Hi Redwallers!

I've been AWOL for a very long time, I know...I got older, Redwall was neglected in favor of The Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time, epic fantasy with a lot more ambition (but not half as much sparkle). But just recently I decided on a whim to give my old favorite series a spin...and I'm totally re-immersed! It's been an awesome rediscovery...plus now I've got Doomwyte and The Sable Quean to get my paws into...YES! It's good to be back! And I'll stay this time, scout's honor...I was a fool to leave the Abbey in the first place.

So to seal my return, I've decided to flesh out my profile a bit:

• My name is Edmund. I think there's a very minor character in Redwall called that, but he's far too uninteresting to capture my imagination, so hereabouts I go by the name of Flinky, in honor of that awesome stoat from Loamhedge.

• I'm 70 seasons old. Figger that'un out in years, if'n y'can, me buckoes!

• I hail from the fabled land of Germany - at least, in part; the other half's Minnesotan, doncha know? Or, as Gulo the Savage would call it, the Land of Ice and Snow.

• I have an enormous passion for film music. Hans Zimmer, Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, John Powell...if these names ring a bell...Listening to epic orchestral music is the perfect background for Redwall-reading, let me tell you!

• Why do I love Redwall? Quite simply, the villains. Oh sure, the goodbeasts are all wonderfully written as well, but it's with the baddies that I really feel Brian Jacques lets loose and has some real fun. How can anybody not love that garrulous, silver-tongued old rogue that is Flinky? How can you not just lap up the barbed interactions, the little threats and standoffs between, say, Plugg Firetail and Kurda, or Badrang and Tramun Clogg, or Ublaz and Rasconza, or all the Marlfoxes? Conversely, the Redwall books I tend not to like as much are the ones where there is a single, big villain horde - this plagues the earlier books especially such as Redwall where you basically only have Cluny the Scourge, or The Bellmaker where it's just Urgan Nagru.

• I do a lot of writing. I started out with Redwall fanfictions actually, and have quite a lengthy one in which a bunch of American animals fall through a sort of wormhole into the Redwall world - prairie dogs on the good side, followed by a horde of mink on the bad. But I've moved on from them and am currently working on a yarn based on historical fact that describes the wreck of the Dutch merchant ship Batavia in the 17th century - and the mutinies and massacres that follow amonst the survivors. There's more than a hint of Redwall and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman to it...lots of intrigue, mutinies, subplots, it's so much fun to write!

• Anything else you want to know about me, anything you want to tell me, any complaints: edi_meinerts@hotmail.com is my e-mail address. Give me a shout!