Genre: Fantasy
Description:
Amazon’s blurb says, “Fear the Wolf is an adult fantasy thriller set in a mysterious world
that was torn apart by a great cataclysm. Follow Senla on her treacherous
journey as she overcomes her greatest fears and learns to accept herself in a
world that’s always trying to tell her who and what she should be.”
Author:
There is rather little about Butcher on the web. This appears to be
his first book. I was only able to find this about him: “Andrew Butcher hopes that through following the main
character on her journey, readers will learn to accept themselves more fully
and to find their own sense of inherent worthiness. Throughout the novel, [he]
explores some of the most basic human fears and insecurities, including the
feeling of not belonging--of never being good enough.” The dedication at the
front of the book is ‘for heroes of every kind’.
Appraisal:
There is a prologue in which people we have not yet been introduced to
chase an enormous white wolf. This is doubtless to get a bit of action in
early. The book proper is quite slow to get going. It paints its early pictures
in muted colours – the colours of the village. We learn that the village lives in
fear of anyone who ‘presumes too much’ and brings the wrath of the wolf down on
the whole community. The ideal is to be unexceptional. Outside the village are
nomads who roam and trade. They are sometimes free spirits, sometimes wild and violent.
Nobody is well educated.
There is an element of stereotyping, one might think, in the
diametrically opposed communities – the villagers living on the edge of the
wildwood, the nomads within and criss-crossing it. Dangerous animals live in
the forest: night-apes, foxes, wolflings, and the great white wolf. There is
also a sickness for which there is no cure. All this goes to encourage the
villagers to stay quietly in their own place.
You might think that this sounds like a novel of stereotypes. And in a
way you’d be right. But this is a novel which only came out in April of 2019
and it has the zeitgeist firmly in its teeth – the polarisation of communities
in both the US and here in the UK (Brexit! Aaargh!), the diminution of personal
liberty in a search for greater security, the loss of excellence in a quest for
conformity, suspicion and fear of ‘the other’ – the incomer who is not ‘us’. It
wears its political allegories lightly but they are definitely there in
Butcher's examination of “the most basic human
fears and insecurities”.
The main protagonist is Senla. She has been rebelling against her
dreary life since she was a small child. She is the grief of her mother who is
always sharp with her. Senla’s mother is a deeply unhappy woman who, along with
the rest of the village finds Senla ‘presumes too much’. However, Senla, we
learn, is an exceptional person, forged in adversity. How will the village deal
with her? How does that Prologue fit into what is to come?
There were two minor frustrations for this reader. The first was a
mention in the blurb of this novel being set in “a
mysterious world that was torn apart by a great cataclysm”. This
cataclysm is occasionally mentioned. But no reason for it, or result from it is
ever offered. Checkov reckoned that (in fiction) if a gun was seen to be
hanging over the fireplace in the first act of the story, then it needed to be
fired in the third. The ‘cataclysm’ gun is still hanging over the fireplace,
and the story is finished.
The second frustration was that every time Senla exerted herself we
were given a litany of every scratch, wound, sore, and ache – all of which
would promptly be forgotten next time she needed to run or fight. The listings
often started during action sequences, slowing them down. I learned to skip
past them: you may wish to do the same.
However, this is an interesting book which has much to say about the
times we are living in as well as telling an exciting story which gathers pace
as it unfolds.
And, finally, I must mention that one of the threads of this book
hangs on a comma! Yes, that itsy bitsy grammatical mark. I can’t say more
because of spoilers – but I hope you enjoy that powerful little comma as much
as I did when you come to it.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: Judi Moore
Approximate
word count: 95-100,000 words
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