Thunder Rising

Thunder Rising is a children's fantasy novel in the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. Thunder Rising is the second book in the Dawn of the Clans arc, the first being The Sun Trail. Dawn of the Clans follows a group of anthropomorphic cats as they struggle to find peace while living near each other, before the rise of the five Clans in later Warriors series, ThunderClan, RiverClan, WindClan, ShadowClan, and SkyClan. The cats were previously part of a larger group, the Tribe of Rushing Water (also referred to as the Tribe), and left during a famine when the Tribe's leader had a vision directing the cats to leave in search of food. Thunder Rising follows a young cat, Thunder, as he grows up under his uncle's care after his father abandoned him. He is torn between the cat that raised him and longing for the acknowledgement of his biological father.

Thunder Rising
AuthorErin Hunter
Cover artistWayne McLoughlin
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesWarriors: Dawn of the Clans
GenreChildren's literature
Fantasy novel
PublisherHarperCollins
Publication date
5 November 2013 (United States)
Media typePrint
Preceded byThe Sun Trail 
Followed byThe First Battle 

Plot

A few moons (months) have passed since the events of The Sun Trail. The former Tribe cats have settled in, and Thunder is being raised by his uncle, Gray Wing. Turtle Tail returns from the twolegplace (human town), after learning she is pregnant by an aggressive kittypet (housecat) named Tom, and that the twolegs (humans) will take her kits away. She shelters with Gray Wing's group, and after she asks, he agrees to be a father to her kits, becoming her mate. A forest fire rages through Clear Sky's territory, forcing him and his group to temporarily seek shelter with Gray Wing . While staying with Gray Wing, Clear Sky notices his son, Thunder, who he abandoned as a tiny kit, as Thunder is the son of Clear Sky and Storm, a rogue who lived in the forest before the Tribe cats arrived. He notices how Thunder has grown, and he eventually asks Thunder if he wants to live in the forest with Clear Sky. Thunder accepts the offer, wanting to get to know his father, and he stays with Clear Sky for a short while. After seeing how Clear Sky is power-hungry and uncaring about the needs of the individual (a fact that was clearly shown in the first book, when Clear Sky banishes his own brother, Jagged Peak, from the group because he has a broken leg[1]), Thunder leaves, returning to Gray Wing and his group.[2]

Inspiration

The authors of the series drew inspiration from several natural locations in the United Kingdom. The former Tribe cats share a fictional forest based on England's New Forest.[3] Some other sources of inspiration for the series include the works of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.

Setting and characters

Thunder Rising 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.[3]

The main characters each come from two groups, each led by two brothers: Clear Sky and Gray Wing. Clear Sky's group consists largely of cats who are adept at hunting in the undergrowth, and a rare few who fish and swim (such as Falling Feather).[1] Gray Wing's group lives on the moor, and those cats are mainly able to run extremely fast, which is good for catching rabbits on the moor (such as Gray Wing, Wind, and Gorse).[1] Each group is made up largely from the group of cats that came from the mountain, where prey was scarce. The cats travelled a long distance, and they eventually found the forest, which is the Clan's original home.

The concept of the cats travelling from the mountains creates a slight paradox: the Tribe, or the cats from the mountains, was sent from the Clans' lake home to the mountains by a Clan cat (Jayfeather), and the Tribe sent this group to the forest, where that group became the Clans, who moved to the lake, and, after a while, Jayfeather sent them to the mountains. That plot created a kind of endless loop.

Release

Thunder Rising was released on November 5, 2013, as the second book in the Dawn of the Clans arc, which is the fifth arc of the Warriors series. It is available in print in the USA. It was preceded by The Sun Trail, and followed by The First Battle. Books-A-Million states that Thunder Rising is a contributor to a strong children's and young adult's book market for fall of 2013.[4]

gollark: This is unlikely, whoever set your user agent to `Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/6.0;)`, because:- that has an extra semicolon - it doesn't really look valid- a browser/OS that old almost certainly won't support TLS 1.2/1.3, and I recently reconfigured my server to ignore protocols older than those
gollark: One user was apparently on an iPhone - extreme heresy - and one user was allegedly using IE 7.
gollark: I checked my webserver logs, and apparently my new media stuff recommendations page on my website managed about five hits. Amazing.
gollark: What *is* this?
gollark: Suuuuuuure it does.

References
  1. Erin Hunter (2013). The Sun Trail. United States: Harper Collins. p. 352.
  2. Erin Hunter (2013). Thunder Rising. United States: Harper Collins.
  3. "Official Warriors website". HarperCollins. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  4. "Books-A-Million Announces Rick Riordan's Newest Book". Retrieved June 14, 2014.
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