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Tales from Watership Down

Tales from Watership Down

List Price: $18.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good reading, but not what I had expected
Review: For someone who considers Watership Down to be one of the greatest books I have ever read, it took a long time for me to pick up this continuation. Not so much a sequel, "Tales" starts up where the original left off, with a healthy and happy warren full of hope for the coming years. I guess I was expecting a new adventure with Hazel, Bigwig and the lot, but instead was treated to new rabbits and some of their adventures (and misadventures, at that). This book won't be as meaningful to readers unfamiliar with the original story, but any opportunity to revisit with old and cherished friends is worth taking.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good reading, but not what I had expected
Review: For someone who considers Watership Down to be one of the greatest books I have ever read, it took a long time for me to pick up this continuation. Not so much a sequel, "Tales" starts up where the original left off, with a healthy and happy warren full of hope for the coming years. I guess I was expecting a new adventure with Hazel, Bigwig and the lot, but instead was treated to new rabbits and some of their adventures (and misadventures, at that). This book won't be as meaningful to readers unfamiliar with the original story, but any opportunity to revisit with old and cherished friends is worth taking.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good, but not great, follow-up work
Review: For those who loved Watership Down for all its well-plotted adventures of Hazel and his friends who leave their home warren and journey out into the world, this book will probably pale in comparison. Tales from Watership Down is more a book of short stories, some loosely connected together, some not even related to one another. All the stories in this book are as fun to read as the short stories of El-ahrairha in the original book, but while those stories served mostly to further the plot and personify the rabbits by showing their mythology, these stories are just entertaining. I could understand how some readers would be dissapointed if they thought this book was a true sequel, but it does work nicely as a companion piece to the original.

I didn't quite find the stories at the end that continued the life of Hazel and the rabbits at Watership Down quite on par with what I remembered from the original. One of the great things about the original was how he characterized the different rabbits personalities, but they didn't seem quite as lifelike in this book. Still, if you loved Watership Down, how could you not want to read this book?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Disappointment
Review: I loved "Watership Down" and found this to be a disappointment and slightly waste of time.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Where are the rabbits tales?
Review: I personally loved Watership Down so that is naturally why I picked up this book. However, it was disappointingly less new storyline than I expected. In fact the first half of the book was just the rabbits telling more adventures of El Ahrairah. Now this was not boring, yet I expected another great adventure or at least a series of adventures about Fiver, Hazel, and the others. I still recommend it to those who truly liked the first book, but do not expect the same rush that you got from the first book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not as good as the original.
Review: I truly commend Mr. Adams. After our many years of waiting, he has given us a sequel to a classic that most other authors would never be able to achieve. However, what really brings this book down is the fact that the chapters in here are barely about the actual WD rabbits. In fact, there is a whole Part dedicated to El-ahrairah, the rabbit prince. Another thing that I realized is that this book takes place in between the final battle with Woundwort and the very end of Watership Down, meaning Hazel is still with us. If you're a huge, unconditional fan of Watership Down, then this would be a great book for you, and I'll bet that these little flukes won't even phase you. If not, don't get too disappointed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A little disappointing
Review: Let's face it, it would have been hard for Richard Adams to surmount what he had accomplished with Watership Down, but this book falls somewhere on the side of simplistic. I had an initial problem with trying to locate this book in time to the original story -- finally deciding that it fit somewhere between the last chapter and the epilogue -- and that bugged me just enough to make me wonder if there had been a horrible mistake made in writing this sequel.That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book at some level. I did enjoy, for example, the, more-or-less, story-within-the-story approach that the rabbits took to telling their myths, and it was nice to see Hazel again (my favourite character from the original story -- for those of you that haven't read Watership Down I won't go much further than that) but I still can't help but feel that this book takes something away from the original. The ending of Watership Down was so powerful, doesn't going back and telling little, "cutesy", non-important, tales -- that didn't make the cut the first time through -- sort of destroy some of the mystique of that stand-alone masterpiece? I think so. Thumbs up...but maybe a 6.5, instead.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Coda not a sequel
Review: Tales From Watership Down is a collection of stories, that comprise not really a sequel, but more of a coda to the events of Watership Down. The book is divided into three parts, but really Parts I and II go together. They mostly contain stories concerning the adventures of El-ahrairah. The best of which is 'The Story of the Terrible Hay Making', as well as two other stories, one of which: 'The Rabbits Ghost Story' is very good.
The third part concerns some of the events following 'Watership Down'. The most intriguing storyline is that of Flyairth which, unfortunately ends without resolution.
Only those that really enjoyed 'Watership Down' should read this, as it is a decidedly mixed bag. Unfortunately there is a PC tone through some of the stories (humans are evil etc.). But at least Adams portrays nature in all its potential savagery- red in tooth and claw.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Tough Act to Follow = few glimpses of the original's Magic
Review: Tales of Watership Down reads like an abandoned follow up to the classic original that was salvaged into this disjointed collection of hobbled short-stories when Richard Adams either died or couldn't come up with anything better.

The stories are divided into 3 sections. The 1st are "traditional" El-ahrairah stories. The 2nd chronicle El-ahrairah's epic return from the Black Rabbit of Inle. The last ones conclude with our favorite rabbits of Watership Down after the 1st book has ended.

Some of the same sparks that lit its redecessor are here, but alas, the dots never quite connect. Most of the stories fizzle before they take off, failing to impart the familiar, human-like qualities in the many same rabbits in the way that the first one did.

That being said, once I accepted its weaknesses, I was able to enjoy the book for its good parts. It gave me another dose ( a weak, watered-down dose, perhaps) of the original story I craved more of, much like one of those cheesy, made-for-video Disney follow-ups to its classic feature animated films. Not quite a sequal, but something more (more or less).

So what was good? 1. We get the official pronunciation of El-ahrairah's name. 2. The Hole in the Sky - a haunting story that almost, but doesn't quite pull it off 3. The Secret River - a fascinating premise that unfortunately never develops into anything much 4. Flyairth - touching scene when one of the original rabbits to journey to Watership Down dies in its sleep 5. The original rabbits are here - Dandelion tells stories, Pipkin acts like the rabbit version of Piglet, Bigwig huffs, puffs and bellows, Hazel masterfully leads, Fiver intuits and Kehaar noisily and grumpily helps out. This is what I loved about the 1st book and just seeing them again (albeit sleep-walking through their roles in this horrible, B-movie script) is satisfying in the way that Return to Gilligan's Island might be to fans of Gilligan, the Professor and Mary Ann.

So I would recommend checking it out of the library first and purchasing it only when you've found something of the original Watership Down that you can turn to on a cold night for just a little bit more.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Continuation of the Novel
Review: This book features a series of short stories based in the lapine-centric world created by Richard Adams. You get to hear quite a bit of rabbit lore as well as find out what happened to the main characters in the previous book. If you liked the first book, this one should prove a great companion. Although it's meant for kids I was able to enjoy it thoroughly


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