{"id":13318,"date":"2010-09-29T09:25:35","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T16:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2010\/09\/29\/13318.html"},"modified":"2010-09-29T09:25:35","modified_gmt":"2010-09-29T16:25:35","slug":"watership-downs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2010\/09\/29\/watership-downs\/","title":{"rendered":"Watership Downs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every so often, I come across yet another book being described as “Watership Down<\/cite> for\/with x,” where x is some kind of animal.<\/p>\n

(People don't always use exactly that phrase; sometimes they make more indirect comparisons, like “If you liked Watership Down<\/cite>, you'll love this book.”)<\/p>\n

It recently occurred to me to make a list. Note that I haven't read (or, indeed, previously heard of) most of these, and have no opinion myself about whether any of them are actually like Watership Down<\/cite>.<\/p>\n

I suppose it's inevitable that if an author writes a book featuring an animal society, centering on one particular kind of animals, readers and reviewers will describe it as being like the one extremely famous animal-society book that everyone knows about. So it's not really surprising that these comparisons would be made; I just find it interesting.<\/p>\n

Here's a table showing the half-dozen I had encountered before, plus a dozen more I found by doing a quick web search:<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Title<\/th>\n Author<\/th>\n Animal<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n
Empire of the Ants<\/td>\n Bernard Werber<\/td>\n Ants<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Anthill<\/td>\n E. O. Wilson<\/td>\n Ants<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Cold Moons<\/td>\n Aeron Clement<\/td>\n Badgers<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Warriors series<\/td>\n Erin Hunter<\/td>\n Cats<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Tailchaser's Song<\/td>\n Tad Williams<\/td>\n Cats<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Collectors<\/td>\n Robert Carter<\/td>\n Cockroaches<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Roaches Have No King<\/td>\n Daniel Evan Weiss<\/td>\n Cockroaches<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Fire Bringer<\/td>\n David Clement-Davies<\/td>\n Deer<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Hunter's Moon<\/td>\n Garry Kilworth<\/td>\n Foxes<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Heavenly Horse series<\/td>\n Mary Stanton<\/td>\n Horses<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Mouse Guard series<\/td>\n David Petersen<\/td>\n Mice<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Duncton Wood series<\/td>\n William Horwood<\/td>\n Moles<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Guardians of Ga'Hoole series<\/td>\n Kathryn Lasky<\/td>\n Owls<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Redwall series<\/td>\n Brian Jacques<\/td>\n Squirrels<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Silver Squirrel<\/td>\n Daniel Ritchie<\/td>\n Squirrels<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Woodstock Saga series<\/td>\n Michael Tod<\/td>\n Squirrels<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Wolf Chronicles series<\/td>\n Dorothy Hearst<\/td>\n Wolves<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

I'm sure there are lots more. Any suggestions?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every so often, I come across yet another book being described as “Watership Down for\/with x,” where x is some…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}