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Redwall #4

Mariel of Redwall

brian jacques gary chalk

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In the fourth volume of the epic Redwall saga, a mouse-ship is attacked by the pirate rat Gabool and his heinous band of cut-throats. Hapless voyagers Mariel and her father Joseph the Bellmaker are mercilessly thrown into the sea by the pirates. Mariel washes ashore, starved and near death, and is taken in by the hospitable inhabitants of Redwall Abbey. Sure that her poor father is dead, Mariel swears an oath of vengeance against the filthy pirates who killed her father. With he help of a motley band of animals, Mariel leads the charge to recover a bell and avenge her father.

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1992
Series
Redwall

This edition

Format
400 pages, Paperback
Published
March 31, 2003 by Firebird
ISBN
9780142302392
ASIN
0142302392
Language
English

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About the author

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brian jacques

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Brian Jacques (pronounced 'jakes') was born in Liverpool, England on June 15th, 1939. Along with forty percent of the population of Liverpool, his ancestral roots are in Ireland, County Cork to be exact.

Brian grew up in the area around the Liverpool docks, where he attended St. John's School, an inner city school featuring a playground on its roof. At the age of ten, his very first day at St. John's foreshadowed his future career as an author; given an assignment to write a story about animals, he wrote a short story about a bird who cleaned a crocodile's teeth. Brian's teacher could not, and would not believe that a ten year old could write so well. When young Brian refused to falsely say that he had copied the story, he was caned as "a liar". He had always loved to write, but it was only then that he realized he had a talent for it.
He wrote Redwall for the children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind in Liverpool, where as a truck driver, he delivered milk. Because of the nature of his first audience, he made his style of writing as descriptive as possible, painting pictures with words so that the schoolchildren could see them in their imaginations. He remained a patron of the school until his death.

Brian lived in Liverpool, where his two grown sons, Marc, a carpenter and bricklayer, and David, a professor of Art and a muralist, still reside. David Jacques' work can be seen in Children's hospitals, soccer stadiums, and trade union offices as far away as Germany, Mexico, and Chile (not to mention Brian's photo featured in most of his books).

Brian also ran a weekly radio show on BBC Radio Merseyside, until October 2006, where he shared his comedy and wit, and played his favourites from the world of opera - he was a veritable expert on The Three Tenors.

When he was wasn't writing, Brian enjoyed walking his dog 'Teddy', a white West Highland Terrier, and completing crossword puzzles. When he found time he read the works of Mario Puzo, Damon Runyon, Richard Condon, Larry McMurty, and P.G. Wodehouse. He was also known to cook an impressive version of his favourite dish, spaghetti and meatballs.

Sadly, Brian passed away on the 5th February 2011.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
36(36%)
4 stars
36(36%)
3 stars
28(28%)
2 stars
0(0%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
KurokawaAoi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Read this one with the boys at night. They seem to enjoy these. I know I loved Mossflower when I was about ten years old, but as I am older now the racial profiling and the myth of redemptive violence sure stick out like sore thumbs (once they were pointed out.) The writing is overly wordy, enough so that I edit as I go in what I read out loud. There have been several that read aloud better than this one and the boys like to hear them, so on we go with Loamhedge and hope that it's a good one.
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sierralkk
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Another solid Redwall book. Muriel is a delightful spunky heroine, but the side characters and villains inevitably steal the show in all Jaques work.
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LBi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This book will always be special to me. It was the first book I read in the fantasy genre and it opened up a new world of literature for me. I will be forever grateful for Mariel of Redwall for introducing me to the wonderful world of heroes and magic.
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Jdstaff
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I've discovered that I tend to go to Brian Jacques books after I read something that I find really dumb (*cough* Divergent series *cough*). Brian Jacques was just an incredibly masterful story teller and his characters are always interesting and you can't help but care about them. I particularly liked the relationship between Dandin and Mariel how they are partners in crime without being romantically linked. I do also admire the fact that Jacques always manages to make the point that violence is not something to be relished and shows that showing mercy does mean weakness. He has a variety of interesting characters in a variety of ages, species and genders and a pleasant combination of old and new. This was another fun swashbuckling tale and once again I can't praise this audiobook series enough for Brian Jacques' narration and a full cast.
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playrough
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Mariel, Mariel, Mariel. You badass, you excellent hero you. She is great, isn't she? I read this under the desk in middle school and I adored every minute of it.

And she didn't fall in love with Dandin. They were friends, really good friends, best friends who were so close and didn't fall in love. Stories where that happens, I can count on one hand. It was such a delight for my non-romantic can-we-just-get-the-inevitable-kissing-bits-over-with self to have a girl hero being tough and awesome and having all these cool adventures. Leading the adventures, because this was her revenge quest, okay.

Also, this was (I believe) the book where Jaques lovingly paints a scene in which "blood swirled in the water from Lord Rawnblade's Bloodwrath." It's lines like that which let you know this book is for children.
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Ethantheman
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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We've been reading through the Redwall series as a family and this has been our fourth in a row. It's a fine book and was enjoyable to read, but I also didn't think it was the best even when compared to the Redwall books that came before it. In part I think this is just simply Redwall fatigue on my part, but also because of some issues in the story itself.

The idea of Redwall fatigue is just the idea that, at least with these first four books, the Redwall books kind of have a rhythm and formula to them that every book adheres to. Some of the main characters have to go on some sort of quest (to find a sword, find a badger lord, chase after slavers, or go after a pirate king) while the others have to defend their home which is usually Redwall Abbey, but not always. Reading four books like this back to back as a family maybe gets a bit stale. They're still good books with enjoyable characters, it might just be nice to break up the books a bit more than we have.

There are also some issues with the story itself in this one. The biggest is that there is really a lack of a menacing villain. The big villain, Gabool, starts unraveling before the half-way point in the book and just doesn't really come off as much of a threat at all in the book and while Greypatch fares a bit better, he never really even gets that close to conquering Redwall. This is particularly disappointing when Mattimeo had some pretty amazing villains and a lot of tension and some real loss along the way.

Some of the decisions of some of the characters didn't make a whole lot of sense either. The largest of these in my mind is the choice made by the three hares of the Long Patrol who come to the aid of Redwall. The actions they take near the end of the book seem like they were unnecessary and a better solution could have been reached. Their actions may have been noble and gallant, but it seemed that there could have been a better solution to me.

As I've said, I enjoyed Mariel of Redwall it's a good book in its own right. I would just say that I think it is maybe the weakest of the four so far. It also stays pretty close to the formula of the Redwall books so far, maybe they'll begin to deviate a bit more in the future, but this book doesn't. This is both a positive and a negative. The Redwall books are very good, but they can get a little samey. This is why we're taking a little break from reading them as a family to mix it up a little, but we'll probably get back to them again after a break.
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Weebfire
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Redwall Abbey is always a wonderfully cozy place to revisit, no matter the plight facing its inhabitants. However, I have to confess that those plights are beginning to blur together in my mind, because each book is so formulaic. Almost without fail, the Abbey will be under some sort of siege by unsavory characters looking to enslave those within its walls and steal their home and resources. As this occurs, those most warrior-like from the Abbey are off on a quest far from home to defeat someone or win back an item that in some way correlates to the happenings back home in Mossflower forest and Redwall. And this tends to be under the guidance of the spirit of Martin the Warrior. Do I have any problem with this plot line? Not at all. But I have to admit that it’s becoming a tad redundant this many volumes into the series.

One thing I did really appreciate about this book as compared to those preceding it was the fact that the titular hero was a female. Mariel is brave and fierce and feisty and determined and terrifically skilled with a weapon for one untrained. I found her journey an interesting and intense one to witness. But there were a couple of things about this installment in particular that bugged me. First of all, I found the central villain fairly unbelievable. His level of obsession with this bell, to the point of no longer sleeping and then falling prey to madness, made no sense to me. He went from sly to completely mental over the course of a scant few chapters, and it simply didn’t feel believable to me. Even in a story about anthropomorphic animals running an Abbey and waging wars, this bell-induced insanity was where my skepticism couldn’t be kept at bay. There’s also a place near the end of the book where a couple of creatures fight over who has the right to kill another character. This is such a stupid discussion to me, whenever I happen to see it in media. Who cares who can claim the kill, as long as the beast in question is put down in the end? It’s utterly nonsensical and baffles me any time I come across it.

I might’ve had qualms with this volume, but I still enjoyed the story and the setting. And, of course, the food. Jacques wrote food descriptions like no one else I’ve ever read, and they never fail to make me hungry for things I’m pretty sure would actually be vile in real life. I also love knowing that everything is going to work out all right in the end, which makes this series perfect for children just getting into fantasy and adults looking for something cozy and nostalgic to provide a brief escape from the darker world of most adult fantasy fiction. Even if this wasn’t a perfect book, it was a fun one, and I’ll definitely be continuing on with the series.
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Rumbee
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Not my favourite Redwall book, but still fun. Listening to these as an adult after having read them 20-is years ago is a special experience. The voice acting is enthusiastic and varied, which is great with all these characters and dialects. Some actors or characters seemed to do a LOT of yelling, and it was hard to hear Marc Jacques as anyone but Martin or Matthias. This story has a wide scope and sometimes going from one scene to another was a bit jarring due to a lack of any pause or music to break up the narration and indicate to listeners that there been a change.
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