Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
Jacques, Brian
Tagged: Author.
(1939-2011) UK radio broadcaster (since 1980) and writer. Before beginning to publish fantasy he wrote songs for his own folk group, The Liverpool Fisherman; but he is now known mainly for his fiction, almost all of which is the YA Redwall sequence of Animal Fantasies: Redwall (1986), Mossflower (1988), which chronologically begins the series, Mattimeo (1989), Mariel of Redwall (1991), Salamandastron (1992), Martin the Warrior (1993) and The Bellmaker (1995). The venue is a Landscape with some resemblance to rural England, but in which humans do not appear. The central characters are the mice (see Mice and Rats) who inhabit Redwall Abbey, a modest Edifice under threat from evil species like stoats, rats, weasels and foxes. The various protagonists fluctuatingly display human characteristics, and wear clothes, bringing individual stories very close to Beast Fable. Echoes of Kenneth Grahame's strategies (and of his association of Good and Evil with particular species) are very clear. Jacques's only nonseries book, Seven Strange & Ghostly Tales (coll 1991), is a collection of Ghost Stories. [JC]
Brian Jacques
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