Silverwing (novel)

"Many of these animals had already been written about, and most of them were reasonably cuddly: horses, mice, pigs, rabbits, even spiders. But will kids be able to identify with bats?"

—Kenneth Oppel, "Author's Note" in Silverwing

"At the dawning of the ages, the birds and the beasts banished us. We were forbidden from ever glimpsing the sun again..."

—Frieda's Opening Monologue that starts each episode of the animated series

The Silverwing trilogy is a series of books written by Kenneth Oppel, which is a sort of Goth-esque fantasy adventure about bats. The first book appeared in 1997. The main character, Shade, is a small Silverwing bat, who is frequently mocked and called "Runt". After breaking one of the animal world's biggest rules and becoming a fugitive, and getting lost at sea during a migration, Shade goes on a wild adventure with a new friend, street-smart Tomboy Marina Brightwing. Things get worse when Goth and Throbb, two giant carnivorous bats from Brazil, escape a research facility and begin killing birds and other creatures at will. The little bats get blamed for it, landing Shade and his colony in a battle for the rights of all their kind.

Also related to the trilogy is a fourth book, Darkwing, which explores prehistoric bats. Dusk, a chiropter (a fictional name the author uses to describe the species) is the first of his kind who can actually fly instead of glide. During a time of evolutionary upheaval, he must lead his clan to safe new territory.

The series was also adapted into an animated series. See its page here.

Tropes used in Silverwing (novel) include:

Aerith and Bob: Shade and Marina, their son Griffin, and the villain Goth
Air Vent Passageway: This is how Goth and Throbb got out of the artificial jungle. Justifed as they are much smaller than people and have to fly vertically.
Exclusively Evil: Played straight in the first two books with the Vampyrum Spectrum, Goth's race. However, in Firewing Murk is introduced.
The Amazon: The Vampyrum Spectrum specifically come from Brazil. It is also where the bats and owls forced to carry bombs by humans are sent to destroy Rio De Janeiro.
Back from the Dead: Luna, Griffin, Goth
Bat Out of Hell: Averted (and still played straight, if you think about it)
Big Bad: Goth in the first two books, Cama Zotz himself in the third.
Big Damn Heroes: The rats and owls at the end of Sunwing.
Bittersweet Ending: Used in Firewing; see The Hero Dies.
Blind Seer: Zephyr
Bloody Bowels of Hell: Firewing's idea of the Bat Underworld is actually pretty nice. But piss off Cama Zotz and you get a one-way ticket down his digestive tract.
Body Count Competition
Broken Bird: Marina, who was abandoned by her whole colony.
The Brute: Goth and Throbb.
Carnivore Confusion: The "Predators Are Mean" variant appears in the first two books, but in Firewing Murk lampshades and defies it.
Cats Are Mean: Not actual cats, but the cat-like predator Miacis in Darkwing, which are given the nickname "felids". (More precisely, one particular band of Miacis who have acquired a taste for meat.)
Charles Atlas Superpower: Zephyr and Shade's sound abilities.
Chekhov's Gun: The leaf used to help Shade go to sleep in the middle of Silverwing is used later in the story to drug Goth.
The Chessmaster: Cama Zotz.
Clear My Name
Continuity Cameo: Frieda and Throbb are seen again in the Bat Underworld in Firewing.
- And in Sunwing, Shade isn't sure what to do next on his adventure, so he uses sound to call Zephyr from Silverwing to help. Note that Zephyr is on a different continent.
Creepy Souvenir: Cannibals Goth and Throbb eat a group of bats and wear the metal bands as trophies.
Cult: A group of banded bats led by Scirocco, who believe that the bands will allow them to transform into humans.
Dark Is Not Evil: Murk
- In theory a good chunk of the good guys, since the main protagonists are bats.
David Versus Goliath: Goth and Throbb are portrayed as big muscular bullies. Contrast with protagonist Shade, who often uses his intelligence to solve problems. For bonus points Shade is considered a runt even by his species' standards.
Demoted to Extra: Despite having a very major role in the first two books, this happens to Marina in Firewing.
Disability Superpower: Zephyr, an oracle, is a blind albino bat, has an uncannily acute sense of hearing. He can hear what happens in the past and future, and can even hear the stars.
Disappeared Dad: Shade's dad, Cassiel.
Enemy Mine: The bats, rats, and owls captured by the Vampyrum Spectrum in South America team up to fight their captors.
Everybody Hates Hades: Cama Zotz complains about this.
- Played pretty straight too, given the role he plays. Then again his portrayal in the mayan myths is not all that flattering either.
Eye Scream: The colony in Darkwing encounters a large nest of shrew-like creatures with paralyzing saliva called soricids. Two of the hyaenodons get bitten by them, and they collapse and are quickly stripped to the bone by the things. The Fridge Horror sets in when you really go through this scene in your mind: They are paralyzed. Not dead, paralyzed. Therefore, they can feel everything that is happening to them. Imagine little shrew teeth stripping your face away, including their teeth digging out your eyes.
Family-Unfriendly Violence/Family-Unfriendly Death: Quite a bit, although more concentrated in Firewing. Examples include a bat having his heart ripped out and eaten, and a young bat being burned to death. Shade at one point attempts to cripple an enemy by biting his ears off.
Fate Worse Than Death: Goth gets swallowed briefly by Cama Zotz as a You Have Failed Me.... Goth doesn't stay there permanently, but for other bats this is their eternal punishment...
Feathered Fiend: Birds in general tend to be antagonistic, though the bats make peace with the owls in Sunwing, and a young bird in Darkwing warns Dusk of the felids.
Fire-Forged Friends: Shade and Chinook
Gentle Giant: Java, a Foxwing. She has a wingspan of 5 feet, and she is the most mellow character in the series.
Genius Bruiser: Goth.
Halfbreed: Griffin, half-Silverwing and half-Brightwing. He doesn't get too much flak over his mixed heritage from the other bats, though.
Have You Seen My God?: Where's Nocturna? Oh, Cama Zotz killed her.
The Hero Dies: Shade at the end of Firewing, so his son Griffin and his friend could feed off his life force and become living beings again.
- Combines with The Bad Guy Wins: Goth stole Griffin's life force and used it to successfully return to life.
Heroic Albino: Zephyr
Heroic Bastard: Shade's missing father plays a big role in his motivations for the first two books. At the end of Sunwing, they are finally reunited.
Heroic Sacrifice: Shade pulls this one off near the end of Sunwing, where he tries to stop a bomb from falling using only sound. Unexplained Recovery He gets better... only to do a real Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Firewing.]]
Hoist by His Own Petard: Goth and Throbb in Silverwing, when their metal bands cause them to be struck by lightning; Voxzaco in Sunwing when his last-ditch bomb plan fails
Humans Are Cthulhu
Human Sacrifice: The bat version!
Jacob Marley Apparel: Lampshaded in Firewing, where one bat in the Bat Underworld, Yorick, died by smashing into a tree while strong gusts of wind were blowing, and he has to spend his eternity in the Underworld with a half-broken wing. He demands to know where the justice in that is.
Joker Immunity: Goth. He survives getting struck by lightning in the first book, and manages to literally cheat death in the third.
Killer Rabbit: The soricids in Darkwing are first said to be harmless. Then it turns out they're actually very aggressive. And have venomous bites. And there are a lot of them. They even end up killing two Hyaenodon, which are large predatory mammals.
Kill It with Fire: How the owls destroy Tree Haven.
Leave Your Quest Test: The banded cult offer one up to Marina. Luna also gets one in Firewing.
Like a Badass Out of Hell: Specifically, the second variation.
Lotus Eater Machine: In Firewing there is a cave where the dead bats see their past lives. Most of them eventually forget where they are and slowly turn into stone.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Shade learns to do this.
Manipulative Bastard: Goth & Cama Zotz.
Master of Illusion: Shade, eventually. Following Zephyr's example, he learns to manipulate sound. Since bats use echolocation, this ability translates to feats such as invisibility and projecting illusions.
Meaningful Name: Many. To name a few, there's Marina, who's named such because she's introduced on an abandoned island, and Griffin, who's a Halfbreed Silverwing/Brightwing.
- Yet another example would be Romulus and Remus, two rat princes who don't quite get along. Sound familiar?
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Murk.
Mysterious Animal Senses: Averted, all characters see a monochrome world, and as such, not one color is mentioned in the series.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: With names like Goth and Throbb, they have to be evil. Subverted with Murk.
No Communities Were Harmed: The city near Goth's home is obviously Rio De Janiero,(it even has the statue of Jesus) but is never named.
Not Quite Dead: Goth should have died after getting struck by lightning, but lucky for him a god was watching out for him.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Goth uses this.
One for Sorrow, Two For Joy
Owl Be Damned: Pretty nasty guys, the owls are.
Possible War: America bombs Brazil. Why? Who cares?
Prequel in the Lost Age: Darkwing
Prophet Eyes
Reasonable Authority Figure: Frieda
Religion of Evil
Sequel Hook: Goth just can't stay dead, can he? At the end of Firewing he got out of the Underworld and began gathering followers for Zotz.
Shown Their Work: Bridge City is the real life bat colony in Austin, Texas, and Statue Haven is Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. Cama Zotz was a bat god, worshiped by a real cult among the Zapotec Indians. (Camazotz was also used as the name of a planet in Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, making it a possible Shout-Out, or just plain coincidence).
- It's mentioned on the author's website that colours are never mentioned in the Silverwing books, except for silver, black, and the like. That's because bats are colour blind.
Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: The series is on the low end. The bats understand why humans would want to study animals, how things like doors work and have religons yet they can see with sound and are colourblind. They also have difficulty crawling anywhere.
Somewhere an Ornithologist Is Crying: The owls can use echolocation for some reason. Real owls have good hearing and use it for hunting, but don't actually echolocate.
Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying: In Darkwing, it's said that dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) became extinct because they were cold-blooded and couldn't cope with climate change, when evidence points to dinosaurs and pterosaurs being to some degree warm blooded. On the other hand, some more up to date concepts such as birds being dinosaur descendants are also mentioned, so it's a mixed bag.
Taken for Granite: The fate of the bats who stay in the Lotus Eater Machine cave.
Took a Level in Badass: Shade
Warrior Prince: Goth and Orestes are pretty badass.
Watch Out for That Tree: Yorick.
Weak but Skilled: Shade and his sound tricks.
What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Averted; the main characters are bats, which most people don't find cute at all. The author actually noted this, and his thoughts are in the page quote.
Xenofiction
You Dirty Rat: Subverted. The rats are initially hostile to Shade and Marina, but they befriend Prince Romulus. Romulus would go on to become king and an important ally of the bats.
Zerg Rush: The soricids in Darkwing.