Warriors: The New Prophecy is the second arc in the Warriors juvenile fantasy novel series about cats, who live in four established clans and follow a code to keep the peace between them from breaking apart completely. The arc comprises six novels which were published from 2005 to 2006: Midnight, Moonrise, Dawn, Starlight, Twilight, and Sunset. The novels are published by HarperCollins under the pseudonym Erin Hunter, which refers to authors Kate Cary and Cherith Baldry and plot developer/editor Victoria Holmes. The New Prophecy details the Clans' journey to a new home when humans (called Twolegs by the Clans) destroy their original territories. The arc's major themes deal with forbidden love, the concept of nature versus nurture, and characters being a mix of good and bad. Though the novels have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List and have been nominated for several awards, none of the novels in Warriors: The New Prophecy has won a significant literary award.
Pseudonym The series was written by Erin Hunter, a pseudonym used by authors Cherith Baldry, Kate Cary, Tui Sutherland, and series editor Victoria Holmes. The pseudonym is used so that the individual novels in the series would not be shelved in different places in libraries. Victoria Holmes chose the name Erin because she liked the name, and Hunter because it matched the theme of feral cats. It also ensured that the books were shelved near those of Brian Jacques, an author that the writers, collectively known as "the Erins", liked.
Inspiration and influences The authors of the series drew inspiration from several natural locations in the United Kingdom. The four Clans (WindClan, RiverClan, ThunderClan, and ShadowClan) share a fictional forest based on England's New Forest. Loch Lomond is another location that influenced the setting. The herbs that the cats use for healing is based on information found in Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal. Some other sources of inspiration for the series include the works of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.
Cherith Baldry, one of the people who write using the pen name Erin Hunter, said that it was sad and hard to write the death of Feathertail at the end of Moonrise because they had to present it in a way suitable for the book's younger target audience.
The series is written in an alternating third-person limited narrative.
Publication history Midnight was first released in the US and Canada in hardcover on 10 May 2005. It was released in the UK on 25 October 2006. It was released in paperback on 4 April 2006. It was also released for the Amazon Kindle on 6 November 2007.
Moonrise was published as a hardcover by HarperCollins on 25 July 2005 in Canada, and 2 August 2005 in the US and UK. The book was released as a paperback on 25 July 2006, and as an e-book on 6 November 2007.
Dawn was first published as a hardcover on 27 December 2005 in the US. The e-book version was released about a year later on 6 November 2007 and the paperback version was released on 14 November 2006. In the UK, the hardcover was released on 1 January 2006, a few days after the US version came out. The paperback version was released eleven months later on 1 December 2006. The Canadian version was released by Tween Publishing on 2 November 2006. Dawn was released as a hardcover in Australia at the same time as America on 27 December 2005. Similarly, the paperback and e-book version were released on the same day as the US, 14 November 2006 for the paperback and 6 November 2007 for the e-book.
Starlight was released on 4 April 2006, in hardcover. It has been released as a paperback. It was also the first of the Warriors series to be released as an audiobook.
Sunset was released as a hardcover in the US and UK on 12 December 2006. The paperback version was released about a year later on 25 September 2007. Sunset has also been released in CD audiobook and e-book format. The audiobook was read by Nanette Savard, whose performance was praised by a reviewer for AudioFile, who stated: "Nanette Savard brings out the youth of the cats who are struggling to help their clan survive and to protect each other from outside danger". The book was also re-released in the UK on 29 September 2011, with new cover art.
Setting and characters
Warriors: The New Prophecy takes place in several locations inspired by similar locales in the United Kingdom. With the exception of a disused mine, the forest in which the cats live is based largely on the New Forest. In addition, parts of the story take place by the ocean and in a fictitious mountain range. There is also a lake and its surrounding areas which become the Clans; new home.
The main characters each come from one of four Clans: ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan. All Clan cats share a belief in StarClan, a group of spirits usually represented by the stars, who are their ancestors and provide them with guidance. The Clans also follow identical hierarchy structures: Clans each have one leader, a deputy who is second-in-command, and a medicine cat who heals Clanmates in addition to communicating with StarClan. The bulk of each Clan consists of warriors, who carry out hunting for food, patrol borders, and fight battles when they occur. Apprentices are younger cats who are in training to become warriors, or more rarely, medicine cats.
Synopsis
Midnight
Four seasons, or a year, have passed since the previous book, The Darkest Hour. Firestar, the new leader of ThunderClan, has had two kittens with Sandstorm, named Squirrelpaw and Leafpaw. Squirrelpaw is apprenticed to Dustpelt, and Leafpaw is apprenticed to Cinderpelt, to train to become the next medicine cat of ThunderClan. While Leafpaw and Cinderpelt search for herbs, StarClan, the cats' ancestors, sends Cinderpelt an ominous warning in some burning bracken, a picture of a tiger running through fire, which she interprets to mean that fire and tiger will destroy the forest. Cinderpelt concludes that the warning must be about Squirrelpaw and Brambleclaw, the daughter of Firestar and the son of Tigerstar, respectively. They share the warning with Firestar, who later decides to keep Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw separated.
In a dream, StarClan tells Brambleclaw, Feathertail (Graystripe's daughter), Crowpaw, and Tawnypelt (formerly Tawnypaw, Brambleclaw's sister) to listen to what "midnight" has to say. Eventually, they begin a journey in the direction of the setting sun. Squirrelpaw tags along and Stormfur insists on accompanying them to protect his sister, Feathertail, as the six cats trek into the unknown world. On their journey, they meet an old loner named Purdy who helps the Clan cats get to the sun-drown place (ocean). Eventually, they reach the sun-drown-place and enter a cavern inhabited by a highly intelligent badger known as Midnight, who reveals to them that humans will destroy the forest and that the cats must either leave the forest or die. She also tells them that a dying warrior will lead the Clans to their new home.
Moonrise
On the return journey from their quest in Midnight, the Clan cats decide, after consultation with Midnight, to go through a mountain range which they had avoided in their initial travels. There, they meet a Clan-like group of cats called the Tribe of Rushing Water, who have their own set of ancestors: the Tribe of Endless Hunting. The Tribe takes the traveling cats in and gives them food and shelter. The Clan cats discover that the Tribe cats have a prophecy: a silver cat will save them from Sharptooth, a savage cougar that has been killing many members of the Tribe. The Tribe thinks that Stormfur is the silver cat from the prophecy, and he is therefore expected to protect the Tribe from Sharptooth.
Together, the Clan cats succeed in leading Sharptooth into a trap in a cave. However, their plan to poison Sharptooth goes awry, and Feathertail jumps up to the roof of the cave onto a stalactite, causing it to fall. Both Feathertail and Sharptooth are killed by the impact. The Tribe then realizes that Feathertail was the silver cat in their prophecy, not her brother Stormfur, as they had previously thought. The five remaining cats then continue their journey. The book ends with Squirrelpaw noticing Highstones, which is at the edge of WindClan territory; they are almost home.
Meanwhile, back in the forest, the Clans begin to experience the effects of the humans' intrusion into their territories, including lost and poisoned prey, destruction of the forest and cats being abducted.
Dawn
Brambleclaw, Squirrelpaw, Crowpaw, Stormfur and Tawnypelt return to the Clans from a quest with a message: the Clans must move to a new home, or risk death. The destruction of the forest has already begun, with the Clans starving as the food supply has been cut off and their habitat destroyed by the humans building a new road. At the same time, cats are being taken away by humans, including a ThunderClan apprentice, Leafpaw. A patrol is sent to rescue the captured cats, but Graystripe is captured after he succeeds in rescuing Leafpaw and other cats from RiverClan and WindClan, as well as many non-Clan cats.
It is difficult for Firestar, ThunderClan's leader, to convince ShadowClan and RiverClan to leave. ShadowClan finally agrees to leave when a tree cut down by humans falls in their camp. Midnight, an intelligent badger from the previous book, had told the questing cats that a "dying warrior" will show the Clans the way to their new home. The dying warrior turns out to be the spirit of Mudfur, the RiverClan medicine cat who died earlier. As the Clans' spiritual ancestors are represented by the star, Mudfur "runs" though the night sky as a shooting star and drops behind the mountains, showing the new territory will be beyond the mountains. The Clans travel together through the mountains, guided by Brambleclaw, Squirrelpaw, Crowpaw, Tawnypelt, and Stormfur.
While in the mountains, the Clans meet the Tribe of Rushing Water and Stormfur chooses to stay with the Tribe with Brook Where Small Fish Swim, whom he has fallen in love with, and his sister, Feathertail's, spirit. At the end of the book, the Clans discover a forest around a lake that reflects all of the stars.
Starlight
The four Clans of warrior cats, ThunderClan, ShadowClan, RiverClan and WindClan, discover a lake which serves as their new home, replacing their old home which is destroyed by humans. During a meeting, Firestar, leader of ThunderClan, calls up Squirrelpaw, his daughter who is an apprentice, and promotes her to the status of warrior, giving her the warrior name Squirrelflight. The next day, the leaders call upon the four remaining cats that go on the journey to the sun-drown-place in Midnight, Brambleclaw, Squirrelflight, Crowfeather, and Tawnypelt, as well as Mistyfoot of RiverClan to explore around the lake and find camps for each Clan.
The cats come across a location that seems ideal for RiverClan's fishing lifestyle. Continuing on, they find a coniferous forest which seems to suit ShadowClan. Desperate to prove herself by finding ThunderClan a camp, Squirrelflight runs ahead and accidentally falls down a large circular stone hollow. She recovers and realizes that it is a perfect place for a well-sheltered ThunderClan camp. The cats later cross a moorland which Crowfeather thinks suits WindClan's lifestyle of chasing rabbits. The Clans decide to leave for their new camps the next day.