But it is also in the running for one of the best books in the arc,

for it's spread of characters and the moments they share together.

It's still a first-arc book at heart, but there are some significant improvements.

Rising Storm was released on January 6th of 2004, a little under 3 months after Forest of Secrets.

Evidentially having Cherith come on as a second author allowed the turnaround time for book releases to speed up,

though we'll have to see how long that lasts.

Kate Cary is back as the author of this one,

and considering this book is closer to Fire and Ice than Into the Wild in terms of plot advances,

we could expect her to be in her element by now and write a lovely book.

Before the story even begins, we can see some changes in the allegiances.

Between Fireheart's promotion, Tigerclaw's exile, Willowpelt's move to the nursery, and Graystripe's clan switch,

Thunderclan is back to having 8 warriors again.

But they also now have 6 apprentices. Brackenfur was made a warrior, but we have newcomers Fernpaw and Ashpaw.

There are now five queens instead of four with Willowpelt moving in,

making the nursery tied with the elders' den for number-of-cats.

Unfortunately, in this book, the top 10 characters have 86% of the lines.

The percentage hasn't been this high since Into the Wild,

and it's primarily because of Fireheart speaking more in this book than any other in the arc.

Not even the other cats in the top 10 can come close to him.

The characters that do get some focus around him are done very well, but Fireheart is very much the main star in this book.

As far as the female percentage, it's roughly the same as the last book.

Like Forest of Secrets, 38% of the characters are she-cats, but now they only have 33% of the lines, even less than before.

This is mostly because of the side characters, along with Fireheart getting the lion's share of the speaking time.

Of the characters with over 100 lines, and putting aside Fireheart, all of them are she-cats:

Sandstorm, Bluestar, and Cinderpelt.

But so many of the side characters and antagonists are male that it doesn't show much in the overall percentage.

Additionally, and I didn't mention this in the Forest of Secrets video since there wasn't much change,

but at this point the allegiances for Windclan, Riverclan, and Shadowclan are about even with each other in numbers of cats.

All of them have at least one elder and queen, 4 warriors with some apprentices,

and of course confirmed leaders, deputies, and medicine cats who all feature at least minorly in the story.

And now it's time to see what this new cast can do in the space of this book.

It's a pretty darn good one, so let's get into it.

We open the book with what is technically the first medicine cat point of view of the series!

See, you can't blame the New Prophecy for it!

Oh uh wait...yeah, yeah you can.

We'll get to that eventually.

For now, some mysterious medicine cat is mourning the slow loss of his leader's life by sickness

while the clan bemoans their lack of fortune.

Without learning which clan or even time period this is,

we move back to Fireheart's perspective, where he's having great difficulties teaching Cloudpaw.

Once he gives up on that problem, he tries to get used to the other difficult part of his new life: being deputy.

He struggles to get through patrols, helped by Sandstorm, a calm, insightful, and competent warrior,

and Whitestorm, who shows far more wisdom and leadership qualities than Fireheart,

and then gets to overhear the elders gossip about *how his deputyship is doomed as he was named late.

Fireheart is scared of Tigerclaw, a fear that comes out when he looks at Bramblekit,

and Goldenflower confesses she knows the clan might not look favorably on her kits, and says she will protect them regardless.

Whitestorm continues to be the backdoor deputy

by learning and pointing out Ashkit and Fernkit's ages and recommending that they be made apprentices.

Bluestar isn't doing great so Fireheart has to choose the mentors,

and he asks every cat in the clan before going to Cinderpelt, who guides him through the process of making a decision.

He chooses Darkstripe and Dustpelt as the mentors.

Spottedleaf visits him in his dreams, but this time just to walk away from him and leave him calling out for her desperately.

What a great romance.

For an impromptu, unspecified reason, Bluestar needs to go to the Moonstone and speak with Starclan,

and she brings Fireheart along with her.

In their absence, Whitestorm agrees to take over and immediately slips into the role with ease, unlike Fireheart.

But the trip proves fruitless anyway, as Mudclaw and his patrol force Fireheart and Bluestar back,

and they don't reach the Moonstone.

After a gathering, Sandstorm, Fireheart, and Cinderpelt find two Shadowclan warriors:

Littlecloud and Whitethroat, sick on their territory,

and Cinderpelt decides to treat them with or without Fireheart's eventual and reluctant permission,

because she believes it to be the right thing to do.

Cloudpaw is well fed despite not bringing back much prey, and cats keep scenting him near the twolegplace,

which culminates when Fireheart sees his apprentice getting food from twolegs.

He feels guilty, and goes to both Princess and Sandstorm with his woes before he talks to Cloudpaw,

who doesn't see what's wrong and inadvertently induces massive insecurity in Fireheart about his own kittypet heritage.

Soon enough though, Cloudpaw is missing from camp and Sandstorm and Fireheart learn he was taken by the twolegs.

Sandstorm tries to console him and Fireheart lashes out at her

and says she's abandoning Cloudpaw because she doesn't care about kittypet-born cats...which she never suggested.

Really not cool dude, even if you're angry.

The rest of the clan, though, seems content with letting Cloudpaw be gone.

That night, Spottedleaf comes again and tells him to “Beware a warrior who seems to sleep”

nd given that every warrior she's mentioned in these mini-prophecies has been Tigerclaw,

you could guess where this is going.

But even putting that aside...Fireheart and Bluestar have been on high alert for Tigerclaw through this whole book.

Even if Fireheart interpreted it perfectly in an instant, which surprise surprise he doesn't,

he would do nothing differently, at all...gosh I hate these first arc mini-prophecies.

Fireheart misinterprets the prophecy and drives out the sick Shadowclan cats instead,

following it up with a visit to Graystripe at their border to be sure they're gone and generally catch up on news.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows though,

because Mousefur, Thornpaw, and Runningwind were attacked by Tigerclaw and Runningwind is now dead.

Shocker.

Fireheart goes to confront him and even then he briefly believes Whitethroat, the sick and weak Shadowclan cat,

killed Runningwind instead of Tigerclaw...Fireheart is kind of an idiot.

Anyway, Whitethroat dies on the Thunderpath and Tigerclaw's patrol fights Fireheart's

and almost wins before Graystripe comes in with a patrol of his own.

Bluestar is very shaken about Tigerclaw's threat as the clan mourns Runningwind.

After a while of heightened patrols and sped up training making everyone tired,

Ravenpaw comes to visit with news of a fluffy white kittypet with Thunderclan scent: Cloudpaw.

Immediately Fireheart decides to get his apprentice back, rescuing him from his terribly unhappy life with the twolegs.

Sandstorm, after failing to convince him not to go, decides to join him.

They rescue Cloudpaw and, after a couple run-ins with some dogs and a Windclan patrol,

arrive safely back with the apprentice in tow.

The clan accepts him after his story of being stolen,

and Fireheart agrees to keep the truth a secret as long as Cloudpaw proves he has learned his lesson.

The clan can't catch a break though, as that night there is a forest fire.

Thunderclan escapes to Riverclan, Fireheart saves Bramblekit and tries to save Patchpelt, but the elder dies.

Soon after, he is able to make his way back to Thunderclan's camp and he finds Halftail dead and Yellowfang,

who was supposed to help him out, dying.

A heart wrenching death scene occurs and Thunderclan returns to their camp.

Fireheart discovers Bluestar is not well enough to attend the gathering, and leads the clan to Fourtrees in her place.

After some sharing of news, the leaders gather, learn that Nightstar is dead,

and then...that Tigerstar is the new leader of Shadowclan.

Tigerstar being leader at the end of this book marks the end of the time

where either Bluestar or Fireheart should have thought to tell the other clans about him.

But for some reason, they choose not to do that, leading to plenty of pain for Shadowclan, Riverclan, and themselves.

Perhaps Bluestar wasn't thinking clearly enough to make that call

but Fireheart has never shied away from sharing crucial information across borders before,

especially in such a dire situation.

There really shouldn't have even been any backlash, based on what we've seen already.

When Shadowclan announced one of their own cats had turned traitor and was now wandering as a rogue,

no one took issue with it, even though Brokenstar, a cat no one really trusted, was giving the news.

Why would it be any different for the trustworthy Fireheart announcing Tigerclaw's departure?

There is another issue, one that isn't quite as pressing but that has been growing through this arc.

The clans aren't really that different from each other.

Now that we've seen sympathetic and unsympathetic sides of every clan, and bits of each of their cultures,

it's easier to see that the differences we were presented with at first aren't present.

The clans live in different places and prefer some types of prey but they're all first and foremost clan cats,

willing to work together and adapt to new situations if need-be.

Even Graystripe managed to get used to swimming and eating fish in less than a moon,

according to Leopardfur who certainly wouldn't hesitate to critique him if she found anything wrong.

Other than those little hiccups though, the plot is a fairly solid one, at least by Warriors standards.

Tigerclaw is minimally used until the end, more as a theoretical force in the background than an agent in the plot,

so let's get into the other characters: the meat of this book.

First, and for the future, it's worth noting that Onewhisker and Fireheart don't have a perfect friendship even here.

Fireheart gets angry at him for Windclan's behavior towards Thunderclan in this book,

and Onewhisker can't properly explain himself.

Still, they quickly brush it off and converse more freely.

Runningwind is still taking over as a mentor for every cat under the sun,

squashing his only line of previous characterization into dust just as he dies.

Poor guy never got to be anything concrete in this series, but I'm *sure* that's not a situation that will ever come up again.

Brightpaw once again has very little to say here but she's often used as a foil for Cloudpaw:

the perfect apprentice, being obedient, dutiful, compassionate, and patient.

Also, for the future, I'll just say that one of the only things she *does* say, is that

“it would be nice to have Cloudpaw back,” and later, they greet each other with a friendly nuzzle.

Also, Dustpelt and Fernpaw are...getting along really well.

This isn't presented as terribly weird in the moment,

but looking back on this almost brand-new apprentice flirting with this fairly experienced warrior is...a bit uncomfortable.

When they're both adults they make a really nice pair

but it's important to remember that their cuteness later on can't and shouldn't erase where their relationship started.

We can praise them for what they did right while still acknowledging the relationship was founded on a serious flaw.

Graystripe only visits Fireheart briefly, and he seems to be getting along in Riverclan rather well.

He still cares for and helps Fireheart, of course, but he really seems to love his kits,

and after all the fish he's been eating he doesn't even mind swimming in the river.

This book does a lot to make you believe he could really be a Riverclan cat now and forever more.

He does show flits of disloyalty when the fire destroys his old territory,

but considering all of Riverclan was giving Thunderclan sympathy and shelter,

and how close he was to those woods and the cats there, it's understandable for now.

I like this Graystripe. He's on his best behavior.

For most of the book, Bluestar is distant, but occasionally she shows her affection for and trust in Fireheart.

She shows pride in the numerous times he has helped or saved the clan,

and treats him as the only worthwhile cat in Thunderclan, something Fireheart finds uncomfortable.

She's definitely still in control of her mind, but there are growing unfounded suspicions

that anyone who's read the series before will immediately see as warning signs for her future.

In fact, after the fire, she seems to fully crack before our eyes,

condemning Starclan for telling them fire would save her clan, refusing to go to the gathering,

and seeing traitors around every corner.

But I do really like her reaction to hearing about Ravenpaw's part in getting Cloudpaw back.

She remembers that he tried to warn the clan about Tigerclaw, and wishes she had listened.

She asks without a second thought if he should be invited back to the clan,

but we know from Ravenpaw's speech earlier that he wouldn't want to come back.

He has a happy life with Barley.

But it's good to know he's welcomed in Thunderclan, like a denmate in fact.

He doesn't receive Bluestar's ire, even in her more crazed moments.

Whitestorm is an amazing deputy.

He isn't deputy, but he's clearly working as the greatest power behind the throne for this whole book,

helping Fireheart and keeping a quiet watch over everything happening all over the clan.

He is the most obviously qualified cat around to be deputy.

I've always loved the relationship between Yellowfang and Cinderpelt*

and seeing it here at its peak before Yellowfang's death was great.

We saw them understanding each other, taking on some of each others' mannerisms,

respecting each other, and even quarreling with each other when it came to their beliefs.

They have a really beautiful friendship.

Cinderpelt herself is having significant insecurities about her place as a medicine cat,