You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by oleksandr
The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky
4.0
This is a stone age fantasy, the first volume of the trilogy. One of the fellow readers aptly called it ‘GoT with werewolves’ and it is accordingly full of characters and their interaction. While there are combat scenes, blood and gore, they are maybe a little less cruel than in [b:A Game of Thrones|13496|A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)|George R.R. Martin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562726234l/13496._SY75_.jpg|1466917]. I have to admit, reading both fantasy and SF by [a:Adrian Tchaikovsky|1445909|Adrian Tchaikovsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1282303363p2/1445909.jpg], I preferred his SF, but this fantasy is strong and unusual to urge me to read more.
A lot of fantasy follows ‘classics’, where the world is a version of European middle ages (often an imaginary version of later Enlightenment historians, who coined the term Dark Ages), recently with a bit larger globe coverage, adding Indian, Chinese or pre-Columbian Americas cultures, but still, ‘Knights and Mages’. This one is a rare (but not unique) attempt to step much deeper in history, closer to earlier civilizations, and more importantly – pre-civilization (i.e. urban) cultures. As it is known, such cultures almost always had a totem animal, which was considered a progenitor of the tribe. Here it is taken literally to the next step – all humans are were-animals of their tribe, be it wolf, hyena, horse or snake.
The story has several characters and their individual lines slowly intertwine as the book progresses. The first is Maniye Many Tracks, a daughter Akrit Stone River, who is a leader of one of Wolves’ tribes, who raped and then, after her birth, ordered to kill her mother, who was captured from the enemy tribe of Tigers. Wolves may be uncouth and brute, living in the snow-covered North, next to the Crown of the World, but they are the only people in the known world who know a secret of making iron. And iron makes a huge difference in a world where others are limited by stone, wood or bronze. Maniye, as a half-blood is shunned by other teens of the tribe, the father sees her just as a tool for his promotion… but she has a rare talent to turn into both wolf and tiger.
The second line is that of Asmander, First Son of Asman, a Champion sent by his father on a mission to the inhospitable North. He is accompanied by a former pirate Venater. The one was an earth-dark River Lord youth with an easy smile, the other a burly, villainous-looking estuary man, both are expert fighters in both their human and their beast form, with Venater being a Komodo dragon and Asmander a crocodile and something more…
This is a great story with a lot of characters, who are quite ‘alive’ and not just a flat character-function. Both the world and the heroes make you want to read more.
A lot of fantasy follows ‘classics’, where the world is a version of European middle ages (often an imaginary version of later Enlightenment historians, who coined the term Dark Ages), recently with a bit larger globe coverage, adding Indian, Chinese or pre-Columbian Americas cultures, but still, ‘Knights and Mages’. This one is a rare (but not unique) attempt to step much deeper in history, closer to earlier civilizations, and more importantly – pre-civilization (i.e. urban) cultures. As it is known, such cultures almost always had a totem animal, which was considered a progenitor of the tribe. Here it is taken literally to the next step – all humans are were-animals of their tribe, be it wolf, hyena, horse or snake.
The story has several characters and their individual lines slowly intertwine as the book progresses. The first is Maniye Many Tracks, a daughter Akrit Stone River, who is a leader of one of Wolves’ tribes, who raped and then, after her birth, ordered to kill her mother, who was captured from the enemy tribe of Tigers. Wolves may be uncouth and brute, living in the snow-covered North, next to the Crown of the World, but they are the only people in the known world who know a secret of making iron. And iron makes a huge difference in a world where others are limited by stone, wood or bronze. Maniye, as a half-blood is shunned by other teens of the tribe, the father sees her just as a tool for his promotion… but she has a rare talent to turn into both wolf and tiger.
The second line is that of Asmander, First Son of Asman, a Champion sent by his father on a mission to the inhospitable North. He is accompanied by a former pirate Venater. The one was an earth-dark River Lord youth with an easy smile, the other a burly, villainous-looking estuary man, both are expert fighters in both their human and their beast form, with Venater being a Komodo dragon and Asmander a crocodile and something more…
This is a great story with a lot of characters, who are quite ‘alive’ and not just a flat character-function. Both the world and the heroes make you want to read more.