Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Wolf Brother - Michelle Paver

[bookgazing]

Now that the review of the book I didn’t like is out of the way I can start talking about all the wonderful books I’ve been enjoying lately. I guess I’ll begin with Michelle Paver’s ‘Wolf Brother’, the first book from her ‘The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ series, a YA fantasy series, set in the Stone age, because I’m sure you could all use another series to start. I’m convinced you all have your series addictions under much better control than I do, no need for an intervention for you guys, no siree.

Torak has just seen his father mauled by a bear, that has super bear strength. In his dying moments Torak’s father makes him promise that he’ll do all he can to reach the mountain of the World Spirit and ask the spirit to help defeat the bear. Fa believes the bear is possessed by a demon and will become more powerful until it destroys the Forest where Torak, all the tribes and the animals live. Torak is launched into life alone and a daunting quest and surrounded by a foggy kind of mystery to do with his parents past; within a day his normal life collapses.

Wolf has returned to his family’s den to find his family unresponsive to him. They have actually been drowned in a flood but Wolf doesn’t quite understand this at first. Then he hears the sounds of another wolf and rushes to respond. This other wolf is Torak, speaking the language of his clan animal to try and entice the young wolf to him, so that he can eat the cub. Unable to kill the young wolf, who has lost his family to the forces of nature, just as Torak has, Torak allows Wolf to accompany him on his journey to the mountain. Their common circumstances and their unusual ability to communicate across the species barrier creates a simple and lasting connection between them.

That’s just the first few chapters, fantasy is always so hard to summarise because a typical fantasy book has so much going on in terms of plot. In this book there are also ambushes, mortal enemies, a disturbed group of evil people corrupted by power and a prophecy. The plot of this individual book was really well maintained, even as the over-arching plot of the whole series was revealed. The battle to defeat the bear remained just as important as an individual quest, even as Torak begins to find out the wider trouble the bear is related to.

‘Wolf Brother’ is a full on action book, with battles and sudden, appearances of the evil bear and I thought so much action fit well with the setting and the characters hunter gatherer, roaming outdoors, way of life. The language is also very physically descriptive, describing scents, sounds and textures of the world with a sharp clarity that creates a vivid picture of Torak’s world:

'Only yesterday - yesterday - they'd pitched camp in the blue autumn dusk. Torak had made a joke, and his father was laughing. Then the Forest exploded. Ravens screamed. Pines cracked. And out of the dark beneath the trees surged a deeper darkness: a huge rampaging menace in bear form.'

That’s not to say there isn’t time for introspection and character development, Torak spends a lot of time thinking because he can only communicate basic things to Wolf and when he meets other humans he doesn’t trust them. ‘Wolf Brother’ is the kind of book where the action is intense and fast, with short sentences used to quicken the pace and drama, yet it avoids making the action and the result of the quest the only important theme. The journey the three main characters take and the discoveries they make is just as important as the overwhelming reason for that journey.

The female lead of ‘Wolf Brother’ is also another great point about this book. Rhenne is good at things, she’s not just capable of doing things the men do, she’s the best archer Torak has ever seen, she rescues him several times, she knows more than he does about some things. She’s not there just to be Torak’s future love interest (although don’t rule that out later in the series) and she’s not there to be some perfect archetype for a female character. In short she’s a proper character, with thoughts and failings and fears and a capacity to accomplish what she needs to.

So yes that’s yet another series I’ve started (I think this one makes it seven that are currently in progress), but at least I know the last book has been written so I’m adding a quantifiable number of books to my wish list. How many series are you currently following?

If you’ve reviewed this book, please leave a link in the comments and I’ll add your review to my post. General chatting about the book is also encouraged.