I’d sort of forgotten this prior to starting The Prince Who Fell, but I used to really like those books where there are animals who talk and wear clothes and have slightly uncomfortable relationships with each other given the whole predator/prey thing. Redwall is perhaps the most well-known example of the genre, but there were a bunch more, including this one series involving (I think) ferrets in conflict with stoats. Or something like that.

These kinds of books are usually based on fantasy tropes: swashbuckling mice, quest-going rabbits and Always Chaotic Evil rats. Taking many of the conventions of those older books and putting them into a science fictional setting makes for a more grounded and, dare I say it, more interesting experience. For one thing, this is definitely our world in the future. Humans, or ‘the Skinless Ones’, have vanished, leaving behind only scattered remains and ruins.The world (or at least the Forest) is ruled by animals, who don’t wear clothes and who certainly don’t start waving around swords when they want to fight.

Casseomae, the book’s ‘real’ main character, is an old bear who is haunted by the memory of her stillborn litters of cubs. When a spaceship crash-lands near her den, she decides to protect the only living creature she finds inside: a young boy. Thus begins a desperate flight out of the Forest, with Casseomae enlisting the aid of a rat and later a dog as she tries to stay ahead of a massive wolf pack led by the callous Ogeema Dire.

Half the fun of the novel is discovering the odd societies that these animals have formed in humanity’s absence: Dogs (or ‘Curs’) are derided as being part of the Faithful, which are basically species that were domesticated before humans disappeared, while a sinister family of cats is led by a quasi-religious figure they refer to as Mother Death. The sheer amount of imagination on display is undeniably impressive.

The other half of the book’s appeal comes from the main characters. Or I should say the non-human main characters, since the human child acts more as a McGuffin than a character in his own right. He never speaks, given that he doesn’t understand the animals’ common tongue, and his emotions are usually described in only the broadest terms because that’s all Casseomae can decipher from his behaviour. Casseomae herself is utterly compelling, and never more so than when she begins to question whether her maternal impulse is at odds with the well-being of the Forest’s continued survival. I wouldn’t say that the story every gets bogged down in moral navel-gazing, but the fact that such questions are raised in the first place deepens the book’s narrative considerably.

All in all, The Prince Who Fell From The Sky will be a welcome read for both young fans of ‘animal books’ and older former fans looking to see what the genre is up to these days.