Goosefeather's Curse Opinions (spoilers)

[Dawnwing]

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.

[Ariel]

I just finished reading this, but kind of felt like typing this out.

After reading it, it makes total sense why Goosefeather seemed a little crazy. I think I would be to if I had constant visions and saw StarClan cats walking everywhere - not knowing what was real and not. I couldn't imagine having to deal with that constantly.

I agree that I'm glad that there was some tie-in from BP that hinted that Goosefeather was different from other medicine cats and not just some out of the blue thing that they decided to tie in.

And yeah, I don't know what was up with the whole Stormtail thing. He never seemed like a jerk at all in BP, but here... I mean, some of it can be explained by an unreliable narrator situation since Goosefeather was convinced that he was trying to kill him, but really though it all seemed a little out of character for him.

Yeah, the Hawkheart thing was weird. In every book that he'd been previously mentioned/appeared they made it a point to tell that he was previously a warrior then became a med cat, but not in this for some reason. If it was just some random factoid or just got mentioned once in passing I could see this mistake, but it was mentioned numerous times beforehand and it was even a bit important in YS (and I guess BP too).

It also kind of made me want to know more about Cloudberry's history. I want to know what led her ThunderClan and all the stuff that she had to deal with, especially after the whole Mapeshade thing - I'm sure there were some cats that were still talking about that.

[Lightning]

- 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)?

tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if Vicky had forgotten about that little detail. It seems that they appear when they want to, and that's supported by a lot of different evidence in multiple books... and I wouldn't be shocked in the least if they just decided to throw that canon out of the window. What he has really is a curse of sorts- seeing both StarClan and his Clanmates is bound to be confusing as heck.

Also.....the timeline itself makes no sense. How long was Featherwhisker supposed to be Goosefeather's apprentice if his brother is deputy???? (and apparently a long-standing deputy at that????????) This novella confused me so so much, but I loved it anyways.

Also Pineheart.

I've been calling Pineheart as Pinestar's warrior/deputy name for ages now, and I'm still happy that I was right. =D