" Let's get one thing strait; I love Brian Jacques. As in LOVE. And when you love something or someone, you tend to be pretty forgiving of its/their faults. That being said, I really didn't enjoy this book or it's predecessor Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, nearly as much as I enjoy Jacques' Redwall series. It seems as if, in this series, all the faults present in the Redwall books have been magnified. One of the big problems in this one is the lack of a real sense of peril. The villains are so ridiculous that you never truly fear them. Now, of course this is a young adult novel, so Jacques would want to keep anything truly frightening to a minimum. But still, even if I were reading this as twelve year old, I'd feel as if I was being patronized. And it seems as if one of the good guys is always in the right place at the right time, or knows someone who was at the right place at the right time, and overheard the villains plotting and scheming, and so they know not to meet at the belltower at ten o'clock like they planned, because so-and-so is going to be there. And everyone the main characters meet is a good old soul, who takes to them immediately and is willing to go out of their way to help them, or is bad, and they instinctively know it and avoid him/her. Also, and again, this is probably because it's intended for a young audience, all the characters are either Good and Pure, or Evil and Devious. There's a very clear cut Good vs. Evil theme, and I truly believe that people in the YA category can handle the "shades of gray" element that is in a lot of adult fare.
I feel very let down. And even though I'm already halfway through the next book, after this I'm sticking to Redwall. "
— Kathryn, 1/25/2014