Wolfsangel [Paperback]

There is a single reason why I don't consider myself a book blogger, and that's simply because sometimes real life gets in the way. I'm a slow reader as it is, liking to take my time to absorb the prose, but it would feel slightly unprofessional to take as long as I do over a book. I'm also one of those people who if I don't pick up a book at least once every couple of days, I lose the thread and have to give up.

So I feel slightly guilty towards Wolfsangel. I've been reading it for about six weeks whilst real life makes heavy demands of my time. However, probably the greatest compliment I can pay to it is that the book always kept me coming back for more.

It's competently written as well. I've always believed that prose should serve the story not self-serve the writer's ego, and I recognised a lot of this in the style of Wolfsangel, to the extent that I've spent many a night recently wondering if writers from a journalistic background have a more functional style of writing.

Now that doesn't mean the writing is dull, just that the quality of the prose is consistent, that there were no standout moments, no one-liners I thought "Oooo, I must remember to quote that when I come to write up my thoughts". In fact the only real flourish comes in Chapter 6,

"What is prophecy? It is a wide thing of many forms. We don't call a person who anticipates a cat will knock over a cup and moves to catch it a prophet. We don't maintain that the ability to look at the clouds and say it will rain makes you a seer."

The lack of flourish doesn't cause an issue. Lachlan sets out to tell a big story and flourish would just get in the way.

Now you might already be rolling your eyes at the thought of a Viking werewolf novel, but it's actually very, very original. Yes, werewolf novels have been around for years but Lachlan has done a frankly incredible job of making it fit seamlessly into Viking history. It doesn't feel like a mash up, it feels like they truly belong. I like it when people take those tropes others have deemed impossible to do anything original with, and prove those others wrong. I like it better when they do it well. Wolfsangel does it exceptionally. I think this could go down as a classic amongst Werewolf stories.

I'm really, really fussy about world-building but I have to say that I totally believed in Wolfsangel's world. I don't know how much (like the Troll Wall) is based on fact, and how much was made up, but I never questioned any of it. Seamless - and that's the highest compliment I can pay.

Magic also plays a heavy part in the story, and I think what Lachlan does with it is nothing short of superb. He portrays the magic in such a way that it feels very real. These aren't spells of "accio-werewolf," instead they're much more journeys into the mind, and as such I think they did a lot to make Lachlan's Viking world seem fresh and inventive, real and dangerous, creepy and original. So much so, that when the transformation does eventually take place, we're already so invested in the magic system of this world, it doesn't feel corny. Dare I use the phrase "gritty magic"? Oh I just did.

However, the novel did have a number of minor issues for me and it's taken a lot of time to unravel them. I'm not so naïve to believe that issues are always the realm of the author and this has really stretched my grey matter trying to unravel it all.

Now don't get me wrong the story is great, the ideas rich, original and fantastic, just that I felt slightly removed from the text, that the beat of the story (and my heart along with it) never seemed to quicken or slow down.

There's a lot of set up - it's a big story and there's a lot of story to tell (and to be fair with lots of short chapters, the book gets through the story at a cracking pace). We get introduced to a lot of characters in quick succession, but even a hundred pages in I wasn't sure who I should be rooting for: Vali, his father, Saitada, the witches or Feileg. The point of view can often shift mid-way through a scene and whilst it's done with complete competence, it did leave me as the reader asking myself "whose side am I on?" And whilst some people can whizz through a hundred pages in a couple of hours, at my speed I did wonder where the prologue ended and the story started. It meant that it put a veil between me investing in the characters emotively.

There's also a lot of story here and Lachlan is sometimes guilty of telling you rather than letting you experience it in order to keep the story pacing along. Whilst I think the old writer's adage "show don't tell" is maybe over-simplifying it, I think for the most part Lachlan skillfully balances the needs to keep the plot moving, with the short-term satisfaction of the reader. The trouble is that you'll never please everyone, and whilst I was fully invested in the story, I wasn't quite as invested in the characters.

As a result in moments of high drama, I didn't feel my empathy was quite what it could be.

"... had been murdered in her bed. Blood was everywhere, a grisly scarf of red extending down the front of her white smock. He approached and saw her throat was cut. He could imagine all too well what else had happened to her".

I've spent a long time thinking about this but there's something cold and slightly dispassionate about this to me. I wanted to get into Vali's head here, feel the grief he was feeling, and for some reason I feel it's missing something, as if an edit went too far and in doing so lost some of the emotion. I feel slightly removed from Vali's feelings. Now, I fully accept this is a personal opinion, I know other people I trust who've read it and not seen this. As they say, your mileage may differ.

I do wonder, however, if the whole relationship between Vali and Feileg could have been a mystery that unravelled over the course of the book, rather than given to you at the outset. The front end is very info-heavy and I think for me at least, I needed some extra hook to lead me along before the `big change', especially in those early chapters when it's hard to know where the story is going.

Have you ever seen a monster movie, where the monster doesn't turn up until the final act? One where you are so keen to see the actual monster that all the build up of dramatic tension and story (no matter how good or necessary) seems to get in the way instead of enhance your enjoyment? I was kinda like this with Wolfsangel. I mean, I was genuinely really enjoying it - I had to be to keep snatching moments to read during a busy few weeks - but at the same time I was promised werewolves and it was a long time before they actually appeared.

And once they did, it was like that metaphorical veil lifted, the beats seemed to quicken, and I became more fully invested in the story. Now, I think that says more about my impatience as a reader rather than something against the story, but I did find myself wondering if the issues I had, as minor as they were, were the fault of the author or the reader.

Now if that makes me sound as if I'm a bit down against this book, let me say it's probably one of the best written fantasy novels I've read this year.

When it boils down to it, this was a book that takes a classic trope and retells it in an original way, and does so in such a way that it still kept drawing me back when time for important things was just non-existent.

A brilliant start to a new series - I will be looking forward to the next with eagerness - let down by only a few minor issues that may just be personal taste, 4.5/5

Allow me to digress here for a bit before I start my full review. Last year I attended Dragonmeet only for one thing: to sit in on a talk by a handful of authors, amongst them David Devereux, Stephen Deas, Johnny Nexus and MD Lachlan (aka Mark Barrowcliffe). The talk had to do with gaming and writing and it was probably one of the funniest and interesting talks I've been to. What came out is that most of the authors on the panel were all gamers or at least ex-gamers but that a lot of them had interest in the occult. MDL mentioned this a few times and this made me itch to read Wolfsangel more. I suspected dark dealings, spells, evil, witches...interesting things.

And I wasn't disappointed. MDL takes a story and imbues it with a wild dark magic that lifts an almost standard quest adventure (historical) fantasy into something vivid, gritty and wonderfully epic.

The king's action at the beginning of the novel is so imaginatively over the top, I initially thought it was a dream sequence. Little did I know this was in fact the tone of the entire novel. King Athun leads a raid on a small village with the express desire to steal away a baby boy, to take him back to his own kingdom and raise him as his own. Only thing is, when he finds the boy, he discovers not one but two boys. Twins. He takes the decision to raise one and send one to be raised by the witches who sent him on this quest in the first instance. Athun's word is law - his thanes, friends and fellow warriors - obey his instructions and stay to fight the people from the village and surrounds, ensuring their king's escape. This opening salvo is already seeped deeply with the magic of the otherworld. It shows us the iron-hold of the witches on a king and a king's hold on his people.

The boy who is taken by the king, Vali, grows up a little bit spoilt and is sent off to be fostered. His life is not too bad, a bit of practice with a sword, but mostly Vali is an easygoing kid who is more than just a bit in love with the lovely Adisla.

The twin brother given to the witches were sent off to the Beserkers to be raised. And boy, did they turn this child into a feral beast! The author uses reserves of imagination here yet he doesn't bombard us with the grimness of the boy's education. It is what it is. Fact. Move on.

On one level we have an almost basic quest happening here: Vali has to prove his dedication to his friend and true love Adisla by following the orders of his step-father to go off and hunt down one of the wolves that's been preying on travellers. This leads Vali to capture his twin brother Feileg. Their society is so steeped in lore that when Vali sees his brother's face for the first time he thinks he's being tricked by a witch, a demon, and doesn't realise that it is in fact his brother. He carries him back to the settlement where Adisla takes pity on the feral boy-man. Her kindness to him, generates a loyalty and love within Feileg, something he's never felt before. When pirates / raiders attack and Adisla is taken, Vali and Feileg set off to bring her back.

MDL has taken this recognisable tale and spun it through various layers, using some pretty impressive story telling skills and what I can only assume was insanely fun research to create a dark mysterious world that feels like it's walking side by side with one we know. There are monsters, battles, love, betrayal, witches...the works.

What sticks Wolfsangel together is the sense of place and of time. The characters are well developed yet not all of them are likeable. Which in itself is a feat. They stick in your mind, they make you wonder about the bigger story here, the story of Odin, Fenris and Loki. How the humans in this story try and cope with the choices they make, but are they really making it or has it all happened long before?

I can maybe gab on a lot more about Wolfsangel (I'm sorry MDL, the next time we meet, your ear will be bent!) but I think what it boils down to is this: epic storytelling never grows old, especially if you have someone like MD Lachlan to tell it to you. But please, don't take my word for it. Go read it for yourself.

The two boys that King Authun kidnaps are the main protagonists of the novel. They grow up apart, neither knowing of the others existence. Vali is raised as the King Authun's son, and has everything that a boy could wish for. This life makes him somewhat spoiled, and not immediately the easiest character to empathise with, well not initially anyway. His story really picks up when he is forced to fend for himself after his adoptive father effectively disowns him. Meanwhile, the other brother, Feileg is left to survive in the wilds amongst the mountain men and the wolves. This brutal lifestyle leaves its mark and by the time he is in his teens he is more animal than man. He has learned to kill with his bare hands and eat his meals raw. It's a nice juxtaposition to witness the differing lives of these two siblings.

On a larger scale there are various political schemes and plots afoot between several warring kingdoms. This guarantees that there is plenty of blood-thirsty action. I particularly liked the berserker mercenaries when they were introduced. There are a number of excellent battle scenes that vividly depicts their unrestrained violent behaviour. This is where the plot of Wolfsangel really excels. Lachlan has an eye for detail that incorporates both the small details of individual character plots with the epic visuals of frenzied fast paced battles.

The werewolves in Wolfsangel are quite different from others that I have come across elsewhere during this month. There is more of a blending of man and animal. Feileg has a bestial quality due to his upbringing, as the story progresses he slowly re-learns what it means to be human. Vali meanwhile, suffers the opposite fate. He becomes more and more of a beast.

A highlight of the book was the vivid description of the transformation from man to wolf. It is handled extremely well really puts the reader in the skin of the werewolf.

It is fairly obvious from the outset that Lachlan has incorporated key elements of Norse mythology into the story, and does this with great success. Odin and Loki both appear and those who are familiar with those tales will find a lot to enjoy. This is married together with shamanistic magic used by witches, to create a story that is not only action packed but works on a metaphysical level as well.

Wolfsangel and its sequel, Fenrir are available now. I can assure you I certainly won't be waiting so long before I get around to reading book two in this series.