Warriors A drawing of Scourge from Warrior Cats as a doll. He is a black cat with one white paw and very long claws. He is wearing a red collar studded with dog teeth and his eyes are bright blue. A drawing of Rock from Warrior Cats as a doll. He is a hairless cat with some tufts of fur on his ear, back, leg, and tail. He is holding a big stick with scratch marks on it.

Synopsis

Warrior Cats is a book series written by a group of writers under the pseudonym Erin Hunter and published by HarperCollins. The first book (Into The Wild) was published in 2003 and since then over 40 mainline books have been written and released, alongside 17 super editions, 8 field guides, 9 manga books (arguably 17), three graphic novels, and 21 novellas.

The original cover of the book Into The Wild by Erin Hunter. An orange cat sits in the middle. In the background, a tortoiseshell cat is hissing at a brown tabby cat.

The first arc, The Prophecies Begin, is about a cat named Fireheart, originally named Rusty, leaving his comfortable life as a housepet to live in the forest alongside the warriors of ThunderClan.

Book Reviews

A Starless Clan, Book 4: Thunder

Good news, Thunder was much more tolerable than Shadow so I got through it faster and I actually enjoyed it!

Starting off with Sunbeam's story: I liked it! Her growing friendship with the cats of ThunderClan and the way the trials are different than Nightheart's ShadowClan trials was interesting. Turns out, when Sunbeam is allowed to exist without Nightheart, she's actually interesting to read about! She adapts to ThunderClan's teamwork culture quickly, stands up for herself in a way she rarely if ever did in ShadowClan, and overall is having a better time in ThunderClan..

Now Frostpaw and Nightheart's side of the story: I don't think Nightheart needs to be here at all. How is he really contributing to the plot? He got Sunbeam to ThunderClan, which is important, and he goes on the journy to the park with Frostpaw, but I don't think he specifically needed to be with her. Personally, I think literally any other cat could have gone with her and been more compelling. I just hate Nightheart's existance so much he's a waste of a pov character and he's damn near useless in the story. Frostpaw is the only main character actually trying to do things. If she was the only pov character, I don't think anything would change.

The cats of the park have never featured in a mainline book yet so I had no idea who they were, but I think the book covered for that fairly well. I didn't have to wonder who these cats were the whole time and I'm sure anyone who did know them had a fun time. I'm excited to see Waffle and Wasp's warrior names! And I liked how the park cats weren't looked down upon for their way of life quite as obviously as other groups have been. They are still slightly judged for relying on twolegs for food, but Nightheart's not mean to them about it and I appreciated it. The meditation and connection to Riverstar was pretty cool too! I've avoided Dawn of the Clans like the plague but everytime I hear about Riverstar I get a little tempted to actually read it. I also think Frostpaw getting spayed is going to be interesting but also Warrior Cats haven't handled fixed cats very well in the past (see: Henry from Into the Wild), so I don't have very high hopes

Another small note is that part of the reason I hated Shadow so much was the strange more modern sounding prose that just didn't fit Warrior Cats. But even weirder, this book didn't have any of that weird modern prose? Everything stuck to the normal Warrior Cat prose, which made it a lot easier to read for me.

A Starless Clan, Book 3: Shadow

To preface: I started reading Shadow ages ago and only managed to pick it back up recently. I hated Shadow so much that it took months for me to get through it so this is less of a review and more a rant. I really really didn't like Shadow.

The prologue was cool! I think using Berryheart's trauma at the paws of Darktail and the Kin is almost a good motivation for her behavior! I say almost because Darktail and the Kin weren't from the clans, so it would make a lot more sense for her prejudice to be towards rogues and loners instead of her fellow clan cats. The whole book this was kind of nagging at me because they talk as if the other clans are complete strangers to ShadowClan. They literally all know each others names and see each other every gathering? It just doesn't make sense to me.

ShadowClan taking over RiverClan is a very cool parallel to The Prophecies Begin that I wish was expanded upon. It would have been really cool to see more of arc 1 repeating itself but alas. All we get is Tigerstar. Okay now moving on to the worst part of this book: Sunbeam and Nightheart. Nightheart shows up in ShadowClan claiming to be her mate after talking to Sunbeam like twice EVER and not informing her beforehand THIS IS CREEP BEHAVIOR. DO NOT TRUST SOMEONE WHO CLAIMS TO BE DATING YOU WITHOUT CHECKING WITH YOU FIRST. I felt like this book as gaslighting me the whole time, it kept saying that Nightheart joined ShadowClan for Sunbeam when that DIDN'T HAPPEN? HE LEFT TO GET AWAY FROM THUNDERCLAN?? WHAT DID I MISS??? This stupid romance is so unnatural and strange, I can't take it seriously at all. The issue with Nightheart is that he's treated like he's in the right no matter what, even when his behavior is weird and would be a major red flag in real life. The issue with Sunbeam is that she's another she-cat defined by her romances with toms AND she keeps talking like a modern teenager and it's freaking me the fuck out. Why does she say things like "is he for real". Warrior Cats are not meant to say that. My general rule is that if a medieval knight wouldn't say it, a Warrior Cat probably wouldn't say it either. Would Sir Lancelot say "break up" and "crush"? No. Sunbeam shouldn't either. There's also that Sunbeam wasn't at RiverClan camp super often so she wasn't super involved in Frostpaw's side of the book, which was frustrating, but it seems like she will be next book so I'll hold off on commenting on that much more.

Okay now on to Frostpaw and RiverClan: Frostpaw switching from being a medicine cat apprentice over to be a warrior one could have been interesting if the way hunting and fighting and training wasn't written so boring. As Tumblr user Skinwretch has pointed out, Frostpaw and Shadowsight have very similar stories, with the key difference that Frostpaw's features romance prominently, most definitely because she's a she-cat and of COURSE the woman wants to have babies and a husband. God forbid a woman wants to chill. I can't think of a single female medicine cat pov that didn't have a romance of some kind, meanwhile damn near every tom medicine cat barely shows any interest in romance at all. Hm I wonder why. Other than the pointless romance with Splashtail going on, I actually liked a lot of Frostpaw's plotline this book! I think her first real vision being of Reedwhisker's violent death and seeing through his killer's eyes specifically is really interesing and makes me think Curlfeather is the one that killed him. Also, Frostpaw standing up for herself to the whole gathering was pretty cool. If only she actually had any agency.

My Thunder review might take a bit to get here since my hold at the library is taking a while, but I hope it's better than whatever Shadow was.

A Starless Clan, Book 2: Sky

I did not like Nightheart at all in River, but I think this book has endeared me to him a little. He's just so miserable I can't not feel a little bad for him. I really really hope his whole thing with leaving ThunderClan doesn't end up with him as the leader of RiverClan. That seems like how it might shape out, but I do not think he would make a good leader at all. And we already had a Nightstar, whom I loved dearly. I also know him and Sunbeam are going to become mates but I'm still hoping in vain that they don't. It would be really nice if we had a non medicine cat main character that wasn't interested in romance. Speaking of Sunbeam, I'm not really into her whole drama with Blazefire and Lightleap, but I do like her as a character. Frostpaw is also really interesting to me. I love her issues with having too much responsibility and not actually being connected to StarClan at all. I hope Mothwing becomes leader, that would be fun.

Crookedstar's Promise

I read this entire book today and I don't have much to say about it. It was fine. I like the seemingly eternal cycle of Crookedstar's relatives falling in love with ThunderClan cats. Also the manga at the end with Silverstream saying the code needs to change for half-clan relationships... she was ahead of her time. I also like how Rainflower's behavior is never excused by Crookedstar. He still wants her approval the whole time, but when other cats try and excuse her actions he doesn't buy it at all. I don't like Hailstar though. He seems like a reasonable guy throughout the whole book but he also let Rainflower rename her son Crookedkit and I never really got that out of my mind. I loved Brambleberry and I miss when medicine cats were portrayed as a little crazy because of all the omens and such. Now that we've had so many medicine cat POV characters I think the role has been kind of watered down. They tend to TELL us that medicine cats' connection to StarClan is important but rarely seem to actually SHOW it in a way that actually gets the point across. Overall this was a pretty good book to me. I liked it I guess but it didn't blow my mind or anything.

The Prophecies Begin, Book 2: Fire and Ice

WindClan was my favorite for a long time. I just adored Tallstar and how him and Fireheart were friends. Funnily enough I never actually read Tallstar's Revenge. I think Ravenpaw doing a lot better with Barley is sweet. Graystripe in this book makes me so annoyed. People tend to portray him as Fireheart's wonderful best friend and he is like that in Into the Wild, but by this book he's just horrible. Constantly dumping Brackenpaw on Fireheart, never thanking Fireheart for covering for him, putting his clan at risk because RiverClan could scent him on their territory. He's got moments of good, like standing up for Fireheart when he brought Cloudkit into camp, but that's about it. Cloudkit's pretty cute though. He's kind of a brat but I like how much he clearly cares for the clan. Even if he's breaking rules, he's at least trying to help.

I really like the battle at WindClan's camp at the end, I think it really shows Fireheart's care towards others. He didn't need to let Silverstream go and he didn't need to cover for Graystripe again but he did anyway. Graystripe was not a good friend in this book and him and Fireheart making up at the end didn't entirely feel right. Graystripe did nothing to make up for all the other things he did all book, and his relationship with Silverstream contintues to get Fireheart in trouble. As sweet as it comes off, Fireheart and Graystripe's friendship just doesn't work in this book. Silverstream is a whole 'nother bag of worms. Every interaction with Fireheart she has just screams spoiled and little too over confident. This isn't me saying I don't like her, I think it makes sense that she thinks she can get away with everything. She's the only child of Crookedstar, who has lost everyone else in his family so it would make sense for him to be a lot easier on her than a parent maybe should have been. It really is a shame we don't see too much of her before her death.

The Prophecies Begin, Book 1: Into The Wild

Very early in this book it establishes that the clan cats call the vet "the Cutter" because they fix cats, which is objectively really really funny but I am kind of thankful this isn't really mentioned behond arc 1. It's a little weird.

Rusty's fight with Longtail is pretty iconic to me and it made me really like Longtail. When I was a kid I always imagined him as a siamese instead of a tabby and that always stuck in my brain until I watched SSS Warrior Cats, which totally changed my view of him. He looks like his SSS Warrior Cats design in my minds eye now.

I love Yellowfang. I don't have anything else to say I just love her.

Official Art

For the first four arcs, Wayne Mcloughlin was the books' cover artist. His style was soft and realistic. His covers for the mainline books had two illustrations: a portrait of one (or two, in the case of Fire and Ice) of the important characters in that book and a full cover spread often depicting a scene from the book. The background of this webpage is the full cover of The Last Hope. These are some of my favorite pieces Wayne did for Warrior Cats:

A painting of waves of water with a cat's head poking out of the water. The cat is a reddish-brown tabby. A painting of a dark gray cat with a purple flower. The cat has a flat muzzle and scars on her face. Her ears are chipped. A painting of a cat laying down next to a pool of water. The stars in the sky are reflected in the pool

Mcloughlin unfortunately passed away in 2015 and since then, Warrior Cats has aquired a new cover artist; Owen Richardson. While Wayne's work is still regarded highly in the fan community, Richardson's covers aren't nearly as loved. Richardson's style is far more detailed than Mcloughlin's and he seems to be fond of extremely harsh lighting. His covers often depict a very close up illustration of one of the important cats in that book. While Mcloughlin also did this on occassion, he had the benefit of these close up faces being small portraits, meanwhile Richardson's close ups take up the entire front cover. Some fans (including myself) are also under the impression that cats aren't exactly Richardson's specialty. Mcloughlin was a wildlife artist, he had a lot of experience with illustrating animals as the focus of a piece of art, meanwhile most of Richardson's works outside Warrior Cats center around humans, with animals as pieces of the environment or monsters to be fought instead of characters in their own right. Richardson is by no means a bad artist; his work outside Warrior Cats is stunning, but he just doesn't seem comfortable with illustrating cats enough to make his covers as iconic as Mcloughlin's. That said, here are a few of my favorite Richardson pieces:

A painting of two cats sitting on a rock by the sea. In the background there is a jagged cliff and the sun shines through the clouds. A painting of two cats sitting by a river. A branch is in front of them. A painting of a hairless cat. A circle of light shines around his head.

Warrior Cats also has a series of graphic novels (many of which were formerly called Mangas). The first Warrior Cats graphic novel series released in 2007 and was illustrated by James L. Barry. Barry's art style is sharp and cartoonish and his designs for each character are unique and recognizable. I don't see fans talk about Barry's artwork quite as much as the cover art, but I do see his character designs as canon examples of a character often enough that I think most fans are at least somewhat fond of his work. While I wasn't a very big fan of his style when I read Graystripe's adventure, it certainly grew on me over the years. I especially love his art of Ravenpaw and Barley from Ravenpaw's Path.

A drawing of two cats laying next to each other. One cat is mostly white with black patches and the other cat is mostly black with a white spot on his chest and white on the tip of his tail.

The second graphic novel HarperCollins published for Warrior Cats was Rise of Scourge, illustrated by Bettina Kurkoski. Kurkoski's style is clearly anime inspired, which feels like the perfect art style for a book about Scourge. This is the only graphic novel Kurkoski illustrated for Warrior Cats, but it's regarded as one of the best and is my personal favorite. This portrait she did of Scourge for the cover is one of my favorite pieces of offical Warrior Cat art ever:

A drawing of a black cat wearing a collar studded with dog teeth.

The third graphic novel series was Tigerstar and Sasha, illustrated by Don Hudson. Hudson's style for this graphic novel looks rather awkward. The shape of the cats' faces sometimes look a bit too human to look natural, which makes it one of the more unpopular Warrior Cats graphic novels. I suspect this is another example of an artist that isn't quite used to drawing cats enough to make every expression look natural; Hudson primarily works on Marvel comics, which is a wildly different genre to Warrior Cats. This was the only graphic novel Hudson illustrated for. That said, Hudson's artwork for Tigerstar and Sasha isn't quite as terrible as some fans make it out to be. The way he drew Hawkpaw and Mothpaw was pretty cute, in my opinion.

A comic panel of a kitten saying 'I'll make you proud, Mama. You'll see.' and a cat partially off screen responding 'I know you will... Hawkpaw.

In 2024 a new graphic novel series was started; three graphic novels adapting the first arc, The Prophecies Begin, illustrated by Natalie Riess and Sara Goetter. Riess and Goetter's art style is cartoonish, bouncy, and brightly colored. All the characters have unique and recognizable designs. This is by far my favorite style a Warrior Cats graphic novel has ever had. This illustration for the hardcover underneath the sleeve is absolutely stunning:

An illustration of a forest fire and a cat sitting untouched by the fire.

"I expect the Ice to melt... But it doesn't. It just gets colder and colder."

Scourge is the leader of BloodClan, a group of cats living in the city (AKA Twoleg Place) near the forest the Clans reside in. As a kitten, he ventured into the forest ThunderClan resides in and was attacked by Tigerstar (Tigerpaw at the time), leading to a lifelong grudge against the warrior that culminated in Tigerstar's violent death. Almost every detail about Scourge is cool. He's the leader of BloodClan, he wears dog claws over his regular claws, his collar is studded with dog teeth, he has one white paw, he's Firestar's half brother (though he neither of them ever learn this), and his attack on Tigerstar is so extensive that he loses all nine lives in succession. Scourge is also very small, his birth name being Tiny, which I appreciate as a short person myself.

"Why couldn't you just let them fade into the past?"

Rock is a blind hairless cat that resides in the tunnels beneath the Clans' Lake Territory. Before the Clans existed, he kept track of every cat that entered the tunnels, who died, and who made it out alive. For some reason on my first read I thought Rock was immortal and his blindness and hairlessness was a result of his body aging but not dying. But apparently he's been a ghost this whole time! I still personally like my first interpretation better.

Fan Art and Projects

Work in progress...