Staff Picks (October): Squarriors #1

Publisher: Devil's Due

Assorted Post-Apocalypictic Rodentia.  Do I have your attention?  Good! Because this summer’s blockbuster Rocket Raccoon has proven beyond even a whisker of a doubt that the world is ready to embrace, the angriest, fuzziest, and newest woodland warriors on the block: Squarriors. 

Anticipating a flavor closer to Brian Jacques’ Redwall series, I was forced to quickly shelve all of my assumptions — this title reads more like Game of Thrones than anything about cavorting midsummer mice. Factions, limited resources, distrustful races, and family issues bathe the bracken in blood. 

Squarriors is not just a cute pun about squirrels, it’s a not-too-subtle hint that this book promises battle, character death, and a conflict that goes to the core of what makes a man — or in this case, what defines sentience in animals. Are beasts with brains inherently any different than the humans that destroyed the world before them? Can any group successfully make war to accomplish peace? Are ideals and morality promising tools of advancement and the beginnings of civilization or is philosophy just a horrible burden that impedes true instinct and leads to death?   

~ Sarah Martinez