The most recent series in the Erin Hunter arsenal, this time about pandas in a fictionalized version of Asia. Let's dive in and spoilers ahead.
A few months after a devastating flood that killed and separated many of the pandas of the Bamboo Kingdom, three young pandas face their own conflicts. One looking for her aunt, one raised by snow leopards trying to find his identity and one mistrustful of her spiritual leader, being determined to unmask him. This trio's destinies somehow seem intertwined.
I am quite conflicted on this book. On the one hand, it has some good elements. But it also feels rather bland and forgettable. I don't need every book to stick in my mind for a long time, but for a first installment of a new series that's supposed to sell me on the arc, this is kinda lacking.
The best element of the book is no doubt the characters. Erin Hunter books have a reputation for sometimes having quite a bland cast (just look at early Bravelands arc 1 or some Warriors characters for example), but in Bamboo Kingdom so far all of our main characters have a distinct personality and arc set up. I definitely liked Leaf the least out of the trio because she also felt the most generic (though still with more personality than the average Erin Hunter protagonist), but Ghost and Rain both had very distinctive lives and character traits.
I like how Ghost is struggling to find his identity after finding out he's a bear rather than a snow leopard, and how he's now all alone except for his adoptive sister Shiver. And I especially liked Rain's arc. Rain is a bit rambunctious, but she isn't stupid. She clues in on the current Dragon Speaker being a fraud (or at least suspicious) pretty early on. Once he's onto her and tries to manipulate her to join his side, she instantly puts her foot down and refuses. I like how strong-willed she is, she's definitely my favorite of the three protagonists so far. Leaf is also fine, just a bit basic. I do like her friendship with Dasher, though. And though he isn't a protagonist, I'm also glad that the tiger Shadowhunter actually isn't a villain in this. Maybe an antagonist at some points, but he's not evil. Tigers are already endangered enough, we really don't need to make their reputation worse by portraying them as the villain a lot.
The plot of the book isn't really one set story-line, but rather the three bears each going their own way, but the overarching plot seems to be having to do with the separated panda families trying to find one another (many cannot get to one another because of the raging rivers) and the current Dragon Speaker (basically a spiritual leader for the pandas and other animals) being very suspicious in his actions. Sunset seems to be shaping up to be our main villain, and I'm okay with that. He's still very one-note in this book, but he has potential in the same way Stinger did in Bravelands book one. The twist of Sunset being an antagonist also doesn't come out of nowhere but is rather built up properly, with Rain doubting him from very early on in the story.
Now where I do have some complaints is that the book just feels a little bland. We have very little world-building so far. We just know that the pandas (and some other animals) worship the Great Dragon and that said dragon communicates through a panda known as the Dragon Speaker, with Sunset being the current one. But that's really where the world-building ends. The animals that are featured (which are varying species, not just giant pandas) all seem to have very same-y cultures. Bravelands wasn't perfect, but I'll at least give it credit for having most featured species feel at least somewhat distinct in their ways of life and beliefs. Here, there's nothing really that separates a giant panda from a red panda, golden monkey, etc. behavior or society-wise, which feels rather boring and like the autho didn't put a lot of effort into the world they were developing.
The only real world-building we do get is surrounding the Dragon and the Dragon Speaker, but even that's kept pretty vague. Which would be fine and make for a nice basis to build off of in future books, however with the rest of the book having barely any thought put into the world and lore it just feels empty and lacking.
Another world-building aspect that doesn't make much sense is this version of Asia being called the Bamboo Kingdom. I guess it sounds cool, but in-universe it's nonsense. There's no monarchs ruling this land, so why call it a kingdom? Not even lords or emperors, either. There isn't even really a leader. The Dragon Speaker is a spiritual leader, yes, but so far it's not been implied that that means that everyone obeys their every whim. It seems to be more of a spiritual guidance kind of thing with how it was portrayed in book one. So why is this realm called a Kingdom?
Overall I do like this book, don't get me wrong. I'll check out the rest of the series. But it does need to really improve on the world-building and preferably also on the plot, as it still felt a bit meander-y for me. Not a bad book, and I definitely like it better than some Erin Hunter first arc books (like The Empty City), but it also isn't as strong as some others.
Rating: 3/5
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