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A review by siavahda
The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
5.0
HIGHLIGHTS
~turns out you can be a deadly wolf shapeshifter AND a cinnamon roll
~Mythic Horror = beautiful evil
~nonbinary knights ftw!
~heed the magpies
~don’t stop running
My relationship with horror is not complicated: I don’t read or watch it, because I’m a total wimp.
…Except. Sometimes. Sometimes a premise is just too fucking good. Sometimes a premise or line or snippet of passage is so fucking good that it makes me brave enough to take a breath and take the plunge.
Folx, I am so, so glad I risked it this time, because The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt isn’t just going on my best-of-2021 list: it’s going on my next Best of the Decade list.
…I don’t even know where to start. Gods.
Well, I’m gonna start with the worldbuilding, because worldbuilding is my Thing, ’kay?
WORLDBUILDING
The impression that Wolfmoor’s world is generically Medieval Western Europe-esque dies pretty much instantly: yes, there are castles and nobility and knights, but this a queernorm world right down to its bones. Not only are same-sex pairings not noteworthy in this setting, neither are nonbinary people – the honorific for whom, by the way, is Maurr – who get to just exist here; we have a major nonbinary character in the main cast, but many of the so-minor-they’re-unnamed background characters use they/them pronouns too, and you don’t realise how revolutionary that is until you’re reading it and seeing it treated as completely normal. And Wolfmoor goes even further: group marriage is a normal part of this world, too, and the society is utterly gender-neutral in the same casually powerful way that it embraces nonbinary people – I’ve read books where women can be knights before, I don’t know how to explain what it is about Wolfmoor’s version that makes the existence of women knights pack such a punch here, especially when we see just one or two of them fairly briefly. But it does – pack a punch, that is.
That is not even close to all of the delicious gender-fuckery in this book: women can be knights, yes, and they can be noble – but Wolfmoor’s gone and made the titles gender-neutral as well. ‘Lord’ can refer to a woman or a man or a nonbinary person, and I got such a fucking thrill when it was revealed that the King of the Wild Hunt is a woman. It’s such a small thing, letting women use traditionally male titles; it seems like it shouldn’t be a big deal. But it is, because no matter how forward-thinking we believe ourselves to be, ‘Lord’ and ‘King’ have different connotations in our heads than ‘Lady’ and ‘Queen’. They just do. And in Medieval-esque settings, ladies and queens typically had less power than lords and kings. That’s not the case in this book, but…but maybe that lingers in my mind, because it felt to me like these women using – claiming – having male titles were reaching for or embracing a quality or power not traditionally, typically granted to women.
We’ve seen women as evil Queens before. But as a terrifying dark King?
I don’t know how to say what I mean. Can I just say it’s awesome?
THE STORY
The Wild King is relevant because Skythulf – who is a kind of shapeshifter called a scythewulf, able to shift between wolf and human forms at will, and considered bestial and sub-human because of it – is offered the choice of execution or running with the Wild Hunt as punishment for displeasing his queen. As you might have guessed, the vast majority of those who choose to run do not come back; and although at first glance it seems like an easy choice – nobody comes back from execution, whereas with the Wild Hunt you have a chance – I…am not sure I’d be brave enough to choose the run, myself.
Because the run may not do you the mercy of actually ending you.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
~turns out you can be a deadly wolf shapeshifter AND a cinnamon roll
~Mythic Horror = beautiful evil
~nonbinary knights ftw!
~heed the magpies
~don’t stop running
My relationship with horror is not complicated: I don’t read or watch it, because I’m a total wimp.
…Except. Sometimes. Sometimes a premise is just too fucking good. Sometimes a premise or line or snippet of passage is so fucking good that it makes me brave enough to take a breath and take the plunge.
Folx, I am so, so glad I risked it this time, because The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt isn’t just going on my best-of-2021 list: it’s going on my next Best of the Decade list.
…I don’t even know where to start. Gods.
Well, I’m gonna start with the worldbuilding, because worldbuilding is my Thing, ’kay?
WORLDBUILDING
The impression that Wolfmoor’s world is generically Medieval Western Europe-esque dies pretty much instantly: yes, there are castles and nobility and knights, but this a queernorm world right down to its bones. Not only are same-sex pairings not noteworthy in this setting, neither are nonbinary people – the honorific for whom, by the way, is Maurr – who get to just exist here; we have a major nonbinary character in the main cast, but many of the so-minor-they’re-unnamed background characters use they/them pronouns too, and you don’t realise how revolutionary that is until you’re reading it and seeing it treated as completely normal. And Wolfmoor goes even further: group marriage is a normal part of this world, too, and the society is utterly gender-neutral in the same casually powerful way that it embraces nonbinary people – I’ve read books where women can be knights before, I don’t know how to explain what it is about Wolfmoor’s version that makes the existence of women knights pack such a punch here, especially when we see just one or two of them fairly briefly. But it does – pack a punch, that is.
That is not even close to all of the delicious gender-fuckery in this book: women can be knights, yes, and they can be noble – but Wolfmoor’s gone and made the titles gender-neutral as well. ‘Lord’ can refer to a woman or a man or a nonbinary person, and I got such a fucking thrill when it was revealed that the King of the Wild Hunt is a woman. It’s such a small thing, letting women use traditionally male titles; it seems like it shouldn’t be a big deal. But it is, because no matter how forward-thinking we believe ourselves to be, ‘Lord’ and ‘King’ have different connotations in our heads than ‘Lady’ and ‘Queen’. They just do. And in Medieval-esque settings, ladies and queens typically had less power than lords and kings. That’s not the case in this book, but…but maybe that lingers in my mind, because it felt to me like these women using – claiming – having male titles were reaching for or embracing a quality or power not traditionally, typically granted to women.
We’ve seen women as evil Queens before. But as a terrifying dark King?
I don’t know how to say what I mean. Can I just say it’s awesome?
THE STORY
The Wild King is relevant because Skythulf – who is a kind of shapeshifter called a scythewulf, able to shift between wolf and human forms at will, and considered bestial and sub-human because of it – is offered the choice of execution or running with the Wild Hunt as punishment for displeasing his queen. As you might have guessed, the vast majority of those who choose to run do not come back; and although at first glance it seems like an easy choice – nobody comes back from execution, whereas with the Wild Hunt you have a chance – I…am not sure I’d be brave enough to choose the run, myself.
Because the run may not do you the mercy of actually ending you.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!