The Alliance Saga: Clouded Moon - Shifting Roots #1

Rating: 2/10
Written By Maya

Author(s): Avalon Roselin and Star Cat Studios    Genre: Young Adult Fantasy    Year of Publication: 2024    Pages: ~390 (ebook)

Writing: 1/10   Plot: 4/10  Characters: 3/10  Creativity: 3/10   

Overall: 2.75/10

Ctrl+H Warrior Cats

Spoilers Ahead!

It happened twice. I am once again writing about a book written by a YouTuber I used to enjoy. Unlike Fennah though, I was a pretty big fan of Avalon Roselin and their channel. I really liked their takes on books and writing. They read a lot of the same books I read, they introduced me to some great stuff, and they and their friends made great hour long videos I used to listen to back in college while I did my art assignments. And, like me, they were pretty big into Warrior Cats, so much so that they and their friends created a WC inspired series called The Alliance Saga. The group plans on creating an animated series one day. This book is the adaptation of what I’m assuming is the first season of a show. Very ambitious. Good luck to them. If you want to know more about all this, I provided links to all of their stuff at the bottom of the post. I stopped watching Roselin actively ages ago, but I came back every now and then to see the progress of Clouded Moon because I was intrigued. As someone who is also writing her own Warrior Cats inspired cat colony story, I wanted to see how they approached the concept and what they changed from Warriors to make the story uniquely their own. After many years, the book is finally out! I got it, I read it, and well… you see the score.

Edit 1/12/25: Since it takes me awhile to write these things, new info crops up. Initially, I had a section here where I talked about how I went into this book mostly blind (having only seen this one video about it), a deliberate choice, as I wanted to be as unbiased as possible when reading the book. I originally talked about how I wanted to give them some grace as I know this was a Warriors fanfic turned original work… but then I read this:

I am seeing a few people comment that they are specifically avoiding looking at supplemental material (art/videos/ect) before going into the Shifting Roots book. And while it's really cool to hear your thoughts with that experience! I also want to clarify that that's not really our intent.

This is an indie project for a reason and we are a team of artists. It is a multimedia beast best experienced looking at all the material we make. Which, I know can be confusing given the lore change. But here's a playlist of just canon material.

All that to say, Yes! The books will be the main way to get the story, but not the only way, and it is not our goal to make them completely self-contained.

TennelleFlowers, Tumblr

“The books will be the main way to get the story, but not the only way, and it is not our goal to make them completely self-contained.”

Guys…. You do not understand the wrath I felt after reading this. “It is not our goal to make them completely self-contained.” What an absolutely insane thing to say. If the books are going to be the main way for the masses to experience the story, then the books should be self-contained! You’re not fucking Star Wars! Star Wars has novels, tv shows, video games, etc that expand upon the lore that was established by the movies. Star Wars can get away with that because it’s fucking Star Wars! One of the most iconic culture defining franchises in the world. And guess what… you don’t need to read the comics or play the video games to experience Star Wars. You can just watch the films because the films are self-contained. Can you imagine if Star Wars required you to read a bunch of novels so you could understand the storyline of the films? You know how insane that would be? Star Wars would not have gotten popular if that was the case because it would have alienated a large section of the population.

You guys, Star Cat Studios, are not Star Wars. You do not have an established brand. You are not a multimedia giant. Even multimedia giants still have their main way people engage with their work. Pokemon has the games, Lord of the Rings has the books, and Star Wars has the movies. This book is the public’s introduction to your world therefore it should be— MUST be— self-contained, especially if “the books are the main way to get the story”. Supplementary material is supplementary, not mandatory! It is insane to expect your audience to do homework before reading books that are supposedly the main way the story is going to be told! What is this backwards-ass logic?!

Holy hell, this Tumblr post actually puts the book’s shoddy quality and lackluster worldbuilding into perspective. Apparently, I had to do homework before I read it. Excuse me for expecting a book to stand on its own. Silly me.

The Plot

So we got four cat colonies— Oak Colony, Field Colony, River Colony, and Marsh Colony— living in shaky prosperity. Collectively they are called The Alliance. They live around a lake and gather on an island, called the Moonlight Island, once a month on the full moon to discuss news. These Gatherings are called Moonlight Meetings. The cats worship their dead ancestors, called the Spirits of the Beyond. These Spirits have the power to grant the Captains abilities(?) and a title upon ascension. They also send signs via nature that can be interpreted by cats who have a special connection to the Spirits. Instead of names being made of a birth prefix and a rank-denoting suffix, the cats of the Alliance are born with one name (ex. Shadow) and are then given the second part of their name upon leveling up from a “new-claw” to ranger. The names seem to be based on whatever attribute the cat has, physical or personal. For Shadow, she became Spottedshadow because of her peculiar white spots.

The Colonies have a Captain who calls all the shots, a Second-in-Command (the Second) who assumes the position of Captain when the Captain dies or whatever else, a Council consisting of Elders (respected retirees), Envoys (ranger elites), and others. Rangers are the cats who do everything. They hunt, they fight, they train “new-claws” (apprentices), they scout for predators, and whatever else. There are five types of ranger: The Envoy as mentioned. They’re the elites. Envoys are eligible for the Second position if/when the current Second dies, is promoted, exiled, or whatever else. The Herbalists are medicine cats. The Keepers are baby sitters. The Mentors are the new-claw training overseers. And of course there are just basic bitch rangers with no specialized job or rank.

The environment these cats live in is complete fiction. There are no humans here. Each colony lives in their own Minecraft biome. On one side is the ocean and on the other side is a vast wasteland where the evil mages live. Mages are magical cats. The Alliance cats hate mages because long ago, evil magic cats hunted down magic-less cats for sport I guess. At one point, the Alliance ancestors took refuge on the Moonlight Island and the Spirits of the Beyond sent a solar eclipse which diminished the power of the mages, rendering them defenseless. The ancestors used this to their advantage to defeat the mages and drive them off to the barrens. Or at least that is the story they tell themselves (wink wink). The Alliance cats fear magic and hate all who perform it. Unlike Warriors, the Alliance allows outsiders to join their groups after they pass a series of tests. But they’re still xenophobic and kitty cat racist because we gotta have internal conflict somehow.

We have five main characters: Spottedshadow and Goldenpelt of Field Colony, Dawnfrost of Oak Colony, Wildfur of Marsh Colony, and Wolfthorn of River Colony. There’s also a bunch of other characters who disrupt the flow of the book, but they don’t matter in the grand scheme. Bears move into the colonies’ lands and start killing cats. Spottedshadow becomes the captain of Field Colony. The cats decide to send the four friends + Goldenpelt, an apprentice called Pool, and Shrewpelt (later renamed to Viperfang) to leave the lake territory and find help in the wastelands. They leave and they run into some wind mages. There they learn that the Alliance cats are magical too. In fact, they’re necromancers. This turns the world upside down. The cats go back. Spottedshadow finds Field Colony in shambles. While she was away, River Colony attacked them and took over one of their bases. Goldenpelt and his cronies start yelling at Spottedshadow for not being in two places at once. He tries to start a coup but Spottedshadow shuts him down and exiles him and his cronies.

Later, the others fight the bears. They’re losing until Field Colony and the wind mages show up and smash some trees onto one of the bear cubs with wind magic. Hawkshell, the leader of Marsh Colony, somehow manages to bite the throat of the mother bear, killing her. This is insanely stupid but whatever. The Alliance cats win. We learn that Rainfall, Captain of River Colony, and her evil family are scheming and hold Wolfthorn hostage. Meanwhile, Goldenpelt in exile is crowned Captain of Field Colony by Forestleaf’s ghost. Now there are two leaders. The end.

I don’t have much to say about the plot other than the scuffed writing ruins it by a lot and the pacing is wack. The middle section of this book is pretty slow with a lot of boring apprentice training scenes and the cats talking about the bears. For the characters, I wish we got to know them by watching their friendship develop instead of skipping all of that and starting their story late into their adult lives with their relationships established and arcs mostly complete. Spottedshadow is said to have a rough relationship with her grandmother, Forestleaf, and she is in love with Wildfur, a slacker from Marsh Colony much to the chagrin of Goldenpelt who (i guess) likes her… but he’s also jealous of her… Goldenpelt is an anomaly to me. More on him later. Back to Spottedshadow, we are told this stuff instead of shown much to my annoyance. I love me some family drama. I would’ve loved to have seen Spottedshadow clash with her grandmother before Forestleaf dies. There is one scene where Spottedshadow intrudes on a council meeting and speaks out which pisses off Forestleaf, but one scene isn’t enough to establish relationships. Wolfthorn’s personality and bond with Dawnfrost is also hindered by this scuffed-ass writing. Wolfthorn is a drifter who left the colonies to explore the wastes and Rainfall of River Colony thinks he’s a mage or some shit. It would’ve been cool if we saw Wolfthorn deal with the fallback of his family members’ deaths, find love and compassion in Dawnfrost, and explore the waste instead of starting the story with him having already done all of this. Speaking of the wastelands and mages, why did we reveal in this book that the Alliance cats are necromancers? This is supposed to be a series, right? Where else can this story go when the biggest thing was revealed in book one? Since we spend no time getting to know the cultures nor the status quo of these cats I feel nothing about this reveal.

Now onto Goldenpelt who is the most botched character. He is so wishy-washy. He goes from being Spottedshadow’s friend to being very critical of her and questioning everything she does randomly. He seems to have a crush on her and is jealous of Wildfur, her boyfriend, but right before the journey, he schemes with his loyalists to over throw her but then during the journey he is back to being a concerned friend who is jealous of her status and Wildfur. But then back in camp, he rounds on Spottedshadow, calling her a bad leader for… caring about other people I guess and then attacks her. He then gets exiled and Forestleaf’s ghost grants him a life of leadership, marking him as a Captain of Field Colony. What is this cyclical character writing? Why is he so flippant? Does he care about Spottedshadow or not? I don’t understand Goldenpelt at all. Guess I should’ve done my homework.

I feel Goldenpelt could’ve been better if 1) we were not given his perspective at all as the author cannot decide if he’s a good guy or bad guy and 2) he put up a friendly facade that distracts Spottedshadow from his actual intentions. As is, he’s so openly unpleasant that it makes me question why she even cares about him. I’ll be honest that I could’ve missed something because by the last third of the book I was so burnt by the shitty writing that I had a hard time retaining what happened.

Oh and Rainfall is so unserious dude. She’s comedically evil and I’m left questioning how she and her clearly evil family weren’t chased out of the territories ages ago. Am I supposed to take her seriously because I can’t. She’s just Tigerclawstar, but less intimidating and somehow more obvious. I thought this was a supposed to be a YA version of Warriors? Why is it more juvenile?

Anyway, this book really expects you to have read and watched all the extra shit before reading. With and without the homework, the book is very dry and shallow. Worldbuilding, character relationships, the history, and the environments are not established at all. We don’t even get character descriptions which is egregious for a book like this. There are so many cats and I don’t know what any of them look like. The book will give us a glossary for basic words like “colony”, but doesn’t give us a character list with descriptions.

Members of the Alliance

Field Colony

Under the leadership of Captain Hazelfur, the Reliable Earth, Field Colony is a secluded colony that manages their own affairs quietly. Field Colony has several bases that are used at different times throughout the year to ensure that none of the fields are over-hunted.

Council: Forestleaf (Second), Swifttail (Elder), Mistysnow (Herbalist), Goldenpelt (Envoy)

Mentors: Mudnose, Spottedshadow, Timberleg (in training)

Keepers: Missingfoot, Meadowleap, Jaggedstripe, Ambereyes, Clayfur (in training)

Rangers: Fleetfoot, Graymist, Shadowclaw, Volefur, Fernface, Nightpool, Lilyfire, Thrushspots

New-Claws: Peach, Stone, Horse, Tabby

Kittens: Dark, Dawn

The first few pages of the book

There are 27 cats here and the only ones who are described in the book are Goldenpelt (a golden tom) and Spottedshadow (a black cat with unusual white spots and green eyes). Everyone else is faceless. What does Hazelfur look like? Fuck if I know and I’m not going to do homework to figure it out because this is a novel! The book should tell me. Y’all kept the more scuffed aspects of Warriors, but not the helpful stuff?? I know there’s drawings of these characters, but I shouldn’t have to pull up Tumblr to look at visuals to read a book.

We spend chapters following people who don’t really matter, but we skip scenes that would’ve been great opportunities for character growth and exploration. When Spottedshadow and her friends leave the colonies to traverse the wastelands, we hard cut to a whole new group of cats we don’t know nor care about.

Gray breathed a sigh of relief. “So you aren’t wandering again.” He stood, his tail sweeping up. “In that case, I will stay and wait for you to return. Someone needs to keep a watch on things here. Count on me to keep track of things while you're away.”

“I’m not leaving right now. Come, let’s get in some hunting practice–though I doubt you need any help with stalking,” Wolfthorn purred with pride.

[Skipping the scene of Rainfall plotting]

Those Who Follow the Wind

The land had many names. To the cats of the Alliance it was the Unbound-lands, or simply the wastes. It was an endless desert of harsh stone, scraping sand, and prickly bushes that offered no shelter. What little rain fell on the land gathered in thin creeks that choked and died in the blistering heat. Only the toughest prey–venomous snakes and crunchy, dehydrated lizards–survived in the desolate landscape. Cats who wandered the wilds alone each had their own names for it, too: the Dry River, the Windswept Desert, the Expanse, the Passing-By. To them it was a land once lush and rich, now dry and brittle; an obstacle on their way to somewhere better that they’d heard about in a story once.

To Ardentwind, it was home.

The Chosen then Those Who Follow the Wind, Pgs. 169-172,

This is how it is in the book. We go from the colonies to the wind mages with no set up or anything. We’re just stuck with these people until our crew comes crashing into their home bloodied and near death. They were apparently attacked by coyotes along the journey off screen! The authors just skipped right on a past a pivotal scene for NO REASON! All of my hate and rage! You want us to give a damn about these cats, right, so why did you skip a scene (or even a few scenes) of them traveling and getting along? What makes this whole thing worse is that the characters talk about how much they bonded and learned about each other along the way during a scene we did not see! Creative writing 101: SHOW DON’T TELL! What is this?! I expect this level of laziness from middle schoolers just starting out, not a seasoned author. Actually embarrassing and baffling.

This traveling scene skip makes me think that this is a response to Warriors’ infamously bad traveling scenes. What a wild over correction this is. Warriors’ traveling scenes are bad not because they feature the cats going from one place to the next, but because the cats do not bond nor grow as people over the course of the journey (and they keep running into the same problems over and over). The Erins have actually gotten better at this over the years. During A Starless Clan 4: Thunder, Nightheart and Frostpaw grow as friends and Frostpaw has a whole arc during the course of their journey to the park, which thus made their traveling scenes actually rewarding to read and important to the plot and characters. You don’t fix the boring traveling scenes by skipping them altogether, especially if the characters are going to reference the scene and its importance later on. You fix it by showing that scene and making us give a shit! Holy hell.

We skipped the traveling scenes instead of making them interesting, but we kept the boring-ass apprentice training scenes, the worst shit in Warriors. The majority of the middle of the book is just our main group training “new-claws” (a term I dislike, but we’ll get there) in battle moves and/or hunting and it’s exactly like Warriors. The scenes play out exactly the same. I thought these cats learn new things based on their environment and culture?! That was one of the reasons why I was excited for the book in the first place. I wouldn’t mind training scenes if they were different depending on the environment and helped flesh out the characters. The scenes we got do neither and they just feel like filler. I don’t care about the new-claws because they’re background characters whose personalities are told to us instead of shown, but yet we spend so much time with them as they train. I can’t stand this lame shit. I started skipping the scenes with new-claws in them because they are boring.

The Writing

The writing is the worst thing about the book. It would’ve been mid and not worth talking about if it wasn’t for the scuffed-ass writing. Let’s start small and get bigger as we go along. Typos are inevitable. Sometimes editors just don’t see the missing comma or whatever. It happens. However, Clouded Moon has some obvious errors that went unfixed. Some dialogue scenes were missing ending quotations. Sometimes the quotations are turned the wrong way. Random comma splices. I saw a slash (/) show up a few times which felt like a slap to the face each time. The one typo that actively ruined my reading experience was the em dash/hyphen mix-up.

“You get the warbler from the low-lands. The closer to the Marsh Colony border, the better-those ones are sure to be ‘gold as day.’”

A Warning on the Wind, pg. 30,

“Better-those” Come on now, really? This (-) is a hyphen. A hyphen is used to create compound words/names or to separate the syllables of a word when it gets cut off on the side of a page. This (—) is an em dash, the symbol that was supposed to be here. “The closer to the Marsh Colony border, the better— those ones are sure to be ‘gold as day.’” An em dash is like a comma— it creates a pause in the text. A hyphen is not a pause. You read a hyphen as if it’s not even there. Twenty-two for example. You don’t put a noticeable pause between twenty and two when you say this number. Read more about dashes here. And look, I get it. I make this mistake too. You can read my old posts for proof. But my website is just a personal blog, not a published book! An editor worth their salt would have caught this in a heartbeat!

Dawnfrost was not given to such things as omens or signs-she left that business to Thornheart-but even she would admit to being in brighter spirits than usual.

A Warning in the Wind, pg. 29,

“Thornheart-but”. Thornheart-butt. Thornheart’s butt. That’s what I read. Even when I make this mistake, I still put a space between the hyphen and the next word. There isn’t even a space which makes it even more obvious! I know this is just a mistake and not a deliberate choice nor a problem with the e-book formatting because there are times where Roselin uses the right punctuation.

The delicate purple flowers interwoven in the dense blackberry thicket were sure to block out the smell of anything—or, rather, anyone—caught on the wrong side of Alliance Lake.

A Warning in the Wind, pg. 31

So this is just an editing problem. This is egregious. I assume the book was edited, but the editor must’ve been a first-timer because what is this? How did you miss this?

Not only is expositional prose plaguing this entire thing, but there’s an abundance of telly language that hampers the prose even more and makes it feel condescending.

“Not the most subtle sign,” [Dawnfrost] remarked to the pale tabby tom who greeted her there.

[Wolfthorn’s] yellow eyes flashed with affection at her gentle scolding, …

A Warning on the Wind, pg. 24.

Remove “at her gentle scolding”. This is telling language. I know his expression is in response to what she said. I can infer that from reading the interaction as is.

Rainfall cleared her throat dramatically, making sure she had every cat’s attention. “I have been watching you, and it is time for you to begin your field training as a ranger of River Colony.” Moss perked up right away when she heard that.

A Warning on the Wind, pg. 32

Clearing her throat dramatically already shows that Rainfall is trying to catch everyone’s attention. Just remove that second part. It’s pointless. Same with “Moss perked up right away when she heard that.” “Moss perked up.” That’s it. “Perked up right away when she heard that” is telly, wordy and pointless. Clean up your sentences, y’all. Make them clean, clear, and concise. Words are powerful and your audience is not stupid. Don’t over explain. It’s condescending.

“I suppose we will be training new-claws together from now on,” Swiftmask said when he rejoined Wolfthorn, putting on a happy face. There was no time for disappointment when a rambunctious young molly was waiting for her first task. “Moss and Gray will get along well, I think. Should we take them for a quick lesson?”

“Sure,” Wolfthorn answered. “Let’s head up to the Marsh Colony border. I thought I smelled something odd over there earlier.” He neglected to mention that he’d been on Oak Colony land at the time.

A Warning on the Wind, pg. 32

I hate pointless dialogue tags. It’s such a massive pet peeve. We do not need “Wolfthorn answered.” It’s clunky and telly. Yes I KNOW he answered. I just read it! That’s what the quotations mean! Replace “answered” with the always reliable and invisible “said” or remove the dialogue tag all together as there are only two characters in this scene. We could’ve just had:

“Moss and Gray will get along well, I think. Should we take them for a quick lesson?”

“Sure. Let’s head up to the Marsh Colony border.”

Or have Wolfthorn do an action if you need to differentiate who is talking.

Wolfthorn nodded. “Let’s head up to the Marsh Colony border.”

I just want the dialogue to flow naturally and effortlessly like water. With these clunky dialogue tags, it stops the flow and disrupts the reading experience. Oh and I haven’t forgotten about “He neglected to mention he’d been on Oak Colony land at the time.” For context, we literally just read that scene with Dawnfrost a section earlier before this part. So we do not need “He neglected to mention…” blah blah blah because we just read it. We can see that he did not mention that he was there. This part is just unnecessary. Your audience’s attention span is not that damn short. I know all of this stuff seems nitpicky… and that’s because it is, but it’s the small stuff that can make or break a book. I noticed this beginner level shit and it took me out and ruined my experience hence why I’m bitching about it.

Establishing settings is something this book seems to be allergic to. I have no idea what anything looks like. We are just dropped into scenes without establishing shit! The opening scene is a fantastic example of this.

Summer announced its arrival with a gentle breath of dry air. The abundant season of warmth was on its way to Alliance Lake, the Green Moon finally full on the horizon. When it reached its zenith in the sky that night, the Moonlight Meeting would bring all the colonies together upon Moonlight Island to celebrate days of easy hunting and lazy nights spent under the stars. The warm season was especially welcome in the shady forests of Oak Colony, where cats climbed trees and scaled cliffs as easily as they put one paw in front of the other on the ground.

Dawnfrost was not given to such things as omens or signs–she left that business to Thornheart–but even she would admit to being in brighter spirits than usual. Ever the early-riser, spring often meant returning from her duties with dew soaking her paws. Now the leaf litter beneath her feet was crisp and dry as she led her group along the highlands of Oak Colony’s territory. Sunlight touched the Scrub Oak Terrace before it reached the more densely wooded areas in the lowlands, and Dawnfrost could already hear the chorus of songbirds rising from their nests to greet the morning.

Four cats followed her: Thornheart, her humble and trusted friend; Lark and Aspen, the new-claws they had trained together over the last several months; and Tornleg, the Mentor. Tornleg would oversee the final task the new-claws were to complete in order to earn their full names and ranks as rangers of the Oak-lands. This ritual had not changed since Dawnfrost’s time, nor since Tornleg’s, nor Captain Elmtail’s. It was a tradition that spanned memory, all the way back to the first cats who had made the Oak-lands their home, who might be watching over them now–if one were given to believing such superstition.

A Warning on the Wind, pgs. 22-23

I hate how it just starts without establishing the setting or the characters. I was very confused as to what was going on. What is a Green Moon? Where are the cats? Who is Dawnfrost and what does she look like? Who is Thornheart and what does he look like? When writing a universe that is different from ours, you gotta put in the extra work to ease us into that realm. You can’t just start. In Watership Down, Richard Adams eases us into the world by describing the lush greenery first, slowly zooming in on the rabbit warren and then on Hazel and his brother Fiver, the leads.

[Truncated for simplicity]

The primroses were over. Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped down to an old fence and a brambly ditch beyond, only a few fading patches of pale yellow still showed among the dog's mercury and oak-tree roots. On the other side of the fence, the upper part of the field was full of rabbit holes. In places the grass was gone altogether and everywhere there were clusters of dry droppings, through which nothing but the ragwort would grow. A hundred yards away, at the bottom of the slope, ran the brook, no more than three feet wide, half choked with kingcups, watercress and blue brooklime. The cart track crossed by a brick culvert and climbed the opposite slope to a five-barred gate in the thorn hedge. The gate led into the lane.

The May sunset was red in clouds, and there was still half an hour to twilight. The dry slope was dotted with rabbits—some nibbling at the thin grass near their holes, others pushing further down to look for dandelions or perhaps a cowslip that the rest had missed. Here and there one sat upright on an ant heap and looked about, with ears erect and nose in the wind. But a blackbird, singing undisturbed on the outskirts of the wood, showed that there was nothing alarming there, and in the other direction, along the brook, all was plain to be seen, empty and quiet. The warren was at peace.

At the top of the bank, close to the wild cherry where the blackbird sang, was a little group of holes almost hidden by brambles. In the green half-light, at the mouth of one of these holes, two rabbits were sitting together side by side. At length, the larger of the two came out, slipped along the bank under cover of the brambles and so down into the ditch and up into the field. A few moments later the other followed.

The first rabbit stopped in a sunny patch and scratched his ear with rapid movements of his hind leg. Although he was a yearling and still below full weight, he had not the harassed look of most "outskirters"… on the edge of their warren. He looked as though he knew how to take care of himself. There was a shrewd, buoyant air about him as he sat up, looked round and rubbed both front paws over his nose. As soon as he was satisfied that all was well, he laid back his ears and set to work on the grass.

His companion less at ease. He was small, with wide, staring eyes and a way of raising and turning his head which suggested not so much caution as a kind of ceaseless, nervous tension. His nose moved continually, and when a bumblebee flew humming to a thistle bloom behind him, he jumped and spun round with a start that sent two nearby rabbits scurrying for holes…

Watership Down, Ch. 1 The Notice Board, pgs 2-3

Notice how Adams eases us into the story by describing the peaceful enviroment and then introduces us to the brothers first from a distance—

…two rabbits were sitting together side by side. At length, the larger of the two came out, slipped along the bank under cover of the brambles and so down into the ditch and up into the field. A few moments later the other followed.

—and then up close.

The first rabbit stopped in a sunny patch… His companion less at ease.

I love this because it’s simple and digestible. We can easily picture the scene, we are given the tone of the book, and we get a gist of who Hazel and Fiver are before they even speak. These are effective opening paragraphs. Hell, let’s look at Warriors: Into the Wild's first few paragraphs of their prologue

A half-moon glowed on smooth granite boulders, turning them silver. The silence was broken only by the ripple of water from the swift black river and the whisper of trees in the forest beyond.

There was a stirring in the shadows, and from all around lithe dark shapes crept stealthily over the rocks. Unsheathed claws glinted in the moonlight. Wary eyes flashed like amber. And then, as if on a silent signal, the creatures leaped at each other, and suddenly the rocks were alive with wrestling screeching cats.

Warriors: Into the Wild, Prologue, pg. 1

Iconic. Same thing here. We are given the setting (a clearing with rocks set by a river at night) and the tense tone (unsheathed claws, eyes flashing like amber, the crushing silence) and then we get the clash of conflict as cats rush out of the brush to engage in combat. This gives you a good sense what this world is about before we even meet our main. Honestly, I can write a whole post analyzing the effectiveness of Into the Wild’s prologue. Clouded Moon doesn’t ease you in at all. It doesn’t describe the settings at all. It just dumps you in and expects you to know who is who and what everything looks like intuitively. I hate how we don’t have descriptions for most of the camps. We only get Oak Colony’s quarry camp (seems familiar) and Marsh Colony’s tree camp. Everyone else is not described but yet we’re supposed to know what they look like. It’s really lame and sad that the authors don’t even bother to create immersion, again basic shit! Why are we skipping the basics?

Okay so the third person omniscient narration. This is going to be so damn mean, but I have to speak honestly… I don’t think Avalon Roselin knows how to write third person omni. Third person limited with at shitton of head hopping does not equal third person omni. The omni narrator is like our tour guide leading us along as they tell us this story. Let’s use Watership Down and examine how Adams uses it.

The first rabbit stopped in a sunny patch and scratched his ear with rapid movements of his hind leg. Although he was a yearling and still below full weight, he had not the harassed look of most "outskirters"… on the edge of their warren. He looked as though he knew how to take care of himself. There was a shrewd, buoyant air about him as he sat up, looked round and rubbed both front paws over his nose. As soon as he was satisfied that all was well, he laid back his ears and set to work on the grass.

His companion less at ease. He was small, with wide, staring eyes and a way of raising and turning his head which suggested not so much caution as a kind of ceaseless, nervous tension. His nose moved continually, and when a bumblebee flew humming to a thistle bloom behind him, he jumped and spun round with a start that sent two nearby rabbits scurrying for holes…

I’m using this passage again as it demonstrates how third person omni typically introduces characters. Notice how it reads like the narrator is observing the brothers and is guessing as to how they are as individuals. Hazel “looked as though he knew how to take care of himself.” Fiver’s staring eyes and turning head “suggest not so much as caution, but a kind of ceaseless, nervous tension.” Unlike third person limited where the narrator is biased towards the character they are following (meaning they tend to side with the character’s feelings and assessments), a third person omni narrator is unbiased, objective, and distant. We do not get any definitive statements here as Adams is not directly inside the heads of the rabbits. Adams is observing them like a scientist. Sometimes we get the intimate thoughts of the characters, but most of the time we do not. We don’t head hop from one to the other either. Instead, we tend to stick with just Hazel with the occasional chapter following Fiver, Bigwig, or General Woundwort. Adams isn’t just blabbing about who these characters are via expositional text blocks. He lets us get to know the characters by simply describing their actions over the course of the story with descriptive prose. Already, we know that Fiver is small and nervous while Hazel is more confident.

One of the major benefits of third person omni is that the narrator can break away from the story and speak directly to us to provide additional information.

Fu Inlé means "after moonrise." Rabbits, of course, have no idea of precise time or of punctuality. In this respect they are much the same as primitive people, who often take several days over assembling for some purpose and then several more to get started. Before such people can act together, a kind of telepathic feeling has to flow through them and ripen to the point when they all know that they are ready to begin. Anyone who has seen the martins and swallows in September, assembling on the telephone wires, twittering, making short flights singly and in groups over the open, stubbly fields, returning to form longer and even longer lines above the yellowing verges of the lanes the hundreds of individual birds merging and blending, in a mounting excitement, into swarms, and these swarms coming loosely and untidily together to create a great, unorganized flock, thick at the center and ragged at the edges, which breaks and re-forms continually like clouds or waves-until that moment when the greater part (but not all) of them know that the time has come: they are off, and have begun once more that great southward flight which many will not survive; anyone seeing this has seen at work the current that flows (among creatures who think of themselves primarily as part of a group and only secondarily, if at all, as individuals) to fuse them together and impel them into action without conscious thought or will: has seen at work the angel which drove the First Crusade into Antioch and drives the lemmings into the sea.

It was actually about an hour after moonrise and a good while before midnight when Hazel and Fiver once more came out of their burrow behind the brambles and slipped quietly along the bottom of the ditch. With them was a third rabbit, Hlao- Pipkin—a friend of Fiver. (Hlao means any small cavity in the grass where moisture may collect e.g., the dimple formed by a dandelion or thistle cup.) He too was small, and inclined to be timid, and Hazel and Fiver had spent the greater part of their last evening in the warren in persuading him to join them. Pipkin had agreed rather hesitantly. He still felt extremely nervous about what might happen once they left the warren, and had decided that the best way to avoid trouble would be to keep close to Hazel and do exactly what he said.

Watership Down, Ch. 4: The Departure, pgs. 16-17

A big ol’ lore dump, but he can get away with it because it’s third person omni. That’s one of the perks. It’s doesn’t disrupt the flow as Adams is the one narrating. We’re not following a single character who would already know all this stuff so he can be more authoritative and speak directly to us to illustrate his world. He even breaks in the middle of Pipkin’s introduction to give us the translation of his rabbit name. We also get a good example of a character focus change during this scene.

He still felt extremely nervous about what might happen once they left the warren, and had decided that the best way to avoid trouble would be to keep close to Hazel and do exactly what he said.

Here, Adams is telling us directly how Pipkin felt at the time, giving us his intimate thoughts, but in the next paragraph he quickly reverts back to Hazel as Hazel is the main character. He doesn’t stop the plot dead to go on and on about Pipkin’s backstory as it is irrelevant to the plot. He is just informing us what Pipkin thought at the time before moving on. Again, this is typical of third person omni. If this was written in third person limited, we wouldn’t have this much needed lore explanation nor would we know what “Hlao” means as we would be following Hazel, a character within this world who already knows how his culture works and thus would have no need to reflect on it, which in turn leaves us in the dark. For fuck’s sake, Sam Fennah understands third person omni better than Roselin.

Locket’s economic engine was one of barter, item for item, service for service, fuelled by reputation. A free market of competition. Nobody sold more than they bought, nor bought more than they sold. Currency, to the Kivic eye, was worthless, its only function being to exchange for items of actual quality— a hollow promise to pay. After the Trade Revolution, Locket lay waste to the concept. She observed that the pursuit of empty tokens was but a sickly cousin to the direct exchange of services and goods. This resulted in a free flow of product and left all within the city open to acquire direct fulfillment.

The August Few: Amygdala: Part One: Chapter One: Section Two: The Invisible Hand pg. 8

Once again, see how Fennah breaks the narrative to explain the economic system of his world. He’s talking to us, the reader. In Amygdala, the narrator is our tour guide and he’s not even a good one! Fennah’s narration is also scuffed, but on a base level he understands how to write third person omni. If it was written in third person limited, a lot of the worldbuilding would be lost to us. It was a good choice on his part. If you want to know more about third person omni, here ya go [link 1] [link 2] [link 3]. I’m not an expert at it (as I don’t like the perspective), but I know it when I see it and Clouded Moon is not it.

Spottedshadow knew she shouldn’t answer, but she couldn’t resist. “What I do, I do for the good of the Alliance and Field Colony. My personal relationships have nothing do with this, grandmother.”

The lash of Forestleaf’s tail burst a nearby dandelion seed pod. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”

“Forestleaf, please. What’s done is done, and Spottedshadow is being punished for her misconduct,” Missingfoot said.

Forestleaf spat at him before walking away. Spottedshadow confounded and frustrated her; despite it all, she did have some love in her heart for Whitebelly’s daughter. The same could not be said of Whitebelly’s mate, who had been too slow or too cowardly to save Forestleaf’s only child from the fox attack. Losing his foreleg in the attempt was not enough to stir pity from the Second, as it was for many of the Field-landers.

The Broken Bond, pg. 71

The underlined parts are the perspective changes. We go from Spottedshadow to Forestleaf, getting the intimate thoughts and feelings of both. This is not third person omni. This is third person limited with head hopping, a beginner’s mistake. Let’s look at another example.

Timberleg was dying.

Goldenpelt pushed onward through the night, urging the tired and injured rangers to move faster, but Spottedshadow knew it was already far too late for the brown tom. Even if Timberleg had received treatment from Wrensong, the odds of him surviving that much blood loss were slim to none. Spottedshadow had left his side only once to gather moss and cobwebs to form a makeshift tourniquet. It was soaked through with his blood almost as soon as she applied pressure. Stone hadn’t blinked once, terrified that Timberleg would perish the moment he took his eyes off his Mentor.

Worst of all, Timberleg knew it himself. His pace slowed as his heart struggled to beat. His paws lingered closer and closer to the ground with every step. Soon he would not be able to lift his feet at all.

“Stone, I’m so proud of you.” Timberleg’s voice was too quiet. “You didn’t let fear stop you, even when older rangers fled. You’re going to be great. Wish I could see it with my own eyes…”

“Don’t talk like that, Timberleg!” Stone tried to nudge Timberleg forward with his shoulder and nearly knocked him over. Timberleg leaned heavily against Spottedshadow, unable to find his footing again. Spottedshadow looked ahead. Goldenpelt’s eyes and ears were alert in every direction except theirs. He refused to glance back at Timberleg and see the obvious: his former new-claw, his nephew, was dying, and they needed to stop so he could do it in peace. Or perhaps it was the lifeless bodies of Forestleaf and Hazelfur being dragged along with them that Goldenpelt was avoiding.

The Clouded Moon, pgs. 135-136

We get the intimate feelings of Spottedshadow, then Stone, then Timberleg, then back to Spottedshadow and then Goldenpelt. Notice how there is no distance here. The narrator is using definitive phrasing. Spottedshadow knew it was already too late. Stone was terrified that Timberleg would perish. Timberleg knew he was going to die. Goldenpelt refused to glance back at his nephew. This reads like third person limited, not omni. In omni we wouldn’t get this much definitive language. Again, the narrator is supposed to be unbiased, but here the narrator is biased toward the characters’ feelings. Watership Down doesn’t read like this. We get the intimate thoughts of Hazel with the occasional look into the minds of others, but it’s not back to back! When we change perspectives in Watership, there is a chapter break. This is a clear example of head hopping. Let’s see if I can fix this.

Timberleg was dying.

Even if Timberleg had received treatment from Wrensong, the odds of him surviving that much blood loss were slim to none. Spottedshadow had left his side only once to gather moss and cobwebs to form a makeshift tourniquet. It was soaked through with his blood almost as soon as she applied pressure. Stone had not turned from his Mentor, as if he feared Timberleg would perish as soon as he looked away. Timberleg pace slowed as his heart struggled to beat. His paws lingered closer and closer to the ground with every step. Soon he would not be able to lift his feet at all.

“Stone, I’m so proud of you.” Timberleg’s voice was too quiet. “You didn’t let fear stop you, even when older rangers fled. You’re going to be great. Wish I could see it with my own eyes…”

“Don’t talk like that, Timberleg!” Stone tried to nudge Timberleg forward with his shoulder and nearly knocked him over. Timberleg leaned heavily against Spottedshadow, unable to find his footing again. Spottedshadow looked ahead. Goldenpelt’s eyes and ears were alert in every direction except theirs. He did not look back at Timberleg, seemingly refusing to see the obvious: his former new-claw, his nephew, was dying, and they needed to stop so he could do it in peace.

It’s not perfect obviously, but you see what I’m getting at. No perspective changes. The narrator is distant and is observing the characters. I frankly dislike third person omni as I like being close to the characters, but it’s effective in large expansive stories like Watership Down.

Frankly, I feel Clouded Moon would’ve been (somewhat) better if it was written in third person limited, following only the main five characters. It’s not like Watership or Amygdala where we need the narrator to come in and define terms and explain concepts for our sake and understanding. Clouded Moon’s world is simple to understand. It’s just Warriors but with a different coat of paint. All the lore dumps could’ve been inferred from watching the characters interact with their world, as it is in Warriors. Roselin also does not have a strong authorial voice to warrant an omni narrator. Clouded Moon’s narrator is very flat and sauceless. I don’t understand why this choice was made.

Now onto some small things that bothered the shit out of me.

“Black-furred, brown-furred, golden-furred” and other variations are said throughout the book and it’s weird each time. Why? We know these cats are covered in fur. Just say black, brown, and golden. Why add “-furred”? It adds nothing and it reads weird.

Aspenbreeze pressed a paw into his side while she imitated Yellowflower’s aged mew. “Oh Larkwing, I remember when you were just a li’l baby kitten! You’ve grown into such a handsome young tom!”

Deadly Discovery, pg. 50

Baby kitten… Do I really need to explain this? In a world with no humans, the cats should not know what a baby is! They also use the word “child” which took me out like a sack of bricks to the head. What do you mean “child”?! You don’t know what that is! There are no humans here! Warriors does this too and it annoys me to no end! Plus this is redundant. Both baby and kitten refer to the same thing except one is for cats and the other is for humans. Don’t use both. Come on. Do better.

Spottedshadow could only manage a groan in response as her attempt at friendliness was transformed into an attempt at flirtation.

The Broken Bond, pg. 61

Bro what?! What a clunky ass sentence.

He licked one of her ears.

The Broken Bond, pg. 63

He licked an ear. Use less words.

This book hardly has character descriptions but the ones we get are confusing. Dawnfrost is described as a “ginger and cream calico”. What the hell is that?? A calico is a ginger and black cat with high white spotting. Cream is the diluted form of ginger. There is no such thing as a cream and ginger cat. That doesn’t make any sense. And we have tortoiseshell and calico toms just running all over the place like it’s normal. Why do Warriors people hate cat genetics so much?

Little Edit 3/4/25: Dawnfrost should’ve been a fawn and cream tortie or calico! Here’s a pic of what that looks like: https://orientalcatassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Fawn-Tortie.jpg

Very pretty. Cat genetics are so cool. Wasted opportunity. :End of Edit

All in all, this is some of the worst writing I have seen in a while. Clouded Moon sits just underneath Powerless on the bad writing tier list. I hated reading this book.

The Worldbuilding

I know this was a Warrior Cats fanfic, but damn! Y’all couldn’t change more about it?! The cats’ names are the same, the religion is the same, the culture is the same, the apprentice training is the same, the territories are the same, the Gatherings are the same, the jobs are the same, the complete disregard for cat genetics is the same, the extremely anthro “cats” are the same, damn near everything is the same! The only things that are different are the absence of humans, the magic, the slightly changed leader ceremonies, and the council. And hell the stuff that are “different” are half-assed.

The map tripped me out when I first saw it.

Dog… this is just the lake territories with a desert and an ocean. Even the marshlands aren’t unique as ShadowClan used to live on a marshland in the old territories. Even the placements of the colonies are exactly the same. You couldn’t change that?? I understand that this is an animated project and you guys didn’t want to redo the animation that was already complete but sometimes you gotta make sacrifices. This is too close! I know Warriors does not own the concept of cats living in the woods around a lake, but when your version is so close with little to no change… I hate to say it but this is a rip off.

It’s wild to me that they didn’t even try that hard, despite saying that they did. Calling Gatherings “Moonlight Meetings” doesn’t make it distinct. The setup is exactly the same. The cats have to cross a fallen tree bridge to get to an island. The leaders sit on tree branches as the Clans/Colonies gather beneath them and chat. Even the news is the same! The leaders announce newly appointed rangers almost exactly like how they do in Warriors. In isolation, all of these things are fine but together like this, it’s a rip off.

Tailchaser’s Song has cats gathering under the moonlight to chat and discuss news but those cats are not rivals and it’s the elders who speak, not the leaders of the colonies. Warriors took that and changed it to what we know as Gatherings. Both are similar but different. The same is true for their naming ceremonies. For Tailchaser, it’s a coming-of-age/religious ceremony. For Warriors, it’s like a graduation ceremony, signifying the cats transition from apprentice to warrior. Both are similar but distinctly different. The naming ceremonies in Clouded Moon are exactly the same as in Warriors except the names don’t denote rank.

Speaking of the ranks, they’re not that different from Warriors. Some of that is inevitable. In a hierarchical meritocracy, you’re gonna have a leader and a secondary leader and you’re gonna have teachers and students. But it’s how the ranks are portrayed that bothers me. The rangers are just warriors. There is no change. They hunt, fight, patrol, and train the youths of the colony. Copy/paste.

Then we have Mentors, who should be called “supervisors” as that is what they do. I was very confused when I saw “mentor” and realized that they were actually the overseers of the training and not the trainers themselves. Rangers, like warriors, are still in charge of training the youths. “Mentor” is the wrong word to use here. Mentor is “a trusted counselor or guide” (Meriam-Webster). It’s synonymous with “coach” and “tutor” not supervisor. It’s a specific word with one definition. I know this is pedantic but words mean things and I was legit confused for a while as to what mentors actually did. I know there is a glossary but that didn’t help as the description is simply incorrect for the word. The same is true for “envoy.” An envoy is “a person delegated to represent one government in its dealings with another” (Meriam-Webster). In short, political messengers, not elite rangers. I was so confused as to why some colonies had 3-5 messengers at first until I realized “envoy” refers to elite rangers. Why are we using the wrong words for titles? Supervisors and Elites were right there.

If you are a returning reader of my site, you should know by now that I hate when authors use the wrong damn word and/or change the definition of a very specific word to mean something it does not mean. See Fourth Wing for examples of both. Just because your glossary says something different doesn’t take away the actual definition of the word. Use the right words please so you don’t confuse your reader (who may be a nerd who has a special interest in words and their definitions).

Also why did we decide to keep “mentor” but drew the line at “apprentice”? The priorities here are wack. New-claw is simply a worse name for the students. It feels very forced.Warriors doesn’t own the concept of mentors and apprentices. Those are things that exist in real life. You could’ve kept that. If you’re that scared of Working Partners suing you into oblivion, you could’ve called them teachers/students, or trainers/trainees (which is what I did). Hell, call them junior rangers or rookies. Just keep the naming scheme consistent. The other rank names are actual job/rank titles. “New-claw” breaks the convention and thus, my immersion. Like… dictionaries and thesauruses are free y’all. Please use them.

Edit 1/15/25: On the Mentors, why do they exist? Why do the colonies need dedicated training supervisors when the “envoys” can do that? In the book, there’s no clear difference between Mentors and regular rangers other than the Mentors having a higher standing. We have characters who are Mentors but they behave like regular trainers and not like the boss of the trainers. Wildfur is a Mentor but he is also given an apprentice which I feel like a supervisor who is supposed to be in charge of the trainers shouldn’t have a student distracting them from their job. In short, the Mentor role feels redundant and pointless to me. I don’t get it.

And on “Envoys”, incorrect name aside, I think they’re fine but I feel like they could’ve been expanded upon. Perhaps they can have important political jobs or privileges only they can take advantage of. Since the book does such a poor job showcasing the culture of the colonies, I don’t really know the difference between envoys and rangers, job wise (outside of being a member of the council). Do they have more power than the other roles? Like, for example, are they ranked higher than Herbalists or are they on the same social standing? Idk. Maybe all this stuff was answered in a Tumblr post. I guess I should’ve done my required homework before buying a book. :End of edit.

Moving on, we have Keepers who are nursery queens and Herbalists who are medicine cats. I don’t mind the Keepers but the Herbalists feel like a Ctrl+H. The Herbalists of Field Colony double as the spiritual leaders so they’re literally just medicine cats with no change. In fact, Field Colony being more religious and superstitious is something that was applied to WindClan in the field guides. Copy/paste, Ctrl+H. Oh and I have no complaints for the elders and the council. Those are fine.

I really hate how the religions are exactly the same. The cats of Warriors and Clouded Moon worship their passed on loved ones in the same damn ways. Some cats have a special connection to the Spirits. At least in this case, Clouded Moon’s cats are necromancers so there’s a reason why. I wish the religion was overhauled into something completely different. Give the cats a god or something. The leader ceremonies are basically the same except the spirits can’t talk. They don’t get nine lives but they get special buffs… I think. One thing I do like is that the Spirits Beyond are not directly communicating with the cats and are restricted to moving nature around. I only like that because of my StarClan-induced trauma, not because it was executed well in the book. Tbh, I would prefer if the cats didn’t speak to ghosts at all. Why are we copying that nonsense from Warriors?

Moving on from the Ctrl+H nature of this book, let’s discuss the “cats”. Clouded Moon’s “cats” remind me of the “wolves” in Wolves of the Beyond. These are Cats in Name Only just like the Clan cats. These CiNOs do stuff that an animal physically cannot do! I don’t care how intelligent they are, their little kitty cat paws are not equipped to stitch up wounds with damn cactus needles.

“Wildfur is right here, recovering,” Wolfthorn answered with a nod toward the large lump of fur sleeping deeper within the infirmary. “They had to give him what they call stitches and are treating him for infection. …”

Mages of Death, pg. 188

This is stupid. I’m sorry, but there’s no other word for it. It’s just stupid and impossible to envision. How do they stitch up wounds? With their damn mouths? They can’t do it with their paws because cats lack the delicate, and precise fingers of a human doctor. How are they holding the needle? In between the webbing of their toes? Do the wind mages pull off their paws like gloves and have freaky human hands like that fucked-up deer from Adventure Time?

The cats, with their paws and mouths, can somehow create tourniquets, another impossibility that shot me straight out of the story like a cannon.

Spottedshadow had left his side only once to gather moss and cobwebs to form a makeshift tourniquet. It was soaked through with his blood almost as soon as she applied pressure.

The Clouded Moon, pg. 135

Nah, bruh. Nah. A tourniquet needs to be tight to be effective and fucking cobwebs are not going to get it there. Plus, how the fuck are the cats tying the knot required for a make-shift tourniquet? With their mouths!?! At this point just make them furries. Your book is no longer a real-animal xenofiction when you have the animals do stuff they physically cannot do. It kills the verisimilitude. I find it lazy to be frank. Instead of thinking of creative ways for the animals to do stuff, the author just makes them humans in all but appearance. I don’t think even the Erins, of all people, will ever have the cats stitch up wounds with cobweb threads or whatever the fuck because it’s literally impossible for a cat to do so without telekinesis. Oh and let’s not forget the insanity that is this:

The bear lumbered after her, huffing and grunting as she pulled her weight up the cliff. Once, she slipped back down, and started again without pause. A swipe from Hawkshell's blunted claws caught the bear in her injured eye. She bellowed, giving the rest of the Marsh-landers the time they needed to bite the bear's paws until she lost her grip on the cliff edge. Hawkshell pushed with all her might, following the bear over the side, down, to the hard ground below. Her fangs sank deep into the bear's throat on impact. A torrent of steaming blood bubbled forth. The mother bear growled, gurgled, and was still.

A Mother’s Pain, pg. 256

I guess Hawkshell turned into a tiger mid-jump because it is literally impossible for a domestic cat to bite a bear’s throat. Their jaws are not strong nor wide enough to do any damage. Their teeth are not long nor sharp enough to pierce the tough hide of a bear. Ffs, human beings with guns have a hard time killing bears because of their thick hides!! This is so damn stupid. Why are they even cats at this point? Just make them furries. I thought this was supposed to be a book for teens? This is too dumb for teenagers.

I like real-animal xenofiction where the animals feel like animals. I don’t mind animals being stupidly smart. I don’t care if they have powers or advanced societies. I just want the animals to remain animals in some way. Retain their base instincts, use zoology to build their personalities and/or culture, or stay true to the limitations and benefits of their bodies. Really just anything that makes their pov feel different from ours. Is that too much to ask for? 😭

On a less angry but still annoyed note, cats know the human names of measurements even though humans do not exist in this world. This is another incredibly lazy thing that disappointed me and killed my immersion. Weeks, inches, hours, seconds, minutes, etc. are said by these cats when they 1) shouldn’t know these words and 2) have no way of measuring these things without rulers or calendars. I get that the cats use the moon cycles to track months but weeks? Nah. A moon phase can last about 3-5 days, so it’s very imprecise. A week is exactly seven days. Unless these cats have a calendar (or a dedicated schedule cat who counts up the days) they have no way of tracking weeks.

Hours, minutes, and seconds are even more impossible. Do these cats have clocks? How do they know what a minute is? I’m willing to buy cats this smart can determine hours based on the sun and the shadows (it’s ridiculous but I’m willing to let it slide). But minutes and seconds… nah. They need clocks to keep track of incremental time like that. And like I wouldn’t give a shit if humans did exist in the world and the cats picked up these words from us. Cats are essentially a human creation so it’s not implausible. But that’s not what we got here.

I get it. You wanna be different from Warriors so you don’t want to use “heartbeat”, “tail-length”,  or “sun-high” for time and measurements, but to just use our words when humans do not exist in this world instead of creating your own is just plain lazy. Warriors does not own the concept of using “moon” to refer to months or “heartbeat” to refer to seconds. Tailchaser’s Song uses “leaps” to measure distances and heights. It’s not restricted to Warriors so just take the time to create terms to replace these.

This is the type of stuff creators should think about when crafting a work that doesn’t take place in our world and/or features non-human characters. With xenofiction, the animals are going to be humanized to some extent, but it is your job as the creator to sell the illusion of being plausible— the verisimilitude. If you want this world to feel real to your audience, you gotta commit! Think out the small stuff. This is a book for teenagers! Teens aren’t dumb! Some of them are going to ask questions. How are the cats measuring minutes? What is an inch to a cat?  Answer these questions or create new words for the world. It adds so much to the quality of the story. Very disappointing.

I try not to talk about my own stuff during these reviews as it is very egotistical to use myself as a positive example, but I am also making a Warrior Cats inspired story and one of the first things I did was take Warriors and change everything that made Warriors Warriors except the basic clan structure. I have no magic. No religion. No medicine cats. Nothing supernatural at all. I have a different naming scheme that is based on family lines, not rank. My setting is very different, being set in the American Northwest. My colonies stay apart for practical reasons, not cultural. I removed the rivalry and bickering as my cats are not at odds with each other all the time. In fact, it is illegal for my cats to fight each other as fighting leads to injuries and injuries lead to death. My colonies are structured more like military units with rigid schedules, titles, ranks, disciplines, jobs, etc. My overall tone and intent is very different from Warriors. Y’all can read about my project in the project’s tab. I went out of my way to change as much as I could to set my work apart from Warriors. I don’t understand why Star Cat Studios didn’t do the same.

I know in Roselin’s video, they mention that they had to keep some stuff because of the already completed animation. Some stuff couldn’t be changed, they said. I call bullshit. You could’ve done so much more. The territories could’ve been shuffled around. The characters’ names and their religion could’ve been revamped. The Moonlight Meetings could’ve been expanded upon and reworked into something actually unique. The apprentice training could’ve been overhauled and diversified. Leader ascension could’ve been changed. Y’all could’ve done so much more. But you didn’t. Or maybe you did on your Tumblr blogs but none of it is in the book.

Edit 3, 1/23/25: So I’ve been lurking around their Tumblr blogs because this book won’t leave my brain and I saw this post on their official blog:

amanecerdelobo asked:

You are gonna implement real cat behavior or characteristics of their nature in your story. Or would be like Warriors that are just humans with fur.

Clouded Moon Official:

I'm guessing you're asking if we take a more naturalistic or fantastical approach to the mannerisms of our characters?

Definitely fantastical! More Wings of Fire or Redwall than Watership Down. Both are valid and we love both, but with the kind of story we wanted to tell, we were more interested in the possibilities that high fantasy brings, and developing their society throughout generations.

I know that there's a popular idea in Warriors fandom that one thing that could "fix" the books is by treating the cats more like cats. And while I think the naturalistic approach was definitely the original intent behind the series, I would actually identify the problem being that Warriors doesn't pick a side to be on. (And you also can't just fix a book by making things "more realistic") It's wishy washy on whether these characters are just cats, or "just humans with fur", to put it in your words. And this is likely done so that the stories can use either justification to excuse writing choices.

Either way, that's neither here nor there. We decided to lean into the more fantastical elements! We like the kitty soap opera of it all, and magic, and cats making little bags, tending crops, and sharing their culture through unique weaving patterns and such! And things will only get more crazy as we go! lol That's not to say we are treating them as "basically furrys", we take liberties with what an actual cat can do, but we try to ask "If a cat had human level intelligence and slightly more dexterous paws, what would they find practical to create?"

I have so many thoughts on this. Firstly, Wings of Fire can get away with the dragons creating tools and building structures because they’re dragons. You can give dragons fingers and thumbs because they’re fictional creatures with insane anatomy. Do whatever you want. Sutherland however, using the creative freedom dragons allow, still put in the effort to flesh out their cultures and societies so that the world feels real to us. Tui T. Sutherland is a good author. I haven’t read Redwall yet but I do know that Redwall is about anthro rodents. They can be human-like because they are human-like.

Y’all are writing about domestic cats. It’s a bit hard for the audience to separate what we know about cats and their limitations as we all know what cats are. Plus you guys are not going the extra step to make them anthro, which would separate them from the real animal. Nor are you guys putting in the effort to make their world and colonies feel real to us. Like, the colonies as they are do not feel like the type of societies cats would create for themselves (not to me at least). Verisimilitude is the word of the day. A creative should create that sense of immersion in their audience by staying true to what we know about the world while also creating internal logic that helps sell the illusion. All good fantasies do this. Why didn’t you guys do that? You just did the Warriors thing and had the cats be humans with fur, which is incredibly disappointing. I feel like y’all should’ve went full furry or wrote about a completely fictional feline-esque species like the Koties by Villiedoom.

Secondly, I agree that making the cats of Warriors more cat-like doesn’t fix Warriors’ problems but doing so does help the immersion of the books hence why so many people tend to “fix” that aspect of it. A lot of us in the fandom hate that the cats are just people with fur. We want to read about animals, not people. That’s one of the main appeals of xenofiction. Real animal xenofiction where the animals are just people in fursuits is not a good xenofiction (not in my eyes at least). Also, Warriors is not stuck between the natural and the fantastical. It’s complete fantasy. The cats of Warriors are not cats. They have never behaved like cats, ever. Ffs, the cats are eating herbs that are literally toxic to them from the jump, a deliberate choice by Vicky Holmes. The disregard for real world cat behavior was a big missed opportunity on the Erins part. Cats are cute, silly, and wonderful animals with unique quirks and I wish the Erins (and Star Cat Studios) took advantage of that. You don’t have to go full realism to make xenofiction good. That’s not the point of the genre. I just want the animals to feel like animals for the love of God!

Thirdly, I question if you guys actually like cats as animals. From reading this and the book, it really feels like y’all like the look of cats but not the actual animal. This really is just Wolves of the Beyond all over again. Why bother writing about animals if you’re just going to make them people anyway? What’s the point? Fuck me, even something as fantastical as Felidae stays true to the cats’ limitations despite them being incredibly smart. As wild as it is for Pascal to use a computer, he’s typing away by prodding the keys one at a time with his paw. It’s not too hard to picture a cat pressing the keys of a keyboard and batting a mouse around to create a spreadsheet as it doesn’t require a lot to do these things. Besides, Felidae is a dark comedy. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all and the cats being very anthro is vital to the message of the book (expect a lengthy post about Felidae sometime soon. I have a lot of complex feelings). If you replaced the cats with humans in Felidae it would ruin the story. If you replaced the cats of The Alliance Saga with humans, not much would change (the same also rings true for Warriors).

That's not to say we are treating them as "basically furrys", we take liberties with what an actual cat can do, but we try to ask "If a cat had human level intelligence and slightly more dexterous paws, what would they find practical to create?"

Y’all took extreme liberties. The only way a cat could stitch wounds is if they had fingers (or telekinesis). Dexterity alone does not allow for them to do such delicate work with their itty bitty kitty cat paws. They need fingers! Their paws are not equipped to tie knots for tourniquets. Their paws are not equipped for weaving! Cats’ jaws are not wide enough nor strong enough to bite the neck of a fucking bear. Why are they cats if you’re just going to make them do shit they physically cannot do? I hate this so much. Just write furries. You guys already treat them like furries (no matter what you say) so commit and write furries. I read the damn book. They’re not cats. They’re people role playing cats in the woods.

I hold no ill will towards the creators nor do I wish harm on them. Their book is just surprisingly bad and disasters this big fascinate me. I genuinely dislike being so harsh on an indie project, but I paid money for this and when I feel like I wasted my money, I tend to get annoyed (no matter how low the amount was. $5 is still money I could’ve used to buy something worth my time).

I was so excited for this book, but then I read it and it sucked. The more I think about it, the more it rots. I am not going to continue following this project as I, quite frankly, hate everything about it.

This sucked! Not only is doing homework a requirement for reading a WC rip off, but the book wasn’t even good! The plot is mid, the writing is atrocious, and the worldbuilding is just Warriors but empty and lacking a lot of color and depth. I was very disappointed by this.

Recommendation: Skip this. You’re better off reading Warriors. Hell, check out Sunnyfall’s Paws of Stars fanfic! You’ll have a way better time with that than this.

Maya https://mayafairley.com
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