Matthew Elmslie

It’s a fantasy series by Canadian author Kenneth Oppel. It’s about bats. It would probably not be completely out of line to say that this series is to bats as Watership Down is to rabbits. Except that Watership Down is an all-time classic, and this series is generally decent.

Maybe my problem was that I had a hard time identifying with the bat characters, because after all bats are pretty unlike humans in a lot of ways. But then at the same time Oppel tries to write them as close to human as he reasonably can, and that also takes me out of the story, because I just don’t buy it that they’re like that. It’s tricky. He’s achieved a legitimately good adventure story, which I have to give extra points to because of how unconventional it is… but I had a hard time getting it down anyway.

Oppel has written other stuff I’ve liked better, like his steampunkish adventure series about young aviator Matt Cruse and young scientist/heiress Kate de Vries (consisting of Airborn, Skybreaker, and Starclimber); recommended. And then he did some books for much younger readers, including Peg and the Yeti, which I got a kick out of when I read it to the kids. So Oppel is okay by me, but the bat trilogy isn’t my favourite. There’s a prequel, Darkwing, that I think I will not hunt down; enough is enough.