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Survivors is a children's novel series written by a team of authors under the pseudonym Erin Hunter, who also wrote the Warriors series. Survivors follows the adventures of a group of pet dogs who form a pack with the help of Lucky, a lone dog, after an earthquake separates them from their owners. The first book The Empty City was released on 21 August 2012, and was followed by A Hidden Enemy on 7 May 2013, Darkness Falls on 3 September 2013, The Broken Path on 11 February 2014, The Endless Lake on 3 June 2014, and Storm of Dogs released on 10 February 2015.
There are two sub-series, each containing six books. The first, Survivors (later retitled Survivors: The Original Series), was published from 2012 to 2015. The second sub-series, Survivors: The Gathering Darkness, is still on its fifth book and nearly finished. The first book of the second series, A Pack Divided, was released on 13 October 2015, followed by Dead of Night on 7 June 2016, Into the Shadows on 7 February 2017, Red Moon Rising on 3 October 2017, The Exile's Journey on 26 June 2018, and The Final Battle on 5 February 2019.
Other books have been released in addition to the main series, including three e-book novellas entitled Alpha's Tale, Sweet's Journey and Moon's Choice, the latest novella, released on 5 May 2015. The Survivors series has been released in e-book format for popular e-readers such as the Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle. The series has also been translated into several languages. In addition, the series has a website featuring games, promotional videos, quizzes, and news. Survivors has garnered positive reviews, with critics praising the pacing, characters, and "magical" style of writing while a reviewer called the story "confusing" due to its large number of characters.
Within the series monkey troops battle for territory, food and other things.
Inspiration and origins
When the Seekers series was being created, it started as a request from HarperCollins to Victoria Holmes, saying that the team should develop another series about a group of animals, but this time not cats. HarperCollins first suggested that they write a book about dogs, but Holmes was reluctant to create stories that would be too close to Warriors, and dogs lived in packs, hunted for food, had a strict hierarchy, and guarded their territories, like the cats.[1] Eventually it was decided that the series would be about bears instead. In another chat two years later, Holmes said that, though she was "happy to focus on cats and bears right now", she would consider doing a series about dogs.[2] Gilian Philip said later that "dogs just felt like a natural progression" from cats.[3]
The authors later invited Inbali Iselris, author of The Tygrine Cat, to write a new series about dogs called Survivors.[4] She readily accepted the offer after learning that Philip was also writing the series. According to her, cats are more mysterious when compared to dogs, who are easily sociable and full of frentic energy.[4] After joining Erin Hunter, she spent more time with her dog Michi, watching his behaviour closely. Some of his mannerisms that were noted were his tail wagging and his ears flicking back in excitement at the sight of his friends. These gave her lots of material to develop the character of Lucky and his companions.[4]
While the earlier series had the preliminary plot written by a single author, a different approach was taken for the Survivors series. The whole team creates a detailed story outline and develops the characters together, and then the actual writing gets done by a single author, who is allowed to change something significant about the plot or characters if they feel that a certain character would not act in a specific way.[5]
Books
The Original Series
The Empty City
The Empty City is the first book in the Original Series and was released 21 August 2012. It begins with the main character, Lucky the Sheltie-retriever mix, hearing a story of an apocalypse called the Storm of Dogs from his retriever mix mother back when was a pup temporarily called Yap. He and his four siblings (his brothers Yowl and Snip, and his sisters Squeak and Yip) are intrigued, but mostly by the story of the very fast legendary dog named Lightning. Years later, on a Long Light (summer) day in a coastal California city, the "Big Growl" strikes in the form of an earthquake, killing most longpaws (humans) in the area. Lucky escapes a cage in a Trap House (dog pound) and strikes out on his own, having frequent dreams of the apocalypse, known as the "Storm of Dogs". Lucky and his friend Sweet the female swift-dog (greyhound) escape the cages they have been trapped in; eventually, after inspecting the now-ruined, mostly longpaw-free city filled with shattered clear-stone (glass) and destroyed loudcages (cars and trucks), the two go their separate ways - Sweet wants to be part of a Pack while Lucky feels more towards being a Lone Dog, so they eventually go their separate ways. While searching for food, he encounters a ruined Food House (restaurant), lethal sharpclaw (cat), strange gas mask-wearing longpaws that do not seem to like dogs, some thieving common raccoons, and a mysterious American crow that seems to appear in the same area as him frequently. After saving his old friend Old Hunter the bull mastiff from being electrocuted in a shopping mall, he takes a nap with a piece of steak. When Lucky wakes up, red foxes have surrounded him. He is saved by his long-lost sister Squeak, now called Bella, leading a group of six other former pet dogs (or Leashed Dogs) who are sure that their owners will come back for them - these include Bruno the German shepherd-chow chow mix Fight Dog, Martha the water-dog (Newfoundland dog), Alfie the bulldog, Sunshine the Maltese dog, Daisy the West Highland white terrier-Jack Russell terrier mix and Mickey the Farm Dog (border collie). Lucky decides to join them temporarily and show them how to survive in this new world before going back to being a loner. He recounts some of his life to Bella, where he was once owned by an abusive longpaw man that he escaped from. It is eventually decided that the Leashed Dogs cannot continue to wait for their lost longpaw owners to return, so they join Lucky as they move off into the nearby wilderness. After Martha saves Bruno from drowning because she has webbed paws as a water-dog, Lucky teaches the Pack how to divide work based on their abilities. When Alfie finds a place (an abandoned dog-training facility) where there is food and other dogs just a little farther off, Bella, Daisy and Lucky follow him. Lucky is unsure about entering the place at first, so he refuses to follow any further. Lucky soon finds that the others have been captured in the facility (termed the Dog-Garden) by a violent yet unintelligent Pack of sixteen Fierce Dogs (Doberman Pinschers) already living there, angry that the Leashed Dogs are eating their leftover kibble. Their female Alpha Blade, their male Beta Mace, and the male third-in-command Dagger debate on what to do with them. He uses trickery to help the three hostages escape and leads them to safety. He makes them bury any trace of their owners, but Mickey holds tight to his owners' son's baseball glove. Lucky leaves his Pack, but is suddenly driven to go back when he hears fighting.
A Hidden Enemy
A Hidden Enemy is the second book in the series and was released on 7 May 2013. It begins in a flashback, with young Lucky's mother telling him and his siblings that wild gray wolves are not to be trusted, especially since regarding the tale of a scheming wolf named Greatfang. In the present day, Lucky hears sounds of fighting and rushes to help the Leashed Pack from an attack by some members of another another dog Pack, a Wild Pack of thirteen, and realizes that their Alpha is a male wolfdog, who kills Alfie. An aftershock of the Big Growl occurs, causing the Packs to scatter. Lucky rescues the Wild Pack's female Beta swift-dog, revealed to be Sweet, who was falling into the opening chasm. Lucky hides that he is affiliated with The Leashed Pack. Sweet invites Lucky to her Pack, but he declines the offer. Bella sends Lucky as a spy to the Wild Pack, where he is temporarily made a patrol dog in the Wild Pack, briefly working with Twitch the male spaniel-beagle mix chase-dog and Dart the female whippet mix - during patrol duty, you are not allowed to eat and can only have a minimum amount of water to drink because their Alpha considers it distracting from a patrol dogs duty, and it is mentioned that a now-exiled male member of this Pack broke that rule by eating a rabbit corpse he found while patrolling (not only is this nameless dog banished, but the rest of the Pack do mention his name anymore). During a prey-sharing feast, Mulch the rude male English cocker spaniel mix tries to steal a dead North American deermouse from the prey pile when it is not his turn, but Sweet snaps at him and threatens to demote him from his hunting and patrol duties, shocking Lucky. He later feels a sense of loyalty to the Pack during a nightly howling ritual of theirs called the Great Howl. Days later, Lucky becomes an official hunter within the Wild Pack after winning a challenge with Snap the female beagle-terrier mix, and is now working alongside her, Fiery the male English mastiff, and Spring (Twitch's sister). Mulch is, at the same time, demoted to a patrol dog, resenting Lucky even more. The black-colored male Omega pug mix Whine, who sees Lucky secretly meeting Bella's Pack later that night, blackmails/bribes him and makes him frame Mulch for eating pieces off a freshly-caught mule deer doe before the actual feast. Mulch is then physically harmed by Alpha (and partly by Sweet, who secretly does not like doing it) and is demoted to Omega, while Whine is promoted to a patrol dog. Bella and the rest of the Leashed Pack (without warning Lucky) soon attack the Wild Pack with red foxes. The foxes kill Mulch and Fuzz, the mongrel son of Moon the Farm Dog and Fiery (now they have two pups left, Squirm and Nose). The two Packs together drive the foxes out. Alpha says he should kill Bella, while Moon and Fiery defend her, for she did not know that the foxes would deceive and betray her. Sweet advises Alpha to merge the two Packs and Alpha agrees, but Whine reveals Lucky's secret of being a spy for Bella's Pack, forcing him to choose which side he is on.
Darkness Falls
Darkness Falls is the third book in the series and was released on 3 September 2013. It begins with a flashback to Lucky's pup days, where his mother is fearing that someone may have angered the Sky-Dogs due to a very intense storm. Back in the present, Alpha allows Lucky and the Leashed Dogs to stay and merge the two Packs into one Pack of eighteen but Lucky is demoted to Omega and about to be scarred as punishment, but Alpha is suddenly frightened after the appearance of a loud sound and black cloud in the distance (volcanic activity) that seems too unusual to be a storm - it even briefly takes the shape of a dog. Lucky temporarily takes charge, Alpha looking incompetent on what exactly to do, and helps the Pack as they evacuate the camp for higher ground. After finding temporary shelter beneath an overhanging rocky outcrop near a small lake, Twitch decides to leave the Pack after breaking one of his forelegs during the retreat and Mickey later leaves thinking the longpaws who used to own him and the other Leashed Dogs of the Pack are back, taking the strange cloud as a sign for this. Alpha banishes Lucky, thinking he angered the Sky-Dogs. After escaping some volcanic ash, Lucky eventually finds Mickey defending his longpaws' abandoned home against other longpaws (ragged-looking, ill ones) but his house collapses. Immediately afterward, Lucky convinces Mickey that his longpaws are never coming back, much to Mickey's sorrowful disappointment, who leaves the baseball glove on the doorstep. Soon, after returning to the forest and seeing longpaws riding in loudbirds (helicopters) in the distance, Lucky and Mickey find three abandoned nameless Fierce Dog pups back at the Dog-Garden whose mother is dead. Seeing that the Pack of adults has left the compound to find more food, they take the pups with them and give them the Pup Names Grunt, Lick and Wiggle, narrowly avoiding a Pack of coyotes (led by a particularly stealthy male coyote named Mangles) and searching for their own Pack's whereabouts since they apparently changed location since Lucky left to find an area with more prey - along the way, they catch a broad-footed mole and split it to feed the three pups. Meeting up with a patrolling Daisy, they bring the pups back to their own Pack's new camp, in a tranquil glade, where Alpha reluctantly allows them to stay, but leaves Lucky in charge of them as an Omega. Martha also contributes to rearing the three orphans. Lucky and a few other members of the Pack train the Fierce Dog pups how to duel, but do their best to teach them not to play fight too roughly or else someone else will get seriously hurt. Because of this, Alpha puts the three pups to the test to see if they can truly never be ferocious and asks them to follow Daisy's orders during a scouting mission. Suddenly, during this scouting mission, a male giantfur (brown bear) who is out to steal honey from bees is challenged by Grunt. Lucky and the Alpha rescue the pups and Daisy from the giantfur. At one other point, Lucky discovers some dead band-tailed pigeons that were left near the camp border by, from the smell of it, Twitch, kindly giving his former Pack food, but in secret. Later, after Lucky has a serious discussion with Bella about her reckless and regretful choice in hiring those foxes to attack the Pack, the Fierce Dog pups' original Pack, Blade ruthlessly in the lead, traps the Wild Pack and takes the pups away, Blade claiming she is their mother even though she is obviously not and is obviously the one who murdered the pups' real mother. Later, Lucky is depressed by the departure of the three pups, believing that they could have grown up to be gentle Fierce Dogs with an unquestionable loyalty to the Wild Pack. Later, as Red Leaf (autumn) approaches, to prove his own loyalty to the Wild Pack and show he does not want to go back to being a Lone Dog, Lucky challenges Snap to a second duel for hunter status, but loses. Sweet takes this as evidence that Lucky is indeed now a Pack dog (he clearly does not want to be a loner anymore) and is happy that he will not leave. The next morning, Lick returns in the Wild Pack covered with scratches and says that Blade murdered Wiggle and Grunt is staying in her Pack. Hearing this, Alpha allows Lick to stay in the Wild Pack. The Wild Pack also prepares to depart this apparently unsafe area for new territory beyond a sighted white rocky ridge.
The Broken Path
The Broken Path is the fourth book in the series and was released on 11 February 2014. It begins with a flashback to Lucky's pup days, where he befriended a female toddler longpaw and alerted her family to any danger she may have gotten herself into (like playing with matches) - his own mother congratulating him for that as well. In the present, Lucky remembers back to this moment when he heard those kind longpaws use the term "lucky", and basically understands that has pretty much become his Adult Name now. While he ponders this, he and Fiery teach Lick how to hunt brush rabbits and mountain cottontails in the Wild Pack's new territory on a Red Leaf day. While hunting, they tell Lick about how a Naming Ceremony works since she has never had a proper one, with Fiery in particular telling about how he got his own Adult Name (his Pup Name was Snail because of his taste in snails, which he still occasionally snacks on). They succeed in this hunt and catch and kill some rabbits. When returning to the new camp with their catches, Lucky stops to talk to a patrolling Bella and the two get into a brief feud over betraying each other's trust ever since Lucky was made a spy, though Lick stops the fighting and encourages them to be grateful to still have each other as siblings since Lick herself lost her brothers (one dead and the other traitorous). Bella and Lucky apologize and suddenly battle an American badger during a brief unusual storm similar to the one in the third book. Once they return to the camp, Lucky catches the scent of an unknown pup and who it could have been. Later that night, it is time for Nose and Squirm's Naming Ceremony where they get official Adult Names (Lick does not take part in this one because she is younger than Nose and Squirm). Squirm names himself Beetle (after seeing a beetle crawling nearby) while his sister Nose names herself Thorn as they both sit upon the white pelt of an albino rabbit prepared for them by Sunshine (now the Pack's Omega, which she actually does not mind). After the ceremony is over and everyone is giving Thorn and Beetle affectionate attention while also howling ritualistically, Lucky thinks he hears the distant howls of dogs not from the Wild Pack. Soon, Lucky discovers that the unknown pup scent belongs to Grunt, spying on them, now called Fang (his Pack has even mimicked their dead longpaw masters by maiming his ears to crop them like theirs). From this report, the Wild Pack must move on. As the Pack of eighteen trudges through different regions, they encounter volcanic acid rain, and Alpha starts to show signs of uncertainty when deciding which direction to go - he foolishly tries to cover his incompetence up by taking suggestions from other high-ranking packmates, like Sweet or Fiery. Eventually, they discover a small abandoned longpaw town (not much affected by the Big Growl) filled with dead longpaws. They spend the night in a food-filled Food House. The next day, while Lucky, Mickey, Bruno, Snap and Fiery go hunting in the forest, they encounter an unorganized Wild Pack of nine dogs that Twitch (now three-legged, missing the entire foreleg he broke) has joined as the ninth member out of sheer desperation. This absurd Pack is led by a mentally-ill pit bull-mastiff mix named Terror, who hurts his own packmates just because he feels like it. He also claims to be the forepaw for a wicked spirit-dog called the Fear-Dog, who he claims rules all the other spirit-dogs (though this is not true). Terror orders his Pack (especially his unwilling and unofficial Beta Splash, a male wiry-haired, black mongrel) to drive the hunting party out of the forest, yet he still chases them back to the town - fortunately the hunting party hides and Terror's Pack gives up and retreats, and Terror himself forces his followers to kill any stranger dog on sight, even when unprovoked, by order of the Fear-Dog. After escaping and telling the rest of the Pack of what happened, their Alpha decides the best way to deal with Terror's Pack is to fight him head-on at one point. Soon, due to Alpha's own arrogance, secret incompetence, tendency to blame others for mistakes that aren't technically theirs, and need to find an excuse to get rid of Lick, Fiery challenges the wolfdog for the title of Alpha by nightfall - this will make Fiery the new Alpha of their Pack and the wolfdog himself would have to go back to using his real name. Later when the hunting band goes back into Terror's forest to find food again, Lick joining them, they encounter more strange longpaws (the same hostile ones form the previous books with yellow jackets and gas masks) that all of a sudden chase the dogs unprovoked, trying to catch them; Fiery, during this chase, is suddenly caught in a net trap and tells the other dogs to leave and find help. Everyone in the Pack agrees that something needs to be done, but Alpha refuses, saying that they should move on to a safer territory and not caring whether Fiery, his own third-in-command, lives or dies mainly because the wolfdog himself is showing signs of arrogance and cowardice. Twitch suddenly appears to tell his former Pack (even though his former Alpha tells him that he is no longer welcome among their Wild Pack anymore) that he's abandoned Terror's Pack and that he has seen where the bad longpaws are taking Fiery, to the Dog-Garden - both he and Lucky bring Moon, Martha and Bella on this rescue mission while Alpha leads the rest of their Wild Pack away from the town and Terror's forest since it is clearly not safe there anymore. Lick eventually joins up with them. At the Dog-Garden, they discover Fiery is locked in a cage next to cages containing other kinds of innocent animals (several birds, an orange sharpclaw, a male coyote, a preadolescent mule deer, some red foxes and gray foxes, some rabbits and a grown male Fierce Dog named Axe from Blade's Pack), all being experimented on by the strange longpaws by being forced to drink river water that was recently intoxicated by gasoline to make sure it is okay for longpaws to drink - apparently the toxic river is one of the main reasons for why Terror is insane, though he drank it on his own with no longpaws involved. The team frees them all along with Fiery and they leave while Axe (recognizing Lick as one of the pups her dead mother Morningstar) choses to stay behind and fight the longpaws responsible for all of this. Eventually, the rescue party and Fiery (he is now very injured and sick from the bad water) encounter Terror's Pack again, who are forced to fight because Terror says the Fear-Dog says so. During the battle, all done blindly during a non-acidic rainstorm, Lick actually takes down Terror, ripping off his lower jaw, putting him out of his mentally-ill and intoxicated misery and this sends his remaining Pack of seven retreating, free of his deranged savage tyranny. Fiery, though, is fatally injured, much to Moon's sadness, and once he dies with honor in his heart, the others dig out a grave for him - and even one for Terror too. Lucky then feels as though Lick is now worthy enough, as well as old enough, to get her Naming Ceremony now, before they go to seek out the rest of their Wild Pack. Because of a thunderstorm that suddenly rolls in, Lick chooses the Adult Name Storm. They continue westward, following a strange salty smell.
The Endless Lake
The Endless Lake is the fifth book in the series and was released on 3 June 2014. It begins with another flashback to Lucky's pup days, specifically to where he experienced his first Ice Wind (winter) and his mother told him to trust all the spirit-dogs (Earth-Dog, River-Dog, Forest-Dog, the Sky-Dogs, the Moon-Dog, the Sun-Dog, and more) even if it seems like the spirit-dogs themselves are making things unfortunate for all mortal dogs (he also developed claustrophobia during this time). Back in the present, Ice Wind is starting, and Lucky, Bella, Martha, Moon, Twitch and Storm are resting in a convenient den on their journey back to the rest of their Wild Pack, tracking the twelve to their new territory, though Twitch plans to become a Lone Dog since the wolfdog Alpha no longer welcomes him. Along the way after leaving the den, they catch a river-rabbit (North American river otter) and find that they are being stalked. It is revealed that the ones following them are Twitch's seven former packmates of Terror's Pack. With Terror now dead, they do not ruthlessly harm other dogs anymore, and Splash admits that they were stalking them, but only because they miss Twitch and feel that he belongs with them, and they convince him to even be their new Alpha, which he accepts; he does say goodbye to Lucky, Moon, Bella, Martha and Storm, saying that perhaps they could meet again someday, and that he would really like to see his sister Spring again in addition. Eventually, after arriving on a more open space, Storm chases after and fails to catch an escaped domestic horse; however, the five dogs discover where the mysterious salty scent has been coming from: a huge body of water that fills them with awe, which they call the Endless Lake because it seems to never end (it is really the coast of the Pacific Ocean). They find out, after Bella and Storm taste some of the seawater and spit it back out in disgust, that it is much too salty to drink from - this implies to them that the rest of their Pack would not stop to settle here due to how salty the water here is. Eventually, while traveling north along the beach, they arrive on the outskirts of an abandoned coastal longpaw town and an abandoned fair on a dock and decide to look for food there. After eating their fill of dead and dying fish they found in one of the fair's buildings, they begin to head through the nearby town when they suddenly catch the scent of Blade's Pack, who have apparently been marking their new territory here. They then run into Fang and two other vile Fierce Dogs, Fang of which tries to persuade Storm to rejoin their original Pack, which she refuses. When a chase ensues, going back to the fairground, Fang reveals that he actually misses Storm and encourages his sister and her four packmates to hide from Blade. Fang misleads the other members of Blade's Pack that he lost the five and says that they should look elsewhere for them - Blade and Mace, however, quickly abuse Fang for not catching Storm this time. Lucky and the others hide until Blade's Pack has gone far away, and they escape the ruined town and fairground, Moon really needing to be reunited with her son and daughter, Beetle and Thorn, again. By late sunset, the five traveling dogs take shelter in an empty rocky cave right on the beach for the night, though at one point they are woken up to find that the cave has been flooded due to high tide. Fortunately, Lucky finds a tunnel that goes deeper into the cave, and, with him taking the lead, they are eventually led out of the tunnel and back into open air. They soon find that the rest of their Pack is in a small sloping valley not too far from the coast. After all seventeen members of their Wild Pack have a reunion, Lucky, Bella, Martha, Moon, and Storm tell everyone the sad news about Fiery's death (Alpha pretends to show sympathy, but Lucky can tell that he is faking) and the interesting news about how Twitch has now become the new Alpha of Terror's former Pack. Most of their packmates are surprised and happy at that good news about Twitch, but Alpha says that Twitch is a traitor to their Wild Pack for just joining that other Wild Pack in the first place, back when it used to be led by Terror. Lucky also tells of their encounter with Blade's Pack and their new camp location in the nearby abandoned coastal longpaw town; even though the others turn fearful of that, Lucky states that this is also good news because they know where the cruel Fierce Dogs are at the moment. They also tell about the former Lick now having the name Storm, yet while most of the Pack congratulates her for this, Alpha becomes infuriated because it was a Naming Ceremony without his authorization and he insists on still calling Storm Lick; he also continuously tries to provoke Storm by directly calling her by her Pup Name and stating the fact that her former Pack is looking for her. When prey becomes scarce due to it being early Ice Wind, Alpha decides that literally everyone in this Wild Pack, even those not in the hunting party, should go hunt for prey together. The wolfdog still shows strong signs of arrogance and incompetence whenever he believes someone else is trying to take over his command when they really are not. After failing this all-Pack hunt on the beach (Alpha blames it on a recent freezing rain), Mickey, Lucky and Snap are sent out to hunt, to find any prey at all, including some western gulls and a white brush rabbit whose pelt they could use for Storm's "authorized" Naming Ceremony. After so little to eat (with Alpha hoarding most of it selfishly for himself) Storm's "authorized" Naming Ceremony happens that night, though Alpha says she is no longer able to choose Storm as her official name and instead he forcefully names her Savage. At one point, while seeking out a new territory, the Wild Pack comes to an abandoned lighthouse, and the vile Pack of Fierce Dogs finds them and a battle ensues. Alpha, Spring, Beetle, and Thorn fall into the seawater due to windy and foggy conditions during the fight. The bad Fierce Dogs retreat and Martha dives into the water and rescues both Beetle and Thorn, though Spring is pulled out to sea and Alpha sinks down below the waves. The rest of the remaining Pack spends the night inside the lighthouse. The next day, the fifteen dogs move on for a safer place and Lucky decides that, instead of a hierarchal system, they should use a sort of democratic way of deciding something, called the Four Paws, where an idea is agreed upon by at least four Pack members. After taking shelter in a different abandoned building for the night, Storm goes off on her own without permission to confront Blade and possibly redeem Fang. Lucky finds that Storm's former Pack has now taken her hostage (they even tore off a small piece of her left ear), and that his Four Paws idea was probably not a good choice because of the constant arguing and bickering it apparently stirs. Sweet is declared the new Alpha and she appoints Lucky as her Beta. They all head back to the town to rescue Storm, who is being forced by Blade and her followers to fight with Fang in what is called the Trial of Rage, a rite of passage in this vile Fierce Dog Pack when a pup reaches adulthood and must pass the test with their inner bloodlust unleashed. This trial is being hosted in Blade's new headquarters, the town's theater. Sweet establishes a plan for most of the Wild Pack to distract the bad Fierce Dogs while Martha escorts Storm out of the theater. Storm, though, does not want to abandon Fang, still feeling a family bond with him. It is then revealed that our Wild Pack's former Alpha actually survived drowning and has now, despite his deeply-rooted Fierce Dog prejudice, joined Blade's Pack willing, but as the Omega. Storm then accepts to take the Trial of Rage and can either leave if she does not give into her inner bloodlust or stay with the bad Fierce Dogs if she does give in. She duels with Fang and does her best not to succumb to bloodlust, and as a result Blade lets her and the rest of the Wild Pack leave, but promises that she will still hunt them down get Storm back. A few days later, when the Wild Pack has left the area of the coastal longpaw town, Sweet and Lucky spread the news about Lucky's recent strange dreams that tell of the Storm of Dogs, in which the rest of the Pack say they have heard this foretold event before. Lucky says that if the Storm of Dogs is coming, no dog will have to stand alone, and that they are in it together.
Storm of Dogs
Storm of Dogs is the sixth book in the series (as well as the final book of the first story arc) and was released on 10 February 2015. It begins with Lucky having a flashback dream to when he and Sweet were in the Trap House during the Big Growl before waking up next to Sweet in their thorn bush den. Lucky and Sweet have officially become mates, and life in their Wild Pack has become generally well-regulated since they are in charge. It has been a full month since the Trial of Rage and the recent fight with Blade's Pack, and so far the Wild Pack is getting along well. Storm is now a hunter, Mickey and Snap are now mates, and Thorn and Beetle are now patrol dogs. The Pack also still remains in its previous territory near the coastal town. During Ice Wind, there is little prey to find, but the best they manage to catch are brush rabbits and migrating Canada geese. During a fight-training session, Moon and Dart report that Blade's Pack has left the coastal town without a trace and that now the scent of longpaws is there. Sweet leads a patrol down to the town to investigate and find only calm longpaw construction workers trying to fix the damaged town. They report back to the rest of the Pack that these particular longpaws mean no harm, as well as saying that they will not seek out a new territory as they constantly have been doing since Long Light. Although most of the Pack is a little worried, Sweet tells them to continue to patrol the territory for Blade's Pack and to avoid the longpaws (just as a precaution) until they have determined whether they are truly friendly or not - Moon is very on edge about this since it was longpaws that were responsible for Fiery's death, though Sunshine insists that not all longpaws are bad. That night, after Lucky has a dream where the spirit of Alfie warns him about something going to happen in the Storm of Dogs, Sweet wakes Lucky and takes him to a private area away from the rest of the Pack for a special and confidential ceremony about his status as Beta. Although she briefly attacks him, leaving him with a hidden scar, she tells him that this scar is proof that he is officially the new Beta and that he is forever loyal to the Pack and she is loyal to him. After Lucky pledges to be loyal to the Pack, the two dogs return to the camp to finish the rest of the ceremony with the rest of the Pack. Later that night, Lucky wakes up to discover Fang nearby, all covered in injuries. Fang claims that he left Blade's Pack because he lost the Trial of Rage and was considered a weakling to Blade, so he came to find Lucky to warn the Sweet's Pack that Blade's Pack plans to attack the them again. Lucky takes pity on Fang and walks with him to a large cave by the beach, only to be ambushed by Blade and her followers. Lucky is captured, brought into the cave and thrown into a pit, temporarily knocking him out cold. When he awakens, Lucky finds Blade staring down at him and she tells him more about why she's obsessed with trying to kill Storm, not really having to do with the Trial of Rage; she tells that she has had strange visions in her sleep involving the Storm of Dogs, similar to Lucky, since the Big Growl and believes that the Spirit Dogs are telling her to specifically kill any Fierce Dog pups born after the Big Growl so they do not truly bring on the Storm of Dogs - basically her reason for murdering her own pup and attempting to kill Storm and her brothers at first with starvation and neglect by killing Morningstar and abandoning them at the Dog-Garden and eventually murdering Wiggle and now trying to somehow get both Storm and Fang killed. Afterward Blade leaves, and Lucky's former Alpha soon shows up and explains that even though he's hated Fierce Dogs due to his bad past experiences with them, he admires Blade's authority and that's why he has joined her Pack (giving her clever plans to work with), as well him arrogantly believing that his former Wild Pack was just a bunch of weaklings deep down. Soon, Sweet, Bella, and Storm show up and save Lucky, only to be cornered by Blade's Pack. Lucky and Storm try to convince Fang to rejoin Sweet's Pack, but Blade immediately kills him. Suddenly, the tremor sign of a new big earthquake, similar to the Big Growl, occurs, frightening everyone and sending Lucky, Storm, Bella, and Sweet running out of the cave just as it ends. A few days later, it is announced to the whole of Sweet's Pack that they should inevitably leave the small valley, because of both Blade's Pack and the apparent omens of a new Big Growl. Lucky, Snap and most of the former Leashed Dogs (except for Bruno) go on a brief mission to warn the unaggressive construction worker longpaws in the town about new Growl. Although the longpaws don't understand what the dogs are telling them, they eventually see the Endless Lake moving in and make a run for it. Lucky leads the other dogs back up the cliff to where the rest of the Pack is after they quickly rescue a trapped longpaw man from a ground cravasse. After the Wild Pack settles down and the second Big Growl ends, Lucky tells everyone about the dreams he has seen about the Storm of Dogs and how Blade has had similar dreams, yet points out that she believes that any Fierce Dog pup that was born after the first Big Growl must die in order to please the Earth-Dog. Although some of the Pack suggest they should continue to flee, Whine says that they should hand Storm over to Blade to save themselves. Although Sweet and Lucky refuse to do so, they allow the Pack to vote (Whine saying it is the Four Paws idea Lucky had thought up of originally) on whether or not they should give Storm to Blade. However, only Whine, Dart, and Bruno vote that they should give Storm to Blade while the rest refuse - especially Storm herself. Fortunately, Bella has an idea: Sweet's Pack will set Blade up to fight and will isolate her, Mace, and Dagger from the rest of the cruel Pack and take them by surprise. Thinking that their plan will fail, Whine leaves the Pack and vanishes without any one trying to stop him. Soon, the remaining fourteen members of Sweet's Pack decide to go seek out help from Twitch's Pack in order to increase their numbers against Blade's Pack. At one point in the search, the whole Pack temporarily splits up in order to find Twitch's Pack of eight more easily in the forest formerly owned by Terror, covering more ground, Lucky heading off with Snap, Storm and Daisy. During their search, Lucky, Snap, Storm, and Daisy hear a cry for help and see a member of Twitch's Pack, a male whippet-Australian cattle dog mix named Whisper, whose tail is trapped by a fallen tree (felled by the recent tremor) and is near a female giantfur's den. After Whisper is freed, they tell him that they must speak with his Alpha Twitch and so he takes the four of them back to his own Wild Pack to meet with Twitch. The two Packs fully come together for their meeting. Twitch himself wonders if they really should risk their lives in joining this upcoming battle (he's also saddened by the sad news of Spring's death), though all of his seven packmates insist they should since Storm was technically the one who saved them by defeating Terror. Whisper, Ruff the small black female mongrel Omega, Woody the male beagle mix, Rake the male Irish wolfhound, and Breeze the female Labrador retriever-collie mix most certainly agree to this. Chase the female ginger-furred mongrel and Splash (still the Beta) also agree. The two Packs, together numbering twenty-two individuals altogether, plan an ambush near the river and Lucky decides to use himself as bait to lure Blade and her deputies out of hiding. He travels back to Blade's Pack's cave to tell them that Storm accepts Blade's challenge, and along the way takes a nap and dreams of a bright future where the Storm of Dogs has passed and he is a father of four pups (three daughters and one son), and Sweet is the mother. Lucky returns to the two Wild Packs and suddenly a young male Fierce Dog from Blade's Pack named Arrow, born before the first Big Growl so she did not kill him, shows up and tells everyone that he has abandoned Blade's Pack due to Blade's madness and wishes to join one of the two Wild Packs. He also reveals that Blade already knows some of their plans because Whine has recently joined her Pack and revealed some information to her. Later, to throw Blade off guard, Lucky, Sweet and Whisper rouse the same female giantfur who was near Whisper when he was trapped by the fallen tree and lure the agitated hibernator out near the town and fight Blade's Pack in order to weaken to insane Fierce Dog's ranks. Soon, both Wild Packs (now numbering twenty-three) get ready for the fight; and just in time since Blade and her Pack has now arrived near a frozen river, now weakened and reduced in number by the giantfur. A blizzard comes forth and the great battle of the Storm of Dogs now ensues; a few Fierce Dogs from Blade's Pack fall, including Mace; Splash and Martha are killed; Lucky fights and kills his former wolfdog Alpha; eventually it all comes down to Storm versus Blade, who fight on top of cracking ice, which Blade eventually falls through and drowns. The remaining members of Blade's Pack, now led by Dagger, retreat, and banish Whine for being practically useless - the little traitorous dog is also not welcome back in either of the two united Wild Packs. Sweet's Pack, accompanied by Twitch's Pack, return to their small coastal valley home. Sweet agrees to allow Twitch's Pack to join her Pack. Even Arrow is accepted in. Later that night, during the Great Howl ceremony, Lucky sees the Spirit-Dogs and the souls of the deceased Alfie, Mulch, Spring, Fang, Fiery, Fuzz, Splash, Martha, and Wiggle visiting the now bigger Wild Pack of twenty-one.
The Gathering Darkness
A Pack Divided
A Pack Divided is the seventh book in the series and the first book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on October 13 2015. It begins with a flashback to when Storm and her two brothers were yet to be given Pup Names, and had been left behind at the Dog-Garden by their own Pack; it is shown that they were so young at the time that they did not truly understand the concept of death, believing that their mother Morningstar and Blade's little son are just sleeping, and were afraid of being alone, until Lucky and Mickey arrived. Back in the present, Storm is leading a hunt (consisting of herself, Mickey, Snap, Arrow, and Whisper) on a day in Tree Flower (spring), also called New Leaf, for the first time after the long Ice Wind season. The hunting party dogs decide to try hunting by a hollow to drive out prey such as black-tailed jackrabbits. Even though she is in the lead of the hunting group, Storm is sometimes annoyed by the advice Mickey and Snap often give her because she feels they are still treating her like a pup. Later that night, as the prey-sharing feast starts and after Storm play-fights with Beetle and Thorn, Thorn and Beetle themselves are suddenly hostile, stating that Twitch had better not try to eat before their mother Moon. Storm is surprised that her two friends would act like this, thinking that prey caught was enough for everybody. Sweet does, however, let Twitch eat before Moon, even though Twitch is soon promoted to third-in-command, and Storm notices that the tension between the Pack intensifies. After the prey-sharing, Storm offers to play-fight Thorn and Beetle again, and is declined. Sweet, who is now pregnant with her and Lucky's first litter, notices the tension reawakening and offers to tell a story of the Spirit-Dogs, in which most other dogs in the big Wild Pack are eager to hear. Sweet tells the other dogs about the Wind-Dogs, a group of Spirit-Dogs that reside in the sky (similarly to the Sky-Dogs) and are known to be modeled as the first swift-dogs, and how they run all year trying to catch the elusive Golden Deer before Ice Wind. She says that if a mortal Pack manages to catch one of the offspring of the great Golden Deer, then that Pack is truly blessed by the Spirit-Dogs. Storm wants to catch a legendary Golden Deer one day, then wonders if she and Arrow have their own Spirit-Dog modeled as the first Fierce Dog. Still, tensions still rise, with some the dogs of Twitch's old Pack thinking Sweet and Lucky favor the original members of own Pack more. The following nights, Storm keeps waking up to find that she has sleepwalked a distance away from the camp. One day, Storm leads the hunting party (consisting of herself, Lucky, Bella, Breeze and Bruno) off on another hunting trip and soon catches a whiff of deer everywhere and suggests that it might be Golden Deer, though Bella disagrees, for she is skeptical on Sweet's tales relating to the Wind-Dogs - Bella even goes so far as to even doubt the existence of any Spirit-Dog at all, to which the others try to convince her to change her opinion (even Breeze insisting that the supposed Fear-Dog is real, because she used to be one of Terror's underlings). They loose the deer scent and catch some brush rabbits and western gray squirrels instead. Soon, as tensions continue to build, Sweet and Lucky attempt to resolve this by promoting Twitch as the Pack's third-in-command so there will not be any tensions in the ranks of the patrol dogs. At one point, loudbirds show up, meaning that longpaws are returning to the area. Later, when the hunters go investigate that abandoned coastal longpaw town and find the dead body of the female Fierce Dog named Ripper, who Arrow used to know from Blade's Pack, Bruno reveals a dark secret of his that he is not very trustful of Fierce Dogs, even now with two noble Fierce Dogs living among them. At one point, Moon is mysteriously framed for stealing food before the food-sharing ceremony and she is thus temporarily sent on the duty of High Watch, overlooking the Endless Lake - though she does not really see anything that could be a threat to the pack out there, mostly just gulls and the occasional large floatcages (boats) seen sailing out in the distance. Not long after that, Storm (after another of her sleepwalking sessions) discovers that Arrow and Bella have secretly formed a romantic relationship with each other; she also finds a red fox kit murdered by an unknown dog, which the kit's family seeks the big Wild Pack of dogs for revenge, to avenge the kit, who was named Cub Fire. At another point, Storm and the other hunters are seeking more prey and Storm herself discovers that Whisper is developing strong feelings for her; during this hunt, they attempt but fail to steal a tusknose (peccary) carcass guarded by a giantfur family - the hunters instead return with only a few brush rabbits and a long-tailed weasel. Sometime later, after Storm, Lucky and Snap come back after nearly catching a Golden Deer, they and the rest of the Pack discover that Whisper has been murdered.
Dead of Night
Dead of Night is the eighth book in the series and the second book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on 7 June 2016. It begins with a flashback to when Storm and her then-alive brothers first met Lucky and Mickey, who brought them to safety from starvation and named them Lick, Wiggle and Grunt; Lick later muttered in her mind, after she and four companions narrowly avoided the coyote pack led by Mangles, that she is neither afraid of coyotes nor of going to the Earth-Dog when she dies. Back in the present, Lucky becomes paranoid about Whisper's death supposedly having to do with the vengeance-seeking red foxes, so he plots war upon them - this is partly due to the fact that his and Sweet's pups are soon to be born. As Storm investigates how Whisper's killer may have pulled it off, she imagines the scenario and is then frightened by how perfect it appears, as if she committed it herself - she reminds herself that she could not have done it in a mindless rage since she was out hunting a Golden Deer with Lucky and Snap when Whisper was assassinated. Whisper's funeral occurs, his body buried at the base of a tree. All of a sudden, Sweet starts to go into labor, so everyone has to cut the funeral short and head back to camp. Lucky and Sweet soon introduce their litter of four pups to the rest of the Pack; this litter consists of three daughters called Nibble, Tiny, and Fluff, and one son called Tumble. Later, while out spying on the nearby red fox pack, Storm, Thorn, Dart and Snap find that the foxes could not possibly be responsible for Whisper's death - being obviously weaker than the real killer and due to the fact that they left no scent at the site of the assassination, and the fact that murderer's jaw marks are larger than the jaws of a red fox - and Storm tells her associates that it must be another dog who committed the crimes (Whisper's murder, Cub Fire's murder, and framing Moon for stealing food), most likely one among their own dog Pack. Also, Lucky shows signs that he has completely changed since the Storm of Dogs and since becoming a father, where he demands proper etiquette (even from his closest peers) and even forgets his own theory about how Fierce Dogs are only fierce depending on how they are raised, acting as though he never thought of it at all, making Storm wonder if Lucky has completely lost his common sense and sanity. It is later also discovered that coyotes are in the vicinity. One evening, Storm asks Moon if she saw anything on the evening of Whisper's murder while on High Watch, and Moon tells her that she did see the silhouetted shapes of two dogs wandering into the shadows of the trees before Whisper was killed (whom were obviously Whisper and the unknown criminal). One day, Storm and Arrow discover a putrid dusky-footed woodrat carcass was added to the prey pile by the unknown criminal dog and Bella, after eating other meat that made contact with it, starts vomiting. At one point, Storm reveals to Daisy her recent sleepwalking habits, relieved to tell someone about it, and Daisy promises to keep it a secret. Later on, after a number of more mindless conflicts with the nearby red fox pack (and Lucky getting upset with Storm since she could not save Tumble from being bitten by a fox due to her own recent insomnia), a pregnant female fox, named Fox Mist, is caught and held prisoner; she is set free but with a warning that her pack should not attack the dogs ever again; to drive the point, Sweet and Lucky tell the assigned escorts - Arrow, Bella, Storm, and Mickey - of Fox Mist to scar her as a reminder, but they feel this is too unjust, so as soon as they have gone deeper into the forest, they let Fox Mist go, unscarred, but still with a warning. Soon, on a not-so-windy day, Storm is feeling better after some well-deserved rest (and after the spirit of Whisper visited her in her dreams recently), and she, Lucky and other hunters go out looking for more Golden Deer, but instead find a herd of ordinary mule deer; they catch and kill two mule deer and drag the bodies back to camp. Lucky apologizes to Storm for his overreaction to her not saving Tumble from injury - the pup in question was instead saved by Breeze and is doing better already. During the prey-sharing feast, after Sweet, Lucky, and their pups eat first, Twitch suddenly starts choking on shards of clear-stone that were mysteriously stuffed into one of the deer haunches.
Into the Shadows
Into the Shadows is the ninth book in the series and the third book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on 7 February 2017. It begins with a flashback to Storm's pup days, where she and her brothers were being taught how to swim in a river by the then-alive Martha. Back in the present, after Snap successfully helps to get the clear-stone shards out of Twitch's mouth, saving his life, some of the other dogs begin to believe Arrow may have done this, even though he obviously did not. Later that night, Storm eavesdrops on Bruno, Snap, Dart, Woody and Ruff, who are conspiring to keep an eye on Arrow to see if he does anything suspicious. The next day, Lucky and Sweet ask Storm to babysit their pups for a short while, and although Storm likes the four little ones (especially Nibble), Breeze acts as a far better babysitter by telling the four little ones enthralling stories. At one point, Dart cannot focus on helping the hunting party be safe since she keeps speaking with Bruno about Arrow and, as a result, a large tusknose charges at them - it injures Storm on the shoulder with one of its tusks, but the hunters eventually take it down. Because of her injury, Storm is not allowed to hunt the following day, so to pass the time, she works with Sunshine in preparing others' beddings of leaves and moss. A day after Storm's short time off hunting, and right after she and some of the other hunters return from an unsuccessful hunting trip that dealt with trying to steal gull chicks and eggs, the conspirators immediately start offensively calling Arrow a bad dog, even ignoring Lucky and Sweet's commands to stop this nonsense - even Breeze's reasonable negotiations are ignored; Arrow, however, finally stands up for himself and declares that it would be better if he just leave the whole Pack, and Bella (still in a loving relationship with him) says that if he leaves, she leaves too, both of them leaving by tomorrow morning (despite Storm, Lucky and Sunshine insisting the most that they should not leave). After Bella and Arrow have left Sweet's Pack, Sweet appoints Thorn and Beetle to take Bella and Arrow's places in the hunting band, even though the two siblings, especially Beetle, have no experience in proper hunting and end up scaring away a valley pocket gopher with their recklessness. At one other point Storm find some mysterious clear-stone shards in her bedding, clearly placed to harm her, as well as to make it look like she was the one who had clear-stone shards to sabotage the prey pile, by the unknown traitor. Storm and Lucky eventually pay Bella and Arrow a quick visit to the mates' new territory and after heading back to their own territory decide that a Great Howl ritual is in order to both bring everyone in their big Wild Pack of twenty-two closer and help Lucky and Sweet's pups to understand more about unity; however, when the Great Howl does happen later that night, a few of the dogs from Twitch's old Pack are hesitant to do it. Soon, Rake declares that since half the Pack cannot properly get along, he, Woody and Ruff will leave and form their own Pack, and even Dart joins them, reducing Sweet's Pack to now eighteen members. At one point, while everyone is distracted one day, the call of what sounds like an insane dog appears and the camp is suddenly smeared in rabbit blood, done by the mysterious evil-behaving dog who committed all the other crimes, in this case to scare them all with a large amount of smeared blood. The brush rabbit carcass used to smear this blood is found by Sunshine in the nearby pond, clearly put there by the perpetrator to wash away his or her scent off it. Later that sunset, after the whole Pack works together to clean all the rabbit blood stains from their camp, Lucky and Storm once again visit Bella and Arrow, only to discover that they are being tormented by coyotes; after the coyotes are driven away, Bella and Arrow say that due to the overwhelming dangers in the area (as well as unnecessary conflict with their former Pack over prey and boundaries), they will be moving to a further away area, and Bella reveals that she is pregnant with her and Arrow's first pups and they are expecting to see them born very soon, as Long Light approaches. When Lucky and Storm return to their own camp, the Pack is in an uproar, for Tiny, Tumble, Nibble and Fluff have gone missing - disappearing when Daisy, who was assigned to look after them this evening while Sweet went out to stretch her legs, drifted off to sleep next to them. Storm, Beetle, Thorn and Breeze find the four little ones playing in the water of the Endless Lake and so rush in to save them from drowning. From nearby, longpaw fishermen observe this in fascination. The pups are saved (especially thanks to Storm remembering the swimming lessons she was given by Martha long ago) and the Pack returns to a peaceful state. That night, the four rescuers of the little pups are allowed to eat before Sweet does for this one occasion; Sweet also decides relieve Beetle from his hunting duties (due to his inexperience) and assign him back to patrolling. After prey-sharing, new Great Howl is commenced, yet even though Storm feels relaxes while taking part in it, she thinks she sees a glimpse of a very large dog looking like it is made of blackness, sneaking within the shadows of the nearby forest trees; she worries that it might be the supposed Fear-Dog here to torment them all, using the unknown crime-committing dog as his pawn - Storm still wonders who this traitor amongst them could be.
Red Moon Rising
Red Moon Rising is the tenth book in the series and the fourth book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on 3 October 2017. In the prologue, there is a flashback to Storm's pup days, when she was called Lick, where Grunt tried to make her, Wiggle and himself leave the big Wild Pack in the middle of the night because he believed that the whole Pack believed them to be bad dogs, only to be stopped from doing so by Daisy, who was out on a night patrol and convinces them to stay. Back in the present, Storm wakes up to a peaceful-feeling morning in late Tree Flower, very close to Long Light, but knows that the mysterious traitor is still on the loose. After she, Mickey, Snap, and the four little pups hear a Wind-Dog/Golden Deer story from Sweet, Storm goes out to stretch her legs, yet she at first runs into Bruno, who has decided to apologize for judging her just because she is a Fierce Dog, and he genuinely means it. At one point, Storm and Lucky teach Lucky's pups to properly swim and conquer their fears of water ever since their near-death experience in the Endless Lake by taking them to the nearby river. The next day, Storm, Moon, Bruno, Breeze and Chase go out hunting and decide to temporarily split up to cover more ground to search for prey, though Moon (after catching a brush rabbit) ends up being pummeled by tumbling rocks falling down a slope, done so by the same mysterious traitor dog, though she survives. When Storm reports this incident to Sweet, Sweet declares that hunting patrollers and regular patrollers must travel in pairs so there can be witnesses to any other crimes committed by the mysterious unknown traitor. One morning, Bruno is found by Daisy to be mysteriously murdered near the coast, his jaw torn off; his body is buried by Storm, Moon, Mickey, Breeze and Sweet next to Whisper's grave. Later that night, when the Pack tries to perform a Great Howl, a lunar eclipse occurs and the dogs believe that it is a sign that the Moon-Dog is angry about the unknown traitor dog - Storm begins to speculate that the traitor might be, as unexpected as it is, Chase, mainly due to how innocent everyone else appears, though Chase soon shows signs of wariness around Storm, as if suspecting Storm herself of wrongdoing. During a hunting patrol, Thorn asks Storm more about how her father Fiery sadly died, and after Storm tells her, Thorn seems to develop some sort of scheme involving longpaws. Later, during a dawn hunting session, Storm, Lucky, Mickey, Snap, and Chase go after the scent of a Golden Deer and lose it; they instead stumble across the edge of the nearby abandoned coastal longpaw town and raid food from a dumpster, making sure not to catch the attention of the nearby longpaw construction workers. Once back at the camp, Storm, in order to understand Chase more, asks Breeze how well she knows her, to confirm any suspicions about Chase since she and Breeze used to be some of Terror's underlings, though Breeze assures Storm that Chase could not possibly have commit all of the recent crimes due to being physically incapable of murdering dogs bigger than her, for one thing; Storm also tells Breeze that she worries now since Bruno was killed in a similar way to how she herself killed Terror, by ripping the jaw off, but Breeze assures her that it must be just a coincidence. The next day, Breeze comes back from patrol all wounded and wet, saying that she was attacked at the river by the unknown traitor dog (she says that she was too frightened to properly identify the mysterious dog) and groups are sent out to scout for clues to the traitor's identity; Storm, Mickey and Daisy at first find nothing useful until they run into a female red fox, who turns out to be Fox Mist; she tells them that she witnessed Bruno's murder, though she did not quite recognize whom the mysterious evil dog committing the crime was - this is due to the fact that Fox Mist thinks that all dogs seem to be the same size and appearance, but she does say that the traitor dog was probably about the size of Daisy or bigger. Later that day, Daisy reports that Fox Mist was not scarred after all and thus Mickey and Storm are given a severe punishment by Sweet and Lucky: for the next few days and nights, they are to eat last and work constantly at High Watch. Some time later, while on the unjust High Watch punishment, Storm and Mickey sport Thorn and Beetle sneaking around the nearby abandoned coastal longpaw town without Pack permission. Soon, Storm finds Chase sneaking away from the camp in the middle of the night and follows her to truly confirm that she's the unknown traitor, only to discover that Chase is only visiting Rake's Pack of four just to catch up with her old friends; while heading back to Sweet's Pack's camp, Chase sees Storm following her and is terrified, thus proving to Storm that Chase is not the secretly bad dog, and she assures Chase that she is not the traitor either. Soon, Beetle and Thorn go missing and Storm, Lucky, Mickey, Moon and Breeze track them down to the abandoned town, discovering them to be leashed with ropes and kept in a trailer house by the construction worker longpaws to be pets. They are set free, and as soon as they all get back to camp, Sweet punishes Thorn and Beetle, who were attempting to avenge their deceased father by frightening the nearby longpaws, by having them on constant High Watch duties for the next few days along with Mickey and Storm (since they did not report this at first). Some time later, Storm consults Breeze for professional help and Breeze suggests that maybe Storm needs some time away from the Pack, so everyone can respect each other again; Breeze then offers to play fight with Storm before she eventually takes a vacation from the Pack, but Storm seems to get overexcited and accidently hurts Breeze, causing everone to notice, apologizes to her and Breeze immediately forgives her. Later on, Storm has a nightmare about the Fear-Dog kidnapping Tumble, carrying the pup in his jaws, and wakes up to find that she has sleepwalked into the Endless Lake, and when she returns to the camp she finds that the rest of the Pack is worried because Tumble has disappeared; when Storm is asked what she was doing down at the water, her secret of a sleepwalking habit is confessed by both her and Daisy and a few other Pack members think that that makes Storm potentially dangerous. Tumble is found hiding in a small cave on the beach and he says that Storm mindlessly brought him there in her jaws - mirroring the nightmare Storm just had. Later that day, Storm announces to the Pack that due to some of her recent mistakes, and due to the fact that some of the Pack still doesn't trust her (a few even fearing her), she will be sending herself into exile. She leaves, trudging through the forest, considering the life of a Lone Dog, until, by sunset, she spots of Golden Deer buck, but decides to not catch him, continuing on her exiled journey.
The Exile's Journey
The Exile's Journey is the eleventh book in the series and the fifth book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on June 26, 2018. The book starts out with a flashback to when Storm, called Lick, and her brothers were forced to rejoin Blade's Pack; after walking for a while, Blade kills Wiggle and spares Grunt and Lick, asking them if they can be "true" Fierce Dogs, to which Grunt agrees, but Lick escapes, running back to the big Wild Pack, knowing she will be safer there. In present time, Storm is heading further away from her former Wild Pack's territory after exile, bitter but sad. After a while, she begins to get weaker and weaker. She stops at a riverbank to drink and suddenly nearly gets killed in a flash flood. At one point, she attempts to catch a brush rabbit, but a male wild gray wolf catches it. The wolf, to Storm's surprise, is friendly and shares the rabbit with her. He tells her his name is Thoughtful and warns her to not pass the Dead Tree, near the edge of the territory of his Pack, the Still-Water Pack. However, a few days after, she ignores the advice and spies on the Still-Water Pack's camp to see what they are like. She does this for a while until she sees an old male wolf from the Still-Water Pack left to die on a rock as part of a ritual. She approaches the dying wolf, intending on burying him, but he tells her that that is not the way of wild wolves. When Storm asks him what his name is, he tells her he gave his true name back to his Pack and that his new name is Fading since he is about to die. Instead of moving on, she keeps watch over him. The next morning, when he dies, she approaches him. Mistaking her for a dog who intends to scavenge, other wolves from the Still-Water Pack chase her off their territory, giving her something they call the First Warning. Shortly afterward, she discovers the scent of other Fierce Dogs and tracks it, leading her to two fully-grown Fierce Dogs from Blade's old Pack, Dagger and a grown female named Pistol, who confront her and attack her, though she manages to escape. She flees the territory and heads farther inland, finding a longpaw house. There, she runs into two gray-and-white mongrel Leashed Dogs who are a male named Rex and a female named Coco; these two are accompanied by none other than Whine, who has been renamed Buddy. Whine encourages her to go in and stay the night. The next day, she wakes up in a cage, and talks to Whine, forming an escape plan. When Rex and Coco come back from their walk, Whine has them open her cage and helps her escape through the window. She then realizes that she misses being part of a Pack and goes off to find Bella and Arrow. After a few days of traveling, she gets to the beach and picks up Arrow's scent. After a while of tracking it, she realizes that he was following her and playfully barks at him to come out and he does. They greet each other and he welcomes her to his own little Pack, which lives not too far from the Still-Water Pack's territory. While heading back to camp, they hear Bella howl. Rushing back, they realize she is in labor. After a day of being in labor, nothing happens, so Storm goes back onto the territory of the Still-Water Pack, and calls out for help. The Still-Water Pack's female Alpha and her subjects find Storm and the Alpha scratches her, giving her what they call the Second Warning. After they leave, Thoughtful approaches Storm and offers to find his sister, Peaceful, and see if she could help with Bella's birthing. Peaceful eagerly agrees to help Bella deliver the pups. The next day, Bella finally gives birth to three pups: Tufty, Nip, and Scramble. Tufty, the only female in the litter, dies. After Peaceful leaves, Storm and Arrow talk about Sweet's Pack. Arrow tells her that, after he and Bella left, he saw Breeze carrying a brush rabbit in her jaws that was still alive, suffering and in pain. Storm is shocked Breeze would do such a thing. Over the next few weeks, Storm leads a happy life with her new packmates. One day, she decides to see how Peaceful and Thoughtful are doing, so she spies on the Still-Water Pack's camp and sees Peaceful being branded as a traitor for helping the domestic dogs and is exiled for two days. The next day, to thank Peaceful, she kills two brush rabbits and brings them to her, Peaceful declines, saying she has to remain loyal to her Pack. Storm takes the rabbits and accidentally heads deeper into Still-Water territory, causing her to be attacked and given the Third Warning - they also take the killed rabbits. Storm runs back to Arrow and Bella's family, telling Bella what happened. She then discusses her suspicions about Breeze with Bella, and Bella tells her that she overheard Breeze call one of the Fierce Dogs, who Bella thought was Arrow but Storm thought was her, a dirty Longpaw Fang and a murderer. The next day, Storm wakes up and sees the sky has turned red. Seeing this as a sign that her former Wild Pack is in danger, she says goodbye to Bella, Arrow, Nip and Scramble and sets off. She thinks about all the evidence and realizes that it makes sense that Breeze is the traitor as she runs. When she arrives, she hides in a bush and tries to figure out a way to ambush Breeze. The next day, Breeze is off on a hunting patrol, giving Storm a chance. When Breeze runs off to scout good hunting spots, Storm chases her. Breeze stops in a meadow and turns towards Storm, expecting her. Storm accuses her of being the traitor, and Breeze confirms her suspicions. Breeze tells Storm that the reason why she did all these crimes was because she wanted revenge against every dog who was involved with Terror's death, he being the 'only other dog who understood the Fear-Dog.' She tells Storm that she killed Whisper because he wouldn't stop praising Storm and that she killed Bruno because he realized Storm was innocent. She then bites herself and cries for help, making it look like Storm harmed her, leading to Storm being captured. She is brought back to Sweet's Pack's camp, where she states that Breeze is the traitor and giving her evidence. Breeze suggests they blind Storm, but Sweet decides to keep Storm hostage for a night. She is escorted into the Alpha den. Shortly after, Sunshine comes in with food, and tells Storm that she believes her and that she wasn't the only one who believed her before her exile, giving Storm some hope.
The Final Battle
The Final Battle is the twelfth book in the series and the sixth and final book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness (as well as the final Survivors book overall), and will be released on 5 February 2019.
Novellas
On 5 May 2015, all three of these stories were released together in a compilation book called Tales from the Packs.
Alpha's Tale
A novella set before The Empty City/Sweet's Journey and before Moon's Choice, released on 29 April 2014. Long before the Big Growl struck, the wolfdog who was yet to be the arrogant Alpha of the assorted Wild Pack grew up in a Pack of pureblooded wild gray wolves who worship a deity called the Great Wolf, hunt prey such as elk and Rocky Mountain goats, and are in minor conflict with a neighboring wolf Pack known as the Far-Cliff Pack, as well as with mountain sharpclaws (cougars). His Pup Name was just simply Pup before he got his Adult Name, which was humiliatingly just Dog. Being the only wolfdog hybrid in this Pack, most of the twelve pureblooded wolves in the Pack made him suffer for it, especially the rebellious female called Daring - until he swore, one day, after escaping being trapped on a farm of sheep and chickens protected by a longpaw rancher and four Fierce Dogs (Sundance, Zorro, Belle, and Calamity) who termed him Wolf, that he would never be the runt of a Pack again; though his pureblooded wild wolf mother, Graceful, and pureblooded wild wolf half-brother, Quick, were probably the only ones in this wild wolf Pack who showed him any affection. At one point he meets and rescues Snail (Fiery as a pup), who has just been orphaned, from a territorial black giantfur (American black bear) and the wolfdog gets ideas for a new Pack.
Sweet's Journey
A novella set during the events of The Empty City (and partly in A Hidden Enemy) after Sweet and Lucky went their separate ways, and telling how she eventually came to be the fearless Beta of the Wild Pack led by the arrogant wolfdog, defeating the previous Beta, a rather rude and impulsive female Irish setter mix who was then exiled for her dishonesty and dishonor, released on 10 February 2015. It also shows a bit of her past experiences in a Pack of just swift-dogs (seven members total, including herself), where she never really got along with her original Beta named Callie, who used to be a race dog, her former longpaw master naming her Callie because it was short for California Dreamer. It also features Sweet witnessing the moment when Moon went into labor and birthed her and Fiery's three pups: Fuzz, Squirm and Nose.
Moon's Choice
A novella telling of Moon's past, and how she came to join the wolfdog's Wild Pack, set between Alpha's Tale and The Empty City, released on 5 May 2015. Long before the Big Growl struck, Moon belonged to a different Pack, a Pack of twelve including herself. She and her sister Star were the daughters of the Pack's Alpha and Beta. The Pack also consisted of Hunter the big burly gray-and-brown male great dane mix (who was at first Moon's betrothed), Meadow the small beige female terrier mix with dark ears, Rush the male golden brown short-haired terrier mix with a short tail, Pebble the black female mongrel with sleek fur, and Fly the big brown-and-white snub-nosed male mongrel with long legs. Also in this Pack were Snap, Mulch and Whine. But when that Pack was threatened by a lethal case of canine distemper, Moon found unexpected help - and a difficult choice - in an English mastiff newcomer called Fiery, who had stumbled across Moon's Pack while he and the rest of his small Wild Pack of six were seeking out new territory. While Hunter, Meadow, and Rush abandoned Moon's Pack, most of her own Pack died from the illness with only Snap, Whine (Moon's Pack's original Omega), Mulch, and Moon herself remaining. They, of course, join Fiery's Pack, increasing its numbers to ten.
Development
Mythology
The authors knew ahead of time that spirituality was going to be a large part of the lives of the dogs, and that domestication and wildness would affect their dependence on it, and the characters' varying degrees of belief and dependence on religion would vary throughout the course of the series.[5] The Leashed Dogs do not really believe in the pantheon the same way Lone and Pack Dogs like Lucky do, but as they become more wild they become more spiritual, shown when they bury their owners items as an offering to Earth Dog.[6] The dogs have a pantheon of gods for different natural elements, like forests and earth.[6] The series begins with Lucky as a pup being told the story of the "Storm of Dogs", when this pantheon would fight and trap living dogs in the middle; this becomes the "Big Growl" which the story is centered on.[5]
Hierarchy
There are multiple different kinds of dogs, with various hierarchical systems. Leashed Dogs are pets, Lone Dogs are stray but live without dependence on other dogs, and Pack Dogs are stray and live dependent on their leader and packmates. After the Big Growl, most of the Leashed Dogs have lost their owners.[5] The main characters are part of the "Leashed Pack", a group of dogs that are all dependent on one another but without a complex social structure; it can be construed that Lucky is their leader (alpha).[6] The Wild Pack has a stricter hierarchy, with the wolfdog as a leader; Alpha, Beta, and Omega are referred to by their titles, while hunters and patrol dogs are given different names to distinguish.
Terminology
There was a large group effort put into the terminology that the dogs used, as it was to be vastly different from the terminology that the cats used.[5] As opposed to "twoleg", humans are referred to as "longpaws", and their vehicles are called "loudcages" instead of "monsters".[6] The dogs refer to cats themselves as "sharpclaws". In addition, there are four types of dogs: a Pack Dog, who is part of a pack; a Leashed Dog, who belongs to a human; a Lone Dog, who is a stray dog living on their own; and a Fierce Dog, which is a dog bred to fight or defend.
Themes
Philip has said that a main theme of Survivors is "fitting in", as Lucky is a Lone Dog at heart and feels out of place in his Leashed Pack.[3] Philip says that the theme is especially relevant to many of the young readers, who are trying to find "their own place in the world and at the same time keeping hold of their new identity".[3] Philip has also said that an advantage of writing stories is that "[y]ou can do all the romance and war and friendship and loyalty. You can do all that human stuff through animals."[7] Philip has said that an advantage of writing about dogs is that they "are so much less self-reliant than cats", which she believes will "make for some good stories".[8] Another main theme of the series is the complex canine pack structure that is different, but is also familiar to a human family.[3]
Publication history
The first book The Empty City was first published as a hardcover by HarperCollins on 21 August 2012[9] and released as an e-book on the same day.[10]  It was released in paperback on 7 May 2013.[11] The sequel to The Empty City, A Hidden Enemy, was also published on 7 May 2013 as a hardcover[12] and released as an e-book on the same day.[13] It was released in paperback on 11 February 2014.[14]
The third book in the series, Darkness Falls, was published as a hardcover on 3 September 2013[15] and released as an e-book on the same day.[16] It was released in paperback on 3 June 2014.[17] The fourth book in the series The Broken Path was first published as a hardcover on 11 February 2014 [18] and released as an e-book on the same day.[19] It was released in paperback on 10 February 2015.[20] The fifth book in the series The Endless Lake was also published as a hardcover on 3 June 2014[21] and released as an e-book on the same day.[22] It was released in paperback on 2 June 2015.[23] The sixth book Storm of Dogs was published as a hardcover on 10 February 2015[24] and was released as an e-book on the same day.[25] It was released in paperback on 13 October 2015.[26]
The first book of the second arc A Pack Divided was first published as a hardcover on 13 October 2015[27] and released as an e-book on the same day.[28] It was released in paperback on 7 June 2016.[29] The second book Dead of Night was first published as a hardclver on 7 June 2016[30] and released as an e-book on the same day.[31] It was released in paperback on 7 February 2017.[32] The third book Into the Shadows was also first published on 7 February 2017[33] and released as an e-book on the same day.[34] It will be released in paperback on 3 October 2017.[35] The fourth book Red Moon Rising is set to release in hardcover on 3 October 2017.[36]
Three e-book novellas have released in addition to the arcs. The first e-book novella Alpha's Tale was released on 29 April 2014.[37] The second novella Sweet's Journey released on 10 February 2015.[38] The third Moon's Choice was released on 5 May 2015.[39]
Critical reception
Reviews of Survivors were initially positive, while they began to take on a more negative tone as the series progressed. Booklist enjoyed the "fast-moving" plot and the characterization of the first book. The reviewer also said it was a "promising start" to the Survivors series.[40] Kirkus Reviews gave the novel a starred review, writing, "Hunter expertly explores the tensions between responsibility and freedom; risk and safety; and loyalty and acceptance". The reviewer goes on to say that Lucky's point-of-view made "even the most mundane or familiar seem alive with magic".[41] The Horn Book Magazine criticized the first book for its large number of characters, but added that its "action-packed suspense" makes a "promising start" to the series.[42] Voice of Youth Advocates stated that the new set of words used may puzzle readers, adding that the cliff hanger ending will leave readers "eagerly awaiting" the next book.[42] The second book received another starred review from Kirkus Reviews, calling it "perfectly crafted".[43] Booklist commented on the cliffhanger, stating that it will leave "avid" fans waiting for the next installment, but many readers will be "jarred" by the lack of a satisfying conclusion.[44] The Horn Book Magazine writes that "the large number of characters is hard to keep track of" but states that Lucky's dilemma "adds suspense".[45] In a review for the third book, it comments again about the large number of characters but says that the action will "please fans", calling Lucy a "sympathetic protagonist".[46] It repeats the statement in a review for the fifth book The Endless Lake,[47] and comments about the number of characters again in a review for the sixth book Storm of Dogs.[48]
The Horn Book praised the first book of the second arc A Pack Divided, calling it a "winsome, adventurous installment" of the series.[49] It stated that new readers would have trouble tracking the characters and backstories in a review for the second book, but comments that "Hunter devotees will appreciate how the dogs' saga deepens in this Survivors spinoff series.[50]

When was the first Survivors novel published?


The Maluku Islands or the Moluccas (/məˈlʌkəz/) are an archipelago within Banda Sea, Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located east of Sulawesi, west of New Guinea, and north and east of Timor.
The islands were known as the Spice Islands due to the nutmeg, mace and cloves that were originally exclusively found there, the presence of which sparked colonial interest from Europe in the 16th century.[2]
The Maluku Islands formed a single province from Indonesian independence until 1999, when it was split into two provinces. A new province, North Maluku, incorporates the area between Morotai and Sula, with the arc of islands from Buru and Seram to Wetar remaining within the existing Maluku Province. North Maluku is predominantly Muslim, and its capital is Sofifi on Halmahera island. Maluku province has a larger Christian population, and its capital is Ambon. Though originally Melanesian,[3] many island populations, especially in the Banda Islands, were massacred in the 17th century during the spice wars. A second influx of immigrants primarily from Java began in the early twentieth century under the Dutch and continues in the Indonesian era.
Between 1999 and 2002, conflict between Muslims and Christians killed thousands and displaced half a million people.
Etymology
The name Maluku is thought to have been derived from the term used by Arab traders for the region, Jazirat al-Moluk ("the island of the kings"), from the word malik (pl. moluk).[4] However, since the name itself has been mentioned in a 14th-century Majapahit eulogy, Nagarakretagama, that predates the arrival of Islam in Maluku at the late fifteenth century, other sources claim that the name comes from a local language with the meaning the head of a bull or the head of something large.[5]
Administrative divisions
The Maluku Islands were a single province from Indonesian independence until 1999 when they were split into North Maluku and Maluku.
North Maluku province includes Ternate (the former site of the provincial capital), Tidore, Bacan and Halmahera (the largest of the Maluku Islands).[6]
History

Early history
Arab merchants began to arrive in the 14th century, bringing Islam. Peaceful conversion to Islam occurred in many islands, especially in the centres of trade, while aboriginal animism persisted in the hinterlands and more isolated islands. Archaeological evidence here relies largely on the occurrence of pigs' teeth, as evidence of pork eating or abstinence therefrom.[7]
Portuguese

The most significant lasting effects of the Portuguese presence was the disruption and reorganization of the Southeast Asian trade, and in eastern Indonesia—including Maluku—the introduction of Christianity.[8] The Portuguese had conquered the city state of Malacca in the early 16th century and their influence was most strongly felt in Maluku and other parts of eastern Indonesia.[4] After the Portuguese annexed Malacca in August 1511, one Portuguese diary noted 'it is thirty years since they became Moors'.[9]
Afonso de Albuquerque learned of the route to the Banda Islands and other 'Spice Islands', and sent an exploratory expedition of three vessels under the command of António de Abreu, Simão Afonso Bisigudo and Francisco Serrão.[10] On the return trip, Francisco Serrão was shipwrecked at Hitu island (northern Ambon) in 1512. There he established ties with the local ruler who was impressed with his martial skills. The rulers of the competing island states of Ternate and Tidore also sought Portuguese assistance and the newcomers were welcomed in the area as buyers of supplies and spices during a lull in the regional trade due to the temporary disruption of Javanese and Malay sailings to the area following the 1511 conflict in Malacca. The spice trade soon revived but the Portuguese would not be able to fully monopolize nor disrupt this trade.[4]
Allying himself with Ternate's ruler, Serrão constructed a fortress on that tiny island and served as the head of a mercenary band of Portuguese seamen under the service of one of the two local feuding sultans who controlled most of the spice trade. Both Serrão and Ferdinand Magellan, however, perished before they could meet one another.[4]
The Portuguese first landed in Ambon in 1513, but it only became the new centre for their activities in Maluku following the expulsion from Ternate. European power in the region was weak and Ternate became an expanding, fiercely Islamic and anti-European state under the rule of Sultan Baab Ullah (r. 1570–1583) and his son Sultan Said.[11]
Following Portuguese missionary work, there have been large Christian communities in eastern Indonesia through to contemporary times, which has contributed to a sense of shared interest with Europeans, particularly among the Ambonese.[11]

Dutch

The Dutch arrived in 1599 and competed with the Portuguese in the area for trade.[12]

After Indonesian independence
With the declaration of a single republic of Indonesia in 1950 to replace the federal state, a Republic of South Maluku (Republik Maluku Selatan, RMS) was declared and attempted to secede. and led by Chris Soumokil (former Supreme Prosecutor of the Eastern Indonesia state) and supported by the Moluccan members of the Netherlands special troops. This movement was defeated by the Indonesian army and by special agreement with the Netherlands the troops were transferred to the Netherlands.
Maluku is one of the first provinces of Indonesia, proclaimed in 1945 until 1999, when the Maluku Utara and Halmahera Tengah Regencies were split off as a separate province of North Maluku. Its capital used to be Ternate, on a small island to the west of the large island of Halmahera, but has been moved to Sofifi on Halmahera itself. The capital of the remaining part of Maluku province remains at Ambon.
1999–2003 inter-communal conflict

Religious conflict erupted across the islands in January 1999. The subsequent 18 months were characterized by fighting between largely local groups of Muslims and Christians, the destruction of thousands of houses, the displacement of approximately 500,000 people, the loss of thousands of lives, and the segregation of Muslims and Christians.[13]
Geology and geography

The Maluku Islands have a total area of 850,000km2, 90% of which is sea.[14] There are an estimated 1027 islands.[15] The largest two islands, Halmahera and Seram are sparsely populated, while the most developed, Ambon and Ternate are small.[15]
The majority of the islands are forested and mountainous. The Tanimbar Islands are dry and hilly, while the Aru Islands are flat and swampy. Mount Binaya (3027 m) on Seram is the highest mountain. A number of islands, such as Ternate (1721 m) and the TNS islands, are volcanoes emerging from the sea with villages sited around their coasts. There have been over 70 serious volcanic eruptions in the last 500 years and earthquakes are common.[15]

The geology of the Maluku Islands share much similar history, characteristics and processes with the neighbouring Nusa Tenggara region. There is a long history of geological study of these regions since Indonesian colonial times; however, the geological formation and progression is not fully understood, and theories of the island's geological evolution have changed extensively in recent decades.[16] The Maluku Islands comprise some of the most geologically complex and active regions in the world,[17] resulting from their position at the meeting point of four geological plates and two continental blocks.
Biota and environment
Biogeographically, all of the islands apart from the Aru group lie in Wallacea, the region between the Sunda Shelf (part of the Asia block), and the Arafura Shelf (part of the Australian block). More specifically, they lie between Weber's Line and Lydekker's Line, and thus have a fauna that is rather more Australasian than Asian. Malukan biodiversity and its distribution are affected by various tectonic activities; most of the islands are geologically young, being from 1 million to 15 million years old, and have never been attached to the larger landmasses. The Maluku islands differ from other areas in Indonesia; they contain some of the country's smallest islands, coral island reefs scattered through some of the deepest seas in the world, and no large islands such as Java or Sumatra. Flora and fauna immigration between islands is thus restricted, leading to a high rate of endemic biota evolving.[16]
The ecology of the Maluku Islands has fascinated naturalists for centuries; Alfred Wallace's book, The Malay Archipelago was the first significant study of the area's natural history, and remains an important resource for studying Indonesian biodiversity. Maluku is the subject of two major historical works of natural history by Georg Eberhard Rumphius: the Herbarium Amboinense and the Amboinsche Rariteitkamer.[18]
Rainforest covered most of northern and central Maluku, which, on the smaller islands has been replaced by plantations, including the region's endemic cloves and nutmeg. The Tanimbar Islands and other southeastern islands are arid and sparsely vegetated, much like nearby Timor.[15] In 1997 the Manusela National Park, and in 2004, the Aketajawe-Lolobata National Park, were established, for the protection of endangered species.

Nocturnal marsupials, such as cuscus and bandicoots, make up the majority of the mammal species, and introduced mammals include Malayan civets and wild pigs.[15] Bird species include approximately 100 endemics with the greatest variety on the large islands of Halmahera and Seram. North Maluku has two species of endemic birds of paradise.[15] Uniquely among the Maluku Islands, the Aru Islands have a purely Papuan fauna including kangaroos, cassowaries, and birds of paradise.[15]
While many ecological problems affect both small islands and large landmasses, small islands suffer their particular problems. Development pressures on small islands are increasing, although their effects are not always anticipated. Although Indonesia is richly endowed with natural resources, the resources of the small islands of Maluku are limited and specialised; furthermore, human resources in particular are limited.[19]
General observations[20] about small islands that can be applied to the Maluku Islands include:[19]
a higher proportion of the landmass will be affected by volcanic activity, earthquakes, landslips, and cyclone damage;
Climates are more likely to be maritime influenced;
Catchment areas are smaller and degree of erosion higher;
A higher proportion of the landmass is made up of coastal areas;
A higher degree of environmental specialisation, including a higher proportion of endemic species in an overall depauperate community;
Societies may retain a strong sense of culture having developed in relative isolation;
Small island populations are more likely to be affected by economic migration.
Climate
Central and southern Maluku Islands experience the dry monsoon between October to March and the wet monsoon from May to August, which is the reverse of the rest of Indonesia. The dry monsoon's average maximum temperature is 30°C while the wet's average maximum is 23°C. Northern Maluku has its wet monsoon from December to March in line with the rest of Indonesia. Each island group have their own climatic variations, and the larger islands tend to have drier coastal lowlands and their mountainous hinterlands are wetter.[15]
Demographics

Maluku's population is about 2 million, less than 1% of Indonesia's population.[15]
Over 130 languages were once spoken across the islands; however many have now switched to the creoles of Ternate Malay and Ambonese Malay, the lingua franca of northern and southern Maluku respectively.[15]
A long history of trade and seafaring has resulted in a high degree of mixed ancestry in Malukans.[15] Austronesian peoples added to the native Melanesian population around 2000BCE.[21] Melanesian features are strongest in the islands of Kei and Aru and amongst the interior people of the islands Seram and Buru. Later added to this Austronesian-Melanesian mix were some Indian and Arab strain. More recent arrivals include Bugis trader settlers from Sulawesi and Javanese transmigrants.[15]
Economy
Cloves and nutmeg are still cultivated, as are cocoa, coffee and fruit. Fishing is a big industry across the islands but particularly around Halmahera and Bacan. The Aru Islands produce pearls, and Seram exports lobsters. Logging is a significant industry on the larger islands with Seram producing ironwood and teak and ebony are produced on Buru.[15]
See also
Maluku culture
List of Maluku Governors
List of Moluccan Lastnames

Notes

General
Andaya, Leonard Y. (1993). The World of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the Early Modern Period. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN0-8248-1490-8.
Bellwood, Peter (1997). Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian archipelago. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN0-8248-1883-0.
Donkin, R. A. (1997). Between East and West: The Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans. American Philosophical Society. ISBN0-87169-248-1.
Milton, Giles (1999). Nathaniel's Nutmeg.  London: Sceptre. ISBN978-0-340-69676-7.
Monk, Kathryn A., Yance De Fretes, Gayatri Reksodiharjo-Lilley (1997). The Ecology of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku. Singapore: Periplus Press. ISBN962-593-076-0.
Van Oosterzee, Penny (1997). Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN0-8014-8497-9.
Wallace, Alfred Russel (2000; originally published 1869). The Malay Archipelago. Singapore: Periplus Press. ISBN962-593-645-9.
Further reading
George Miller (editor), To The Spice Islands And Beyond: Travels in Eastern Indonesia, Oxford University Press, 1996, Paperback, 310 pages, ISBN967-65-3099-9
Severin, Tim The Spice Island Voyage: In Search of Wallace, Abacus, 1997, paperback, 302 pages, ISBN0-349-11040-9
Bergreen, Laurence Over the Edge of the World, Morrow, 2003, paperback, 480 pages
Muller, Dr. Kal Spice Islands: The Moluccas, Periplus Editions, 1990, paperback, 168 pages, ISBN0-945971-07-9

 from 1760 (in English) (in French)

Coordinates:

What is the largest island in the Maluku Islands?


The Gallerie dell'Accademia is a museum gallery of pre-19th-century art in Venice, northern Italy. It is housed in the Scuola della Carità on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It was originally the gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, the art academy of Venice, from which it became independent in 1879, and for which the Ponte dell'Accademia and the Accademia boat landing station for the vaporetto water bus are named. The two institutions remained in the same building until 2004, when the art school moved to the Ospedale degli Incurabili.
History
Early history

The Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia was founded on 24 September 1750; the statute dates from 1756.[1] The first director was Giovanni Battista Piazzetta; Gianbattista Tiepolo became the first president after his return from Würzburg.[2]
It was one of the first institutions to study art restoration starting in 1777 with Pietro Edwards, and formalised by 1819 as a course.
In 1807 the academy was re-founded by Napoleonic decree. The name was changed from Veneta Academia di Pittura, Scultura e Architettura to Accademia Reale di Belle Arti, "royal academy of fine arts", and the academy was moved to the Palladian complex of the Scuola della Carità, where the Gallerie dell'Accademia are still housed. The collections of the Accademia were first opened to the public on 10 August 1817.[1][3]
Later history
The Gallerie dell'Accademia became independent from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia in 1879. Like other state museums in Italy, it falls under the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, the Italian ministry of culture and heritage.
Building

The Napoleonic administration had disbanded many institutions in Venice including some churches, convents and Scuole. The Scuola della Carità, the Convento dei Canonici Lateranensi and the church of Santa Maria della Carità thus became the home of the Accademia. The Scuola della Carità was the oldest of the six Scuole Grandi and the building dates back to 1343, though the scuola was formed in 1260. The Convento dei Canonici Lateranensi was started in 1561 by Andrea Palladio, though it was never fully completed. The facade of Santa Maria della Carità was completed in 1441 by Bartolomeo Bon.
Collection

The Gallerie dell’Accademia contains masterpieces of Venetian painting up to the 18th century, generally arranged chronologically though some thematic displays are evident.
Artists represented include:
Antonello da Messina,
Lazzaro Bastiani,
Gentile and Giovanni Bellini,
Bernardo Bellotto,
Pacino di Bonaguida,[4]
Canaletto,
Carpaccio,
Giulio Carpioni,
Rosalba Carriera,
Cima da Conegliano,
Fetti,
Pietro Gaspari,
Michele Giambono,
Luca Giordano,
Francesco Guardi,
Giorgione,
Johann Liss,
Charles Le Brun,
Pietro Longhi,
Lorenzo Lotto,
Mantegna,
Rocco Marconi,
Michele Marieschi,
Piazzetta,
Giambattista Pittoni,
Preti,
Tiepolo,
Tintoretto,
Titian,
Veronese (Paolo Caliari),
Vasari,
Leonardo da Vinci (Drawing of Vitruvian Man),
Alvise Vivarini, and
Giuseppe Zais.
Highlights from the Painting Collection

Hieronymus Bosch
Crucified Martyr Triptych, 104 x 119cm
Hieronymus Bosch
Hermit Saints Triptych, 86 x 120cm.
Jacopo Bassano
Adoration of the Shepherds, 97 x 142cm.
Giovanni Bellini
Sacred Conversation, 58 x 107cm
Giovanni Bellini
Martinengo Pieta, 65 x 90cm.
Giovanni Bellini
San Giobbe Altarpiece, 371 x 258cm.
Giovanni Bellini
Sacred Conversation, 54 x 76cm.
Paris Bordone
Presentation of the Ring, 370 x 301cm
Canaletto
Perspective View with Portico, 131 x 93cm.
Vittore Carpaccio
Cycle of St. Ursula, 297 x 527cm
Giorgione
Old Woman, 68 x 59cm.
Lorenzo Lotto
Gentleman in His Study, 98 x 116cm.
Andrea Mantegna
St. George, 66 x 32cm.
Piero della Francesca
St. Jerome and Donor, 49 x 42cm
Giambattista Pittoni
Penitent Magdalene, 48 x 38cm.
Tintoretto
Lamentation, 227 x 294cm.
Tintoretto
Resurrection
Tintoretto
St. Mark Freeing the Slaves, 415 x 541cm.
Tintoretto
Stealing of St. Mark's Body, 421 x 306cm.
Tintoretto
Creation of the Animals, 151 x 258cm
Titian
Pieta, 353 x 348cm.
Titian
Virgin and Child, 124 x 96cm
Titian
St. John the Baptist, 201 x 134cm.
Titian
Presentation of the Virgin, 345 x 775cm.
Paolo Veronese
Battle of Lepanto, 169 x 137cm
Paolo Veronese
Feast in the House of Levy, 555 x 1280cm.
Paolo Veronese
Mystical Marriage of St Catherine, 337 x 241cm.

 Media related to Gallerie dell'Accademia (Venice) at Wikimedia Commons

How many Renaissance paintings are in the collection of the Accademia museum in Venice?