This is now the third xenofiction book by Kilworth I've read. One of his previous books I read before I really liked, the other I thought was just mediocre. Now let's see if his hare novel is any good. Spoilers ahead.
Skelter is a blue hare who lives in the highlands and one day gets captured and taken south by humans. He manages to escape and eventually joins a colony of brown hares. However, the woods where he settles are being plagued by a flying monster known as the "flogre". Skelter, somewhat against his will, sets out on a mission to find out what the flogre is, and to hopefully find a way to defeat the creature.
Did I like this book? Yeah, I quite did enjoy myself, honestly. I think it's interesting enough and it's thankfully by far not as boring and monotone as Kilworth's Midnight's Sun. But I also wouldn't say this one is as good as Hunter's Moon. It's just kinda in that in between "good but not great category."
What did really draw me into this book are the plot and the world. The story always kept me guessing with where it kept going with things not being straightforward and sometimes meandering a bit, but not enough to the point of things getting distracted. We do have the main plot dealing with the flogre, but there's also some side events and subplots that made for some nice detours once every while.
The world-building of the animal societies was also pretty nice. It does have some in-universe stories and lore to it, but it's also kind of light (at least, when compared to something like Watership Down, for example). And honestly I like that. I do like it when xenofictions have their own lore and world-building and religion and culture for the animal characters, however a trapping I find that a lot of (especially older) xenofictions fall into is just having "loredumps" where you get an entire story, legend, aspect of culture, history, etc. dumped on the reader. Which is okay once or twice, but it can also be a distracting of new information amount sometimes. So I like that Frost Dancers has some lore to it, but also doesn't feel the need to dump too much information on the reader except for once or twice.
The characters were honestly a bit of a mixed bag for me. I did enjoy some, such as Jittie, Eyebright and Rushie, and the rabbits and Bess the dog. Those were decent characters. But then some other characters could be extremely unlikable, such as the moonhare who pretty much condemns Skelter to death and then tries to play all innocent later on.
As for Skelter himself...I think he's just an okay protagonist. I wasn't totally bored by him like I was with Athaba from Midnight's Sun, but at the same time Skelter didn't exactly draw me into the story like I'd hoped he would. He's also really, really dense when it comes to the feelings of females. Like, annoyingly so. Sometimes he also just genuinely comes across like he doesn't care that much about certain things. I also never really felt that Skelter was very heroic despite the story seeming to think he is. Sure, he's brave a few times, but in the end he never really does anything that's all that heroic. Even the part he plays in the eventual demise of the flogre is pretty accidental. So he's not a bad protagonist, but also not a very interesting one.
The flogre/Bubba was definitely an interesting character, though, even if not a likable one. But as a villain he's a genuinely threatening presence, yet he also has a very slight sympathetic edge as he is all alone and has nobody to even communicate with, since he's the only harpy eagle here and he got raised by humans, so he can't speak to his fellow birds. His only "friends" throughout this story are the two towers he ends up moving into which he talks to. So he was an engaging character with a pretty interesting psyche and situation, even if he is obviously the bad guy.
So overall I'd say this is a solid xenofiction. Not the best, but I'm glad I read it and I at least got something out of it, unlike with Midnight's Sun by the same author.
Rating: 3.5/5
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