Hardcover, 304 pages
English language
Published Oct. 16, 2007 by Tor Books.
Excellent writing, unexpected - but well executed - explicit maybe non-consent/maybe dubious consent content, and a lovely story.
Excellent world building and character growth. Exploration of gender role vs sex vs sexuality core to story as well as rousing war against monsters.
Much less rape-ful than I was expecting!
I know, not a strong recommendation, but via the informal SF grapevine, I had heard that this book was essentially Pern with the rape taken seriously, and while this is true, it takes place in the context of a society that recognizes rape when it happens and disapproves of it. That said, I cannot say that it might not be triggerful. A major theme of the book is consent, and the varying degrees to which it can be free.
As someone else said, this book is horrible for names. About half of the characters have the phoneme "ulf" or an allomorph somewhere in their name, many of them at the beginning, many of the characters change their name at some point during the book, and there are tonnes of characters to keep track of. Adding insult to injury, for me, the authors acknowledge …
Much less rape-ful than I was expecting!
I know, not a strong recommendation, but via the informal SF grapevine, I had heard that this book was essentially Pern with the rape taken seriously, and while this is true, it takes place in the context of a society that recognizes rape when it happens and disapproves of it. That said, I cannot say that it might not be triggerful. A major theme of the book is consent, and the varying degrees to which it can be free.
As someone else said, this book is horrible for names. About half of the characters have the phoneme "ulf" or an allomorph somewhere in their name, many of them at the beginning, many of the characters change their name at some point during the book, and there are tonnes of characters to keep track of. Adding insult to injury, for me, the authors acknowledge in a note at the beginning that they have chosen to use Norse names, more or less rubbing in the fact that they could have used names I might have been able to tell apart, but chose not to.
Having said that, I love this book. It made me cry, it gave me heroes, and it gave me wolves who were wolflike, so I can't ask for much more.
