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Series: The Orc Prince Trilogy by Lionel Hart

Greetings and welcome to Reviews That Burn: Series Reviews, part of Books That Burn. Series Reviews discuss at least three books in a series and cover the overarching themes and development of the story across several books. I'd like to thank longtime Patron Case Aiken, who receives a monthly shoutout. Full Audio Here   An elven prince. The son of an orc warlord. In two warring nations, their arranged marriage brings peace. They never expected to fall in love. Prince Taegan Glynzeiros has prepared since childhood to fight and lead armies against invading orc forces, the enemies of elves for hundreds of years. But after a successful peace treaty, the elven prince will not be fighting orcs, but marrying one. The first words he speaks to Zorvut are their wedding vows. Despite being considered the runt amongst the orc warlord’s children, Taegan finds him to be intelligent and thoughtful—everything the stereotypes about orcs say he shouldn’t be. He doesn’t want to fall in love, but Zorv...
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Salamandastron by Brian Jacques (Redwall, #5)

Salamandastron by Brian Jacques is a story of parents and children, legacy, siege, battle, epidemic, and feasting. It’s about passing the torch. A good introduction to Redwall (almost any book will work) but can also stand solo if you just want a good story.

Reading Salamandastron, I love the Redwall books, but now I know a little about the historical and current discrimination against Scots as a language and against the Scottish in the UK, passages with comments of not understanding “Northern” speech of the falcons and eagles are concerning. It’s not subtle, it happens several times that MacPhearsome or Rocangus or Laird Mactalon say something that seems to me (as an American) understandable but very Scottish and then someone declares they didn’t understand the bird at all, but everybeast understands the moles with no trouble. I love the work that went into conveying all the dialects onto the page, it just reads strangely now to have someone keep commenting one how hard it is to understand this particular accent, especially when in the real world it isn’t just an accent, it’s a separate language that has shared roots with English. If we’re lucky enough to have Scottish listeners I’d love some feedback about this issue if you’ve read Brian Jacques’s work.

I like the contrasts between different parent/child pairs in this book. We have Urthstripe and Mara, Ferhago and Klitch, Log-a-log and Nordo, Laird Mactalon and Rocangus, and Loambudd and Urthwyte. All their relationship dynamics are unique and shown pretty well, and it feels like a thematic decision in this particular book.

CW for murder, massacre, plague, death.

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