Guess who is finally getting to the Bravelands series after quite some time? Yep, it be me. Originally didn't want to pick up this series after the whole Gillian Philip debacle, but now that she has been booted off the Erin Hunter team I feel right picking up the series. Besides, she's not the only person to have had a hand in this series, Clarissa Hutton also does/did, and then there's arc 2 which is being written by different authors than Philip.
So let's have a look. Spoilers ahead.
On the African savannah known as the Bravelands, we come across three different protagonists. We meet Fearless, a lion cub whose pride gets taken over by the villainous lion Titan and gets adopted by a troop of baboons. Then there's Thorn, Fearless' best baboon friend and a member of the Brightforest Troop who hopes to make it big in order to be together with his would-be mate. And finally we are introduced to Sky, an elephant who can read dead animals' bones, receive visions and happens to be the granddaughter of the current incarnation of the Bravelands' deity, the Great Spirit.
If you look at that synopsis you'll likely notice one thing: there is no real plot. Because I wish there was one, but alas, there is not. At least, not until the last bit or so.
Originally I thought this was going to be story of how Fearless would go on a revenge quest against Titan in order to avenge his father and free his pride of said lion's tyrannical rule, and maybe that's where they're going for future books, but for now the central conflict doesn't even revolve around Titan at all. He's certainly an obstacle, but not as major as the first few chapters made him seem.
The actual plot finally seems to come about when several suspicious deaths take place in the baboon's troop, followed by the death of the Great Mother, the current incarnation of the god of the Bravelands. Through some hurdles, Thorn finally figures out who the culprit of the baboon deaths is, and the Bravelands are now without their Great Parent, which is a very central figure in their culture.
I'm not saying the book wasn't engaging. The characters were decent and I liked the world-building a lot (particularly for the non-lion species), but the plot (or lack thereof) leaves much to be desired. Maybe they're setting up several major plotlines for the rest of the arc (for Fearless: defeating Titan, for Thorn: dealing with Stinger, for Sky: finding the cuprit that killed Great Mother and finding out who the next incarnation of the Great Spirit is).
And that's all well and good, but it kind of leaves book one without a central plot. It mostly just feels like these characters are kind of meandering about doing their own thing, especially once Fearless and Thorn go their separate ways. It doesn't feel connected in any way currently, unless it turns out that Stinger is somehow behind the Great Mother's death as well, which I doubt.
The rest of the book was pretty decent, though not great. Like I said before, I like the characters. But they're not that fantastic. They kind of feel rather standard and don't have a whole lot to then. For example, I really wouldn't be able to tell what sets apart Thorn and Fearless personality-wise. They feel kind of same-y. Sky feels also just generally nice with the only things really being different that she seems slightly shy and the fact that she has supernatural abilities.
The story also felt, not sure how to describe this, a bit mechanical? Especially the first two thirds, it just felt like the story was going through the motions because the author demanded it to, it didn't feel genuine and natural. The story just kept moving from beat to beat without giving the characters any time to breathe.
A good example of this would be Fearless, just after the loss of his family. He is soon thereafter taken in by Stringer and brought to the Brigthforest Troop, where he's being raised from then on up until he's banished. There, he also befriends his two best friends, Thorn and Mud, and his semi-adopted sister Berry (whom Thorn has a major crush on). This all sounds like stuff that should be interesting and emotional scenes. Fearless, having lost everything and thinking his mother and sister to be dead, now is taken in by a family of baboons and makes some new friends.
But we barely see him react emotionally to all of this. We don't really see him process his feelings regarding his pride possibly all being dead, he just kind of moves on way too soon from that. We don't get to see him bond with his new baboon family/friends, Stinger just pretty much instantly takes him in and we don't even get to see him befriending Mud and Thorn, it's literally delivered to us through exposition that they bonded and became friends.
If anything, shouldn't these moments be given time to breathe? Our characters may not be the most amazing original ones out there, but if we go to see Fearless process the feelings and truly mentally dealing with the fact that he may be the last living Gallantpride member, then him accepting Stinger and Berry as his (somewhat) adopted family and later Mud and Thorn as his best friends. Instead we get none of this and it all happens within the blink of an eye and often through exposition.
This is what I mean when I say that the story feels mechanical. There is too little emotional impact and it's going through the motions too fast and that, combined with the lack of a defined plot and pretty basic characters just doesn't deliver an overall good story. It's still decent, but not good.
Another small gripe I have is the weird feeling of cannibalism the world-building provides. In this world, all animals (predator and prey) can talk to one another, except reptiles, insects and birds, who have their own unique languages. So there are often cases where the predators are just talking to the prey animal that could be their next meal. Heck, there's even a case of Fearless and some lions talking to some hyenas before killing them and eating parts of them. Doesn't that just feel wrong and messed up?
Like, yes, it technically doesn't qualify as cannibalism since they're different species, but it's a bit of a different case if A) both species are sentient and self-aware and B) can communicate with one another. With both prey and predator meeting both these requirements, it really does give off some uncomfortable vibes. It feels like they're all "people" in a way because of their ability to talk and self-awareness, but then just having them kill and even eat one another just feels...weird. Doesn't ruin the book for me, but this is the first time in a book where it really felt wrong to me, even more so than in the Redstone series, since here we're actually given examples of this.
However, I'll definitely be checking out the rest of arc 1 and maybe even the second arc sometime in the future!
Rating: 3.5/5
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