Warriors: The Power of Three #4 – Eclipse

Warriors: The Power of Three #4 — Eclipse
By Erin Hunter

Overall, The Power of Three series of Warriors has been slow to get moving. Once Firestar’s grandchildren were established as the protagonists of this series, each book has been based around one major adventure as the plot thickens. We mostly got to know the new characters in book one (The Sight), and book two (Dark River) took us to the mysterious caves running underneath the clans. Things get a little more interesting in book three, Outcast, with a new visit to the mountains and the Tribe of Rushing Water. Now, with Eclipse, unrest brews and explodes into a major battle involving all four clans, and a stranger appears whose presence threatens the very Warrior Code on which the cats have based their existence. There’s a lot more action, but we have yet to pinpoint a clear-cut villain. Some answers may be forthcoming in the next book: the preview for Long Shadows contains an intriguing teaser: “When murder stalks into the heart of ThunderClan, the cats realize that the darkest shadows don’t always lie outside the territory.” Right now, we have no idea who the killer (or victim) will be, and the authors (Erin Hunter is the pseudonym for four writers) haven’t given us any solid clues that we can sink our teeth into. But let’s get to my one real complaint about these books: as the Warriors series has progressed, the characters have been acting less and less like cats! Of course, with books written by and for humans, you have to figure the cats would have some human characteristics, but beginning sometime during the New Prophecy series, I noticed that distinctively feline behavior was diminishing. Someone needs to remind the authors that we have cats here, not people, and bring back some of the grace and ferocity I’ve been missing.