It’s been a
hot minute since I last looked at Survivors, mostly because I took a long time
to get all of the sequel books and I wanted to read them all in succession. I
already reviewed the first book of this arc separately, but I’ll be going over
all of them and the arc as a whole here!
I know that one of the authors of this series, Gillian Philip, has been outed as a transphobe and of course I don’t support this person. The difference is, however, that Philip has since been fired from the Erin Hunter team and is no longer making any money off of these books, so an argument for separating art from the artist can be made here, unlike in the case of J.K Rowling, for example, who is still very much attached to the Harry Potter series. So I will be looking at this series as a separate thing and not address Philip’s views unless it directly comes into play in the book series, which I doubt since so far there’s been no trans characters in any Erin Hunter property. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into the books! Spoilers ahead.
Book One: A Pack Divided
I’ve already reviewed this book separately over here, so I’ll just go over this one quickly.
In this book, we follow the POV of Storm, now an adult in the united Wild Pack. Storm keeps being haunted by terrifying dreams, and odd goings ons are happening within the pack.
As I’ve already gone over what I loved so much about this book, I’ll just sum it up quickly here. I love how the characters have clearly defined cliques and personalities in this book. The characters in arc one were somewhat generic, but here they feel more distinct. Storm is also a great protagonist, full of flaws but so much more enjoyable to follow than Lucky. I also liked how Storm seems to be either asexual or aromantic or both, as she shows no interest whatsoever in having a mate. That’s kind of a unique thing in an Erin Hunter book, since most of the other Survivors and Warriors characters always seem to fall for someone.
It was perfectly paced and constantly kept you at the end of your seat, especially with a devastating reveal at the end. It’s just a great book and pretty much everything The Empty City wasn’t; it’s better in every way.
Rating: 5/5
Book Two: Dead of Night
This book wasn’t as strong as the first one, but I still liked it a lot. Okay, so, first things first, it feels a bit like a filler book. No real shocking developments are made throughout the book, other than more distrust growing and the pups of Lucky and Sweet being born. Speaking of which, I still don’t feel any romance between these two. In arc one their relationship felt like it was done truly out of duty, and that still seems to be the case here.
I also don’t really like their characters anymore. Storm and some of the others are still great, but I definitely like Sweet and Lucky less so far in this arc. Sweet (or “Alpha” now, I guess) doesn’t come across as the best leader (such as her punishing Moon despite her innocence), though I do like that she is allowed to be a leader despite having pups (looking at you, Warrior Cats). Lucky seems much more short-tempered, especially after his pups are born. I never liked him that much in arc one, but I much preferred him over how he is over here.
I do like the idea of Storm’s dreams, especially with her not being able to tell when she’s awake and when she’s dreaming sometimes. I also wonder if Whisper and those other dead dogs’ spirits actually came to visit her or if they’re just things Storm is imagining. Survivors doesn’t have a clearly established afterlife like Warriors does, but I honestly think it’s pretty great that it’s up to interpretation rather than set in stone.
The pacing was still good, and I did like the conflict with the foxes, and Storm being the one to be sympathetic to Fox Mist. We even get the slightest bit of worldbuilding for the foxes, with them having distinct names over here and not being fully faceless nameless characters.
Not perfect, but definitely still enjoyable.
Rating: 4/5
Book Three: Into the Shadows
This one was very solid once more. The pacing was good, I liked the characters (or at least, the characterization and how clearly established the groups within the Pack are) and the mystery is ever-growing. I’m really curious as to who the culprit is after all this time, since we’ve yet to pick up clear clues that aren’t misleading. We just know by this point that it isn’t Storm and probably also not Alpha or Beta.
And now that a whole lot of the characters have left the Pack, the numbers of who the suspect could be are dwindling. It’s also interesting that there isn’t one particular dog who seems to be framed. The first book had Moon being punished, but there’s multiple possibilities as to who could’ve been made to look like they did the other things. I know a lot of the dogs are obviously pointing fingers at Arrow due to him being a Fierce Dog and past member of Blade’s Pack, but I personally don’t think he’s the one, either. He seems like a really stand-up guy in the scenes we had with him, and I like his relationship with Bella.
I didn’t feel too sad to see the Pack fall apart since they never really properly functioned as one since uniting anyways, but it does hurt to see the characters you care about affected, particularly passionate Storm. Like mentioned in the Dead of Night section, I don’t like Alpha and Beta (Lucky) too much in this arc, and that’s also the case over here. Lucky seems so unreasonably angry with Storm a lot of the time, and I’m not a fan of it. I get that he has his pups but he practically raised Storm like she was his own, too, so shouldn’t he care equally about them both rather than somewhat push Storm’s needs to the side in favor of his youngest?
Either way, a really good followup! Just short of being as good as A Pack Divided. I really do wonder how things will continue!
Rating: 5/5
Book Four: Red Moon Rising
This book… I’m conflicted on it. On the one hand, I like it. A lot, just like the last one. But on the other hand, nothing of note happens in this book that couldn’t have been combined in book three, resulting into a shorter arc. There’s not a lot of meandering around the plot, but it just feels like not a lot of things of note happen in this book other than Bruno dying and Storm finally leaving the pack. And maybe the longpaw stuff.
We still aren’t any closer to figuring out who the real culprit is. I’d really hoped that at least some hints would’ve been dropped by now, but the Erins seem to like keeping things as vague as possible. I’m always a bit cautious when it comes to twist villains: I tend to prefer the classic more on-the-nose evil ones as long as they have a good backstory, or an interesting personality and motivations.
I also think that Beta and Alpha are just not good leaders. They really don’t show their great leading skills and treat Storm very unfairly, when she’s only doing what’s right for the Pack. Heck, Storm is practically Lucky’s own pup with how he raised her and stood up for her in the first arc, but he seems to have completely ditched her in favor of his blood-related offspring. It’s just so frustrating and unfair to see.
This book
was still qualitatively pretty good, but damn I feel frustrated by it because
it somewhat drags and just how unfairly Storm gets treated.
Rating: 3.5/5
Book Five: The Exile’s Journey
This was one I really liked. I liked leaving behind the Wild Pack for a book, it felt like a fresh break from the constant bickering in that group of dogs. I liked seeing Storm end up in all kinds of situations, and how well she eventually fit in with Bella’s Pack. I also really liked the wolf pack, with its different culture and a few friendly members. They didn’t have any relations to arc 1 Alpha like I’d expected them to (unless you go off the Word of God but nothing in the book confirms this), but they still formed a unique different aspect of this book.
It was neat to finally get the reveal of who the villain was, but I must say I’m a bit underwhelmed by Breeze. She’s apparently a two-faced villain who is just really good at subtly manipulating others and keeping up the façade. But honestly, after Storm confronts her, she just instantly drops the act and starts monologuing like a cartoon villain. That just felt somewhat over the top. I do like that we get a much more stereotypical friendly dog (Breeze is a Labrador mix) as a villain as opposed to the standard Dobermann from the last book, but her reveal was just not really my favorite. She wasn’t built up all that well outside of the remarks she made to indirectly shift the blame towards Storm. I know that they wanted to make her seem as one of the least suspicious dogs to make the twist all the more greater, but I think that if we could’ve maybe picked up on some very small clues that it would come less out of left field. And she should really drop the monologuing towards Storm. It’s nice to see a quiet, sneaky and manipulative villain, though, rather than the stereotypical overblown “I am evil and kill everything in my way” deal we got with Blade and several Warriors villains.
I liked this one and I’m pretty optimistic about how the last book will go. This arc has so far been pretty darn great, so I’m sure they can keep it up for the last book.
Rating: 4/5
Book Six: The Final Battle
Yes, child sacrifice is really in an Erin Hunter book. I was as flabbergasted as you probably are. That said, Survivors has always been a bit darker than Warriors in my opinion, with Terror’s death being described much more gruesomely than Tigerstar’s for example.
That out of the way, how is the book? Well, it was pretty good. It’s good to finally see the packs unite as one against Breeze again, and seeing Storm and Arrow be treated with the respect they should be.
That said, the book does become a bit repetitive as it basically becomes a quest to retrieve Lucky’s pups. Luckily it isn’t exactly done 100% one by one, but it’s still a pretty recurring thing throughout the book. One of them is trapped near a ravine, two others in tunnels, and the last was about to be sacrificed by Breeze by dropping them off some high longpaw construction. It’s a decent setup for a book, I suppose, but the execution made it feel a bit repetitive.
The climax was pretty good, with Breeze finding her rightful death (though by far not as epic as Terror’s) and unfortunately poor Bella dying as well. I was surprisingly hurt by this loss. In arc 1, Bella was far from my favorite character, but she really grew on me in The Gathering Darkness. She seemed to have really matured after her mistake with the foxes and she had such a lovely pack with Arrow, the pups and Storm.
Storm and Arrow also end up forgiving the Pack for being so horribly racist and accusatory towards them, something I honestly saw coming but was hoping wouldn’t happen. The Pack treated them both like absolute garbage throughout books one through five, I’d have liked to have seen them both take their time to forgive the others for how they treated them. But as soon as Breeze is revealed to be the traitor they pretty much instantly forgive the Pack after they apologize. I don’t know, I’d have liked to have seen more depth to the forgiveness. Maybe Storm and Arrow’s Pack would’ve lived by themselves for a while before deciding they really did forgive the Wild Pack and then reunite with them, rather than doing it rather instantly like how it is executed now.
So, yeah, I have somewhat mixed thoughts on the final book, but I did like it overall. Let’s see how the arc as a whole did.
Rating: 4/5
Final Thoughts
Okay, so while this arc isn’t perfect and probably could’ve been shorter and paced a little better, I did thoroughly enjoy it. The first few books especially were really strong and the mystery was well hidden (though maybe a bit too well, more subtle hints would’ve been cool). The characters are definitely a whole lot more defined and developed than in the first arc, where they all feel rather standard sans maybe a few. Storm made for a great protagonist and I just rooted so much for her.
I liked this arc a whole lot more than arc 1. The original arc had a rough start but a good ending, while this arc had a great start, a slightly rougher middle but once more a good ending. Neither arcs are perfect, but I definitely think that arc two is worth much more of your time than arc 1. Unfortunately, you’ll have to have read arc 1 before getting to arc two, otherwise, you’d have missed a lot of the context behind everything.
I did like that this arc built off of things that were set up in arc one, rather than invent a completely new conflict. Arc two explores the aftermath of Terror’s death. While I have mixed thoughts on Breeze as a villain, I definitely think she’s better than the average Warriors antagonist to say the least. It’s also nice to see a much more traditionally friendly breed (Labrador) be depicted as the villain. Arc one had Dobermans (Fierce Dogs), wolfdogs (Alpha) and pitbulls (Terror) as villains, all animals that tend(ed) to have a bad reputation whether now or in the past. So it’s good that they’re not just going for the cliché “must be evil” type breeds/hybrids now.
Would I ultimately recommend this arc? If you are new to Survivors: no, probably not. It’s a good arc, but it’s not worth sitting through the slog of early arc one to get to it. But if you’ve already made your way decently into the series I’d say you might as well finish reading what you started. If you are new to the series and want to know whether you like arc one or not, I’d say maybe get the cheaper ebooks to figure out if you can get into it.
Not a perfect arc, but a whole step up from the first! I unfortunately don’t think we’ll be getting any more Survivors books or novellas, since there hasn’t been any Survivors-related activity by Erin Hunter lately and one of the main writers of the series, like mentioned earlier, has been kicked off the Hunter name. I honestly don’t think I’d want a third arc after this, I’m content with how things have been rounded up in this one.
If there were to be one, though, I’d bet it’d be about the
pups of Lucky/Sweet and/or Arrow/Bella, possibly dealing more with the
afterlife stuff since it’s being kept very vague yet is hinted at quite a few
times especially throughout arc two. I would have liked some more novellas
about certain characters, though. I’d be interested in what life was like in
Terror’s Pack before he was defeated especially, since this arc points out that
he wasn’t all bad. Maybe from Breeze’s point of view? To give her a defined
backstory as well? Either way, I doubt we’ll get it, unfortunately. I guess
I’ll have to get my post-apocalyptic dog fix somewhere else (points casually at
Dogs of the Spires).
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