William from Shropshire The Duncton Wood books really are magical, I'd never have thought the a story about moles could be so moving and realistic. All of Willocks' books are bloody great reading, but this is his first "Dogs" novel (his previous novels are about, let's see. The worship of the Stone colours every little part of this book, which Horwood declares in his notes at the end is an allegory - probably for pagan worship.

Susan Kirsopp from Northumberland I read the first one Duncton Wood a few years ago and found it fascinating I like many others I could not believe how I was drawn into the lives of moles. Despite that, I will be on the lookout for the others in this series as I had forgotten how well written they were.Fascinating, magical, absorbing, exciting and I couldn't stop reading any of them until I got to the last page.

I find Bracken a bit wishy-washy and whiny to start, and then slightly dense in the middle, and then hard to idenitfy with at the end. The other focus of the Duncton series is the Stone, a religion based on the standing stones and stone circles of Britain. this lack of social coherence also makes the scholarly and Vatican like community of Holy Moles at Uffington seem somewhat innocuous when set against the rest of Moledom. A number of his characters are excellent value for the entry fee - Mekkins is great fun; Rose is gentle and loving; Boswell is both mysterious and down-to-earth.One instance in particular between Rune and Rebecca is almost obscene and made very, very difficult reading. These moles are full of life and personality, yet at the same time they remain moles throughout the book. Bracken was born on an April night in a warm dark burrow deep in the historic system of Duncton Wood, six moleyears after Rebecca.

Whenever this awful situation has subsided and if we ever get back to some semblance of normal and travel is once again allowed, I know exactly where I want to re-visit. At times Horwood goes into a whimsy of describing every tiny thing and there are a couple of occasions in the book that made me almost want to put it down in disgust - when Bracken is first exploring the Ancient System; when Boswell and Bracken journey to Siabod; when Bracken secretly attends the singing of the Song. Yeah I think part of the problem with Horwood’s novels being little known, is that they are thought of as kids or at the very best, YA novels, due to the fact that the characters are moles.It caressed him with silence, soothed him with its darkness, and its labyrinths were to give him the space in which to find himself again. There also some parts of the system that are almost forgotten, and there are also some customs that have been forgotten as well, so that the moles are using their centre, the silence of the Stone at the centre of the system. Luke from Durham, north England The duncton series as a hole was a series which was recommended to me at the age of twelve, but which I only managed to track down four years later. When Horwood is concentrating on the goings on in the Duncton system, describing the moles and their daily lives, he is at his strongest. I know you're thinking "Sounds like a library, but for money", and you're right, but my school library was garbage and Singapore's public libraries were heavily censored.

Unlike Tolkien, who wrote one best trilogy to make all others superfluous, author William Horwood has also written many other books about different subjects which are also very worth while. I enjoyed Watership Down, and Shardik, and TAILCHASER'S SONG is good in that Tad Williams' does restrain the animals to using the parts that they ACTUALLY have (i. The author would love this to be a ‘meaningful’ novel full of subtle comparisons with human society but the made up languages and poor poems are trite and meaningless. I can absolutely agree with the comments in Floresiensis review and those by others, that the writing, characterization and spirituality of the series are something truly staggering especially in a time when descriptive writing seems to have become a thing of the past and many books read essentially like modified film scripts. But this is the best of them, I felt that the others got a little too bogged down in philosophy and Horwood turned slightly preachy with his pacifist moles.

The only thing this book has in common with the first two books is that it features anthropomorphic animals but it contains none of the whimsy or sweetness of . Moledays, moleyears, molemonths, molefeet, molemiles, molethises, molethats, whatchamamoles, and whoozitmoles. Darker and Edgier: While Duncton Wood had its share of of horror, Duncton Quest brings it up to eleven with the Disciples of The Word's massacre of the Uffington scribemoles.