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A review by bookycnidaria
A Companion to Wolves by Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette
1.0
CliffsNotes
The psychic wolves could have been an interesting premise if they hadn't been bundled into a 302-page excuse to write gay rape scenes. Romance is complicated. Sexuality is complicated. That still doesn't excuse the gang rapes (yes, plural) described in the book. Despite rampant troll-killing and some vague rambling about courage and honor, the book has one very specific purpose, which is unnecessary non-consensual sex between muscly men. I don't know much about these authors so I couldn't tell you if it's Serious Business or heavy-handed satire, but whatever the case it's pretty lame.
TL;DR
A Companion to Wolves focuses in semi-epic length on the trials and tribulations of a teenaged boy named Njall, who lives in an ill-defined region that the authors have decided to call the “world of the Iskryne.” This is not, they tell us, actually Earth, but a rather lazy amalgamation of several Earth cultures. In practice what this means is that the characters are running around a world that is like Earth, but is supposed to be some weird kind of fantasy land where men can talk to wolves and gang rape is a socially acceptable activity.
In the beginning, Njall is an impetuous 16-year-old who wants to be treated like an adult. This doesn’t really change throughout the book, but he does manage to impress Vigdis, a dominant female wolf (“konigenwolf”) from the local “wolfheall” (a walled compound that houses a number of men and their wolves), and is taken away from his family to learn the ways of the wolf-men. While there, he partners with a young konigenwolf-to-be named Viradechtis, starts training to become a pack leader despite having zero leadership skills, changes his name to Isolfr, and has unwilling sex with men. Throughout the book, it’s explained that the wolves and their men are connected by a “pack sense”: they can't exactly read each other's minds, but they can share information and tap into each other's emotions. Thus, because of the pack sense and the lust shared by a wolf and his/her human partner, the wolf-men are compelled to have sex with each other at the exact same time that their respective wolves are mating. The trouble is that this adds nothing to the plot, and it's inconsistent with the rest of the pack sense. Even when their wolves are in a blinding rage, the men are generally able to keep their own tempers under control; the wolves, for their part, are completely unaffected when the men carry on romantic affairs. They don’t live or die in sync, so why are they so inseparable in this one particular aspect? Isolfr often gets compared to a woman: is this supposed to be some kind of a message, a role-reversal? If so, it gets blurred out by the porn.
In complete fairness, this isn't the worst thing I've ever read; that dubious honor belongs to an even trashier book that didn't have cute wolves. A Companion to Wolves wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been, but, while I'm not in a hurry to light it on fire, I’d rather not waste my time on a series whose first installment can be summed up in four words: I’d rather read Twilight.
The psychic wolves could have been an interesting premise if they hadn't been bundled into a 302-page excuse to write gay rape scenes. Romance is complicated. Sexuality is complicated. That still doesn't excuse the gang rapes (yes, plural) described in the book. Despite rampant troll-killing and some vague rambling about courage and honor, the book has one very specific purpose, which is unnecessary non-consensual sex between muscly men. I don't know much about these authors so I couldn't tell you if it's Serious Business or heavy-handed satire, but whatever the case it's pretty lame.
TL;DR
A Companion to Wolves focuses in semi-epic length on the trials and tribulations of a teenaged boy named Njall, who lives in an ill-defined region that the authors have decided to call the “world of the Iskryne.” This is not, they tell us, actually Earth, but a rather lazy amalgamation of several Earth cultures. In practice what this means is that the characters are running around a world that is like Earth, but is supposed to be some weird kind of fantasy land where men can talk to wolves and gang rape is a socially acceptable activity.
In the beginning, Njall is an impetuous 16-year-old who wants to be treated like an adult. This doesn’t really change throughout the book, but he does manage to impress Vigdis, a dominant female wolf (“konigenwolf”) from the local “wolfheall” (a walled compound that houses a number of men and their wolves), and is taken away from his family to learn the ways of the wolf-men. While there, he partners with a young konigenwolf-to-be named Viradechtis, starts training to become a pack leader despite having zero leadership skills, changes his name to Isolfr, and has unwilling sex with men. Throughout the book, it’s explained that the wolves and their men are connected by a “pack sense”: they can't exactly read each other's minds, but they can share information and tap into each other's emotions. Thus, because of the pack sense and the lust shared by a wolf and his/her human partner, the wolf-men are compelled to have sex with each other at the exact same time that their respective wolves are mating. The trouble is that this adds nothing to the plot, and it's inconsistent with the rest of the pack sense. Even when their wolves are in a blinding rage, the men are generally able to keep their own tempers under control; the wolves, for their part, are completely unaffected when the men carry on romantic affairs. They don’t live or die in sync, so why are they so inseparable in this one particular aspect? Isolfr often gets compared to a woman: is this supposed to be some kind of a message, a role-reversal? If so, it gets blurred out by the porn.
In complete fairness, this isn't the worst thing I've ever read; that dubious honor belongs to an even trashier book that didn't have cute wolves. A Companion to Wolves wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been, but, while I'm not in a hurry to light it on fire, I’d rather not waste my time on a series whose first installment can be summed up in four words: I’d rather read Twilight.