Goosefeather's Curse, the latest ebook, came out today. What did you guys think of it?
My thoughts (beware of unmarked spoilers):
- I liked the plot in general. If he'd not been shown to have abilities already, I would've been annoyed since it would've been Yellowfang's Secret all over again, but Bluestar's Prophecy pretty much established that Goosefeather's got something different going on for him than for other cats. The idea of seeing visions, and StarClan cats, was pretty interesting.
- The fact that StarClan cats were always there begs the question: are they always walking alongside their Clanmates like that? Then why can they only be seen by cats on certain occasions normally (for example Spottedleaf appearing to Daisy's kits in Sunset)?
- Too many inconsistencies with cat ages. Hawkheart was "the fiercest warrior in WindClan" before becoming a medicine cat, not a medicine cat apprentice all along like this says. Thrushpelt and Dappletail were two of the youngest cats in Bluestar's Prophecy; they're not supposed to be older than Fuzzypelt and Robinwing (and apparently Weedwhisker, an elder in BP who never appeared here.) Tawnyspots was also supposed to be a senior warrior, not the same age as them.
- It ended a bit abruptly. I honestly would have liked to see more development of this, perhaps a SE: show some other times when his skills were wrong, to give him the reputation we see in Bluestar's Prophecy. ThunderClan in general seemed uncharacteristically rude to him, especially considering that he was right and able to help them with all but one vision.
- I don't like what they did to Stormtail's character. Not every cat who has some less-than-admirable traits has to go off the deep end - it's okay for them to just be flawed! Being an aloof father, and starting to show more interest in the younger, prettier she-cat instead of your mate is a far cry from just being a flat-out jerk and evidently attempting murder.
Overall I did like the novella - especially better than, say, Leafpool's Wish and Dovewing's Silence, which I think were unnecessary - and even think the story could have been longer, but it has its flaws too.