Travel Documents 126: Wolfpack

by Rem Wigmore

Genre:  sci-fi, near-future, social change, cultural change

The Dust Cover Copy

Orfeus the hunter is searching for redemption in the wake of destruction…

Both Wolfpack and the first book in the duology, Foxhunt, are currently out of print.

The Scene

Worldbuilding

Whelp, after writing this review, I found out that the book has been pulled by the publisher and is temporarily out of print.
Oh well. When the book comes back, the review is here.

Building on the events of Book 1, Orpheus finds even bigger and more interesting trouble to get into. The world gets more flesh on its bones in the second installment, and things get hopeful in a surprising new direction!

I particularly appreciated the expansion of the world to explore the cultural evolution of more types of groups after the climate goes to hell and people get serious about fixing it. This concrete grounding in varied cultures—not all of them nice—gives the world more depth and reality. Add in the exploration of legacy left by our predecessors, both good and bad, in the form of the Cloud Forest, and the deep thought on personal choice, and this world is one worth walking into.

The Crowd

Characterization

Where the characterization was rocky in Book 1, it is absolutely rock solid in the second installment. All characters are on point for their personalities, from Bright (off her rocker, but consistiently so) to Orpheus (ditto) to Faol (conflicted and complex, and steady as the turn of the earth). Even the characterizations of non-human beings are just right in this work. I appreciated seeing a few antagonists with more grounding in motivations that, yes, can warp a mind, but make perfect sense in historical context. All around, a real improvement on the first volume!

Writing Style

With Orpheus’s chaotic-good approach to life giving us our lens on this healed future Earth atoning and the humans living in atonement on it, the style works perfectly.

The Moves

Plot

Did I say chaotic good? Yeah, if there’s ever a movie of Wolfpack this will be the opening scene: a floating city crashing, a freaked young woman jumping clear, and a freeze-frame with the narration ‘I bet you’re wondering how this happened. Well…funny story, so am I.’
Everything makes sense in the end, but once in a while-in a good way-readers pause and think ‘Orpheus, how do you get yourself into these things?!’

With just the right touch of pathos to balance the shenanigans, this mix works perfectly.

Overall Rating

A searching of the soul, a fight for the good, and a hope for the future in a book. Well worth your time.