Review: A Companion to Wolves.
Mar. 9th, 2009 11:20![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyBear, Elizabeth and Sarah Monette. A Companion to Wolves. New York: Tor Books, 2007.
Another effort by Monette (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
truepenny) and Bear (matociquala), this time a novel exploring the hoary tropes of the companion animal fantasy, with wolves rather than dragons, spirit-horses or birds of prey. It's set in a Scandinavian-sort of northern world that looks like Antarctica; humanity shares the space with at least three other major species, trellwolves, trolls and svartalf. To fight the trolls, groups of humans bond with packs of trellwoves and become something slightly nonhuman, something in between. The main character, Isolfr, bonds to a queen-wolf, and has to deal with the implications of the fact that only male humans bond to wolves as he finds his place in the wolfcarls' world. It is a place, that of a caregiver and caretaker, that is almost always gendered as feminine in our society--viz. the scorn heaped on male nurses in "Meet the Parents", for example--and Isolfr eventually accepts that it is no less honorable, or masculine, a roll than any other in the wolfpack. I particularly liked that aspect of the book, particularly since I am currently in a similar role myself, and I've noticed how people make an implicit assumption about my role in the house that I'm pretty sure they wouldn't if I were male. Be that as it may, I also liked how Monette and Bear don't subscribe to any idiotic binaries concerning human sexuality (unlike Anne McCaffrey), and how Isolfr gradually begins to question the position of women in his own society, partly through his experience as a queenwolf's brother and party through his contact with the svartalf, who barely register gender differences. I liked the svartalf a lot, I have to say, particularly Isolfr's friend Tin, who reminds me a lot of Too-Tickey of the Moomintroll books, both in how she is described and how she talks. Indeed, there are a lot of lovely turns of phrase in this book, and I also thought the authors did a very good job of capturing Winter, in a Tove Jansson-esque sort of way. Since Jansson writes seasonality best of any author I've read, that's quite a compliment in my book. According to Monette, they've sold two sequels to Tor (yes, it's a Tor book), and I am looking forward to reading them quite a lot, in light of the changes I think Isolfr may bring to his world.
Another effort by Monette (
truepenny) and Bear (matociquala), this time a novel exploring the hoary tropes of the companion animal fantasy, with wolves rather than dragons, spirit-horses or birds of prey. It's set in a Scandinavian-sort of northern world that looks like Antarctica; humanity shares the space with at least three other major species, trellwolves, trolls and svartalf. To fight the trolls, groups of humans bond with packs of trellwoves and become something slightly nonhuman, something in between. The main character, Isolfr, bonds to a queen-wolf, and has to deal with the implications of the fact that only male humans bond to wolves as he finds his place in the wolfcarls' world. It is a place, that of a caregiver and caretaker, that is almost always gendered as feminine in our society--viz. the scorn heaped on male nurses in "Meet the Parents", for example--and Isolfr eventually accepts that it is no less honorable, or masculine, a roll than any other in the wolfpack. I particularly liked that aspect of the book, particularly since I am currently in a similar role myself, and I've noticed how people make an implicit assumption about my role in the house that I'm pretty sure they wouldn't if I were male. Be that as it may, I also liked how Monette and Bear don't subscribe to any idiotic binaries concerning human sexuality (unlike Anne McCaffrey), and how Isolfr gradually begins to question the position of women in his own society, partly through his experience as a queenwolf's brother and party through his contact with the svartalf, who barely register gender differences. I liked the svartalf a lot, I have to say, particularly Isolfr's friend Tin, who reminds me a lot of Too-Tickey of the Moomintroll books, both in how she is described and how she talks. Indeed, there are a lot of lovely turns of phrase in this book, and I also thought the authors did a very good job of capturing Winter, in a Tove Jansson-esque sort of way. Since Jansson writes seasonality best of any author I've read, that's quite a compliment in my book. According to Monette, they've sold two sequels to Tor (yes, it's a Tor book), and I am looking forward to reading them quite a lot, in light of the changes I think Isolfr may bring to his world.