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''Warriors: The Prophecies Begin'' is the first story arc in the ''Warriors'' juvenile fantasy novel series about anthropomorphic feral cats. The arc comprises six novels which were published from 2003 to 2004: ''Into the Wild'', ''Fire and Ice'', ''Forest of Secrets'', ''Rising Storm'', ''A Dangerous Path'', and ''The Darkest Hour''. The novels are published by HarperCollins under the pseudonym Erin Hunter, which refers to authors Kate Cary and Cherith Baldry and plot developer/editor Victoria Holmes. The sub-series details the adventures of the housecat Rusty, who joins ThunderClan, one of four Clans of feral cats living in a forest which adjoins the human town in which he originally lives. The arc's major themes deal with forbidden love, the concept of nature versus nurture, and characters being a mix of good and bad. Though the novels have appeared on the ''New York Times'' Bestseller List and have been nominated for several awards, none of the novels in the ''Warriors'' sub-series have won a significant literary award. ==Development== The series first began when HarperCollins asked Victoria Holmes to write a fantasy series about feral cats. Initially, Holmes was not very enthusiastic, since she "couldn't imagine coming up with enough ideas". Nevertheless, she worked with the concept and expanded the storyline with elements of war, politics, revenge, doomed love, and religious conflict.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Transcript of Erin Hunter Post Chat 6 )〕 Although the original plan was for a stand-alone novel, enough material was created for several books, and the publisher decided upon a six-volume series.〔 Holmes then enlisted the help of another author, Kate Cary, for whom Holmes had previously edited and knew as a cat-lover. ''Into the Wild'' was thus written by Kate Cary in about three months under the pseudonym "Erin Hunter".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Transcript Of Erin Hunter Chat #1 )〕 Holmes then began to work behind the scenes, editing and supervising details.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=INTERVIEW: Erin Hunter )〕 HarperCollins requested Holmes to produce a book every three months. Upon hearing this, Holmes invited Cherith Baldry into the team in order to keep up with the schedule. Holmes says she chose Baldry because "her natural writing style was quite close to mine and Kate's, so I knew that Cherith's voice would fit".〔 Afterwards, Holmes began to like the idea of using cats, since she realized how thoughtful they can be in leading private lives without any humans realizing.〔 The series is considered to be fantasy,〔 and has also been labelled an "animal adventure".〔 With two authors at the time, Holmes decided to publish the books under a pseudonym; having two authors would place the books at different places at libraries, confusing and possibly scaring off potential readers. The last name Hunter was chosen because it put the books next to the ''Redwall'' series, which has a similar genre.〔 〕 ''Warriors'' uses a lexicon with different names for certain foreign objects. A ''Children's Literature'' review noted the words "kittypet" and "twoleg" which mean housecat and humans respectively. In the book, instead of using "said", Cary uses the word "mewed".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Barnes and Noble: Into the Wild (Warriors Series #1) )〕 In response to a question at the Q&A section of the forum, Holmes explained that the cats' names come "in two parts, either or both of which can reflect something about the cat's appearance, personality, or habits". However, the names must also be part of the world the cats know; Holmes originally gave Tigerclaw the name Hammerclaw until one of the editors pointed out the cats wouldn't know what a hammer is.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Q & A with Erin Hunter )〕 For the names, Kate Cary says that she takes in inspiration for the names from "sight, sounds and scents the cats would experience". At the same time, more names become available as the cat's world becomes more diverse.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Warriors (arc)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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