Animal fantasy, this time about cats. It is a quest novel but Tad Williams has created a mythology that explains a lot of cat behaviour. Believable characters and great description means that this merits 4 stars. ( )

This was the first book I ever read by Tad Williams, and the first very long book I ever read, and it's remained a favorite to this day. I love Williams' folklore and traditions of cat society, it's inspired me in several of my own stories. ( )

I checked this book out at the library about a year ago. I love cats, so I just had to read it. I enjoyed the book immensely. I found that I could hardly put the book down. It was a very well written novel. ( )

I'll admit it, I'm a cat lover. And this very much reflected on that, as well as my favorite non-sci-fi book of all time - whalesong.

Tad manages to tap into the softie in all of us with this book - highly recomended for a private read! ( )

This book started out as a pleasant little cat fantasy, mainly following the story of the hero – Tailchaser. I love the many names that Williams come up with for his characters, cat and otherwise, as well as the place names and the cat mythology. I especially liked the story about how M’an (man) came to be. Tailchaser and the rest of the Folk (read cats) live at Meeting Wall near Old Woods. Everything is going along quite swimmingly when suddenly the folk begin to disappear and the elders of Meeting Wall hold a ‘nose-meet’ in order to work out what is to be done. They decide to send a delegation off to Mirmirsor Sunback, queen of the folk, and her court at Rootwood forest to apprise her of the situation and appeal for her help. Tailchaser, afraid that Hushpad, his best friend and would-be mate who has also disappeared, will be overlooked by the delegation, undertakes to follow along on his own in order to plead her case before the court himself. In the course of his journey, Tailchaser takes up with the youngling Pouncequick and meets the rather unbalanced Eatbugs. There are a multitude of things that happen to Tailchaser, his friends and the other cats they meet along the way that I cannot reveal here for fear of spoiling the story.

It would have been easy to keep his story on a more Redwall-ish level, but Williams chooses to go quite dark with it. His villains are very evil and creepy and there are times when things look very black for Tailchaser and his allies. This was a good book. I read a bit of it aloud to Willie and except for the tale of Windflower (“all his tom-hood had been taken, changed he had been to half-fela*”) he seemed to like it too.
*female ( )