A review by lesserjoke
Shardik by Richard Adams

4.0

I loved this 1974 story of a Stone Age civilization treating a giant bear as the incarnation of their god, a sprawling feat of worldbuilding that feels wholly different from the author's better-known classic Watership Down. It's slow but engaging, and I appreciate the ambiguity that its title animal can be read as either a divine agent or not. This is a fantasy story with no overt magic, set in a prehistory so deep it may as well be another world, and it carries an epic feel as though it really were a surviving relic of those times. The prose can be a little clunky to modern ears, and the story could certainly have been tightened up, but this is a tome that really rewards readers for falling into its world.