Entertaining

This is a strange and entertaining fable, a pacey cross between Lord of the Rings and Watership Down. The heroic (if vain) Chanticleer, after some small domestic dramas, must face down an ancient evil in a hybrid of chicken farm and epic fantasy landscape.The reader has a great time, alternating between the Br'er Rabbit folksy and cod-Nordic Saga.

The hero is wise, lonely, and flawed-but-Chosen; the females are gentle, passive, and adoring; the Evil is fearsome and, uh, evil; and you're either with Chanticleer or against him in the final extremely bloody battle. It's a straight-up patriarchal fantasy of the rawest kind. It's an odd effect, as the original Chanticleer stories mock the rooster's delusional belief that he makes the sun rise and are a satire on exactly the sort of naive chivalric story 'Book of the Dun Cow' winds up being. In this story the rooster actually does have some sort of mystical role ordained by God and it's extremely important this not be questioned. Sometimes it feels a bit like the sort of story the Pigs would assign young subservient animals to read in Animal Farm.

However! its fun, affecting, wonderfully read, only occasionally annoying, and a good way to spend 8 hours. Four stars!

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