I found this one up at a used book store - I had no idea my favourite childhood novel had a sequel! As a standalone novel it was alright, but as a follow-up to Watership Down, it paled in comparison and got a fair bit of the characterisation wrong.

I know it must be odd of me, a grown adult, to sit here like "the rabbits in this children's book feel out of character", and understandably, the author returned to the work some 20 years later and was bound to change or forget bits without realising. But, regardless, I felt a little disappointed with it.

The El-ahrairah stories annoyed me the most, I think; I love a good bit of in-world folklore, but in Watership Down he was primarily characterized as this fabled hero, with constant tricks up his sleeves. In these stories, he felt very passive, like a normal rabbit. Things just happened to him, and his own wit had little to do with his escapes from whatever peril he found himself in. I was particularly disappointed when, in one of the stories in part two, he left a warren of rabbits to their deaths and didn't even consider coming up with something to help them out of it. This character is literally who the protagonists pray to when they're about to do something with impossible odds! Again, it's a kids' book, and this is really nothing of consequence, but it saddened me a bit nonetheless.

The third part of the book fared better, but still suffered from an occasional moment of "hey, that wasn't how it went down in the first book!" and, in typical short-story-collection fashion, was rather disjointed throughout. I love these characters, but I'll admit that this sequel wasn't necessary, and felt as though the author went back to a successful work to milk it for content.