader long after the final page has been completed. It is a unique literary experience that simply should not be missed, and I heartily recommend it for anyone who would ask me.

A magnificent achievement.

"Throughout his life the memory of that happy day stayed locked secretly in (his) heart."

—Martin the Warrior, P. 296

Be you a child or an adult. This is a book you will enjoy and love.

This splendid book ventures beyond the confines of the Redwall Abbey to expand the contours of the world of Redwall. Martin the Warrior's origin story breaches new terrain, showing the variety of landscapes and animals that occupy Redwall. In this book, Martin meets vicious lizards that fatten the mice for sinister purposes and pull clasps around their necks if they don't obey and eat; a lawbringer heron with strict punishments for noncompliance in his marshy domain; killer snakes and slowworms; flighty squirrels up the mountain slopes who love to play deadly games of chase; wise owls in caves; stingy old hedgehogs posting sentinel over lush cherry orchards; water-faring otters expertly rowing boats; sailing shrews; and the idyllic land of Noonvale where all trees, ferns and moss are at their most verdant, birdsong reigns supreme and no trouble lays. Brian Jacques' skill for description is wonderful and near unmatched. There's also the hardship of battle and war as Martin seeks both to overthrow the tyrant stoat who has flung captured innocents into slavery at the pits, and at the same time Martin must seek to master the hotheaded anger that leads him to take to combat at the first resort. A wonderful book to read at the onset of spring.

It's interesting to return to the Redwall books as an adult. They are still as fun-loving and adventurous as I remember even if the characters sometimes feel a flat and archetypal.

I want to begin this by saying that I was unfortunately spoiled of some of the events by siblings who had already seen the animation.

That said, I could predict many of these spoilers anyway, but that by no means prepared me for the way this book ended. This was also the fastest I've read a Redwall book, taking two days for the first third, and the binging the rest of it in a few hours. The story felt much simpler in tone, but nonetheless deep in development and characters. I cannot say much for fear of spoiling...but Brian Jacques once again went directions I did not think he would stoop to, and essentially stabbed me in the heart twice. It's going to take me awhile to recover and get back to this beloved series.

This is currently tied with Mattimeo for favorite in the Redwall series. I would give it 10 stars if I could. The feels...oh the feels...

A layered hero origin story that does everything an aspiring prequel sets out to do. Exciting and epic in scope, it works well as a stand alone story while giving more context to the world of Redwall. Having only read 2 other installments so far (Lord Brocktree and The Bellmaker), this is already fast becoming a new favourite series of mine. Despite a few pacing issues around the halfway mark, which luckily fall more into worldbuilding than filler, I can't wait to start Mossflower.

Read this as a 10 year old - and reread it as a 35 year old, and I still love these books. They are more violent than I remember!
I remembered being so excited for this one because when it came out, I'd been reading the series for a while and desperately wanted a Martin origin story. But I also remembered being disappointed - and it wasn't until the end that it happened AGAIN! You got me twice Jacques!

Highly recommend for preteens just getting into fantasy but like more action. It has a lot of good morals worked into the frame of fighting for the right things, family, friendship, and attitude.

‘Martin the Warrior’ continues my reread of ‘Redwall’ series, and while this book isn’t among my favourites, during this reread I came to appreciate a lot of its aspects that I overlooked before. Like most of ‘Redwall’ books, the story itself is divided into two plotlines that diverge and converge throughout the book: in the first one we have Martin and Rose who travel to Noonvale in search of help against Badrang, and in the second one Felldoh, Brome and their friends both inside and outside of Fort Marshank actively fight to undermine Badrang’s rule.

Fort Marshank plotline had always been my favourite, full of daring escapes and fights and intrigues between Badrang and Clogg. There are so many wonderful characters for me to follow, like Keyla and Tullgrew, the slaves who risk everything to organize an escape and lead their friends to freedom, and Ballaw and Rowanoak and other members of The Rambling Rosehip Players, travelling artists who became plotters and fighters against injustice. However, it’s Brome's character development that is my favourite by far. Brome started the book young and careless and naive in a bad way, but while he had to grow up fast, instead of hardening and becoming a warrior like Martin or Felldoh as one would expect he chose a different path by becoming a healer. Brome undoubtedly gained courage and matured a lot, but he is not a killer in his heart, and so he would rather help his friends in a different way.

My next opinion is going to be unpopular, but I’ve got to say that I never really liked Felldoh as a character because he pretty much let his hatred and desire for revenge take over him. While Keyla fights because he wants to free his fellow slaves and Martin fights because he wants to restore justice, Felldoh fights because he wants to kill as much vermin as he can and make them pay for all the seasons he suffered in slavery, and that's his main goal. In the end, it's more important to him than anything – and when Felldoh has the chance to kill Badrang after defeating him in a duel, he lets his hatred overwhelm him and opts for whipping him instead. It may sound very harsh, but after all, it were Felldoh's reckless actions that caused Keyla and Ballaw and the rest of their friends to rush to Fort Marshank in an attempt to save him and throw themselves into an unequal battle that would kill many and get the rest caught in a deadly trap. If it weren’t for Martin and his army arriving in the nick of time to save the day, all of them would’ve died because of Felldoh.

Compared to the danger-filled Marshank subplot, the story of Martin and Rose’s journey to Noonvale never seemed very exciting to me, as in its core lays the quest/journey plotline typical for Redwall books. However, Martin and Rose's plotline is more focused on character development, and it’s only after the reread that I truly began to appreciate Rose as a character and not just Martin’s love interest. Rose shows great strength of character from the very beginning of the story, when she leaves her home to search for her younger brother Brome, till its end, when she makes a choice to fight for what she believes in. She is kind and gentle, yet so brave and firm and even fierce in her own way. Martin’s character, however, isn’t so strong here, since he is still young and reckless and he has to go through a lot before he grows into a mature and steadfast warrior we meet in ‘Mossflower’, but it’s his journey here that builds his character. And I really love how Martin and Rose’s subtle romance was integral to the story without overwhelming it – never once do they confess their love or speak about it, the closest to the romantic scene they get is holding hands, and yet their affection and the strength of bond between them shines through their interactions and the way they speak of each other. The reread definitely made me appreciate and love their relationship more.

And in the end, two words about the villains. Badrang the Tyrant and Cap'n Tramun Cuttlefish Clogg are the ones that drive the plot of the book, whether they are acting in agreement or try to outsmart each other, and while their power play is not as impressive as the mental chess game that Emperor Ublaz and Rasconza led in 'Pearls of Lutra', it was certainly engaging to follow. Unfortunately, Badrang doesn’t exactly stand out to me as a villain – he is not as cunning as Slagar, for example, or as strong a fighter as Cluny the Scourge or even as savage as Gulo. Tramun Clogg, on the other hand, is an awesome old seawolf that's so charismatic and memorable that he always steals the show when he appears, even if he never manages to get an upper hand over Badrang. Maybe that's why it's easy to like him – while Clogg is definitely a villain, he never becomes as much of a threat to the heroes as Badrang. But even though their struggle ultimately ends with Badrang’s triumph and Clogg’s misery, let's not forget that Clogg is one of the few beasts to escape the battle of Marshank alive – so what if his apparent madness was just a trick he used to avoid fighting in a hopeless battle that he had no chance of surviving? We would probably never know, but I like the idea that the old corsair outsmarted Badrang in the end.

Badrang and Clogg are not the only villains of the story, however – upon reread I was surprised at just how many 'grey' woodlander characters are in this book. Queen Amballa and her tribe of pigmy shrews practice slavery, squirrels of Gaw tribe harass travellers and almost kill Martin and his companions for the sheer amusement of it, and Aggril almost poisons the heroes for trespassing! Interestingly, they don't encounter punishment stricter than reprimand, and shrews and squirrels ally themselves with Martin in the final battle. Quite an interesting view, I should say!

These books are Chicken Soup For The Anthropomorphic-Animal-Loving Soul and I could not get enough of them. Still comfortable nostalgia reads! This made better use of the Redwall formula than most, partly because the semi-sympathetic treatment of a couple of the vermin characters gave that side a bit more nuance, partly because there's a real melancholy running through Martin's story. Knowing his legacy ups the poignancy factor of seeing him here, at the beginning of his journey.

(All right, technically this book about talking rodents still managed to turn up for the Women Mousemaidens In Refrigerators trope and now that I'm all growed up I know I should feel some kind of way about that...but tbh I feel like my overriding concern here is Man, I can't believe Brian Jacques made me ship two mice. )

Thank you Brian Jacques this one was cool as fuck