A Companion to Wolves

For all that A Song of Ice and Fire might have counted as gritty fantasy when GRRM started writing it, its grittiness is as nothing compared with what the cool kids are doing these days. Especially if the cool kids are Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette and the book is A Companion to Wolves. Set in a fantasy world that's more than a bit like Scandinavia in the Dark Ages, it conjures up a place where the only thing standing between the arctic villages and hordes of marauding trolls are the werthreat and their their wolfish siblings.

The plot focuses on the coming of age of Njall, the heir to the jarl of Nithogsfjoll, who, against his father's wishes, joins his village's tithe to the local wolfheall where he becomes bound to a Viradechtis, a konigenwolf from the heall's latest litter of puppies. With a konigenwolf as his sister, the newly renamed Isolfr starts to realise that his destiny is settled: at some point he and his wolf are going to have to leave Nithogsfjoll and found their own heall, with Vichdechtis as the wolfthreat's queen and Isolfr as the werthreat's wolfsprechend.

As the story unfolds Isolfr, under the tutelage of the current wolfsprechend, starts to learn the political dynamics of the two threats and how the pack hierarchy among the wolves colours the judgements and behaviours of their bonded brothers in the werthreat. He also starts to come to terms with the fact that he is going to have to participate in the mating frenzies that occur when one of the wolves goes into heat — Isolfr's father's homophobia is one of the major reasons for breaking with his son.

All of this is set against the backdrop of a worsening war with the trolls, who seem to be pushing further south than ever before, threatening Nithogsfjoll and its neighbours with fire and blood and death. Here too, Isolfr finds himself presented with a difficult challenge to his character and honour: having learnt a piece of privileged knowledge about cause of the troll war and having given his pledge not to reveal its origins, he must come up with a way to help his fellow wolfcarls without forswearing himself.

What really make A Companion to Wolves work is the consistency of its world building. The Nordic setting feels suitably gritty and harsh, with everyone barely struggling to survive in the harsh northern climate — even the wolfcarls have to turn their hands to agriculture when not killing trolls. The world is also largely lacking in magic, with the magic that does exist largely falls within the traditional boundaries of trolls, liosalfar etc, leaving the human world largely free of the fantastic. The writing style helps to contribute to the authentic feel of the story by eschewing made-up fantasy words in favour of re-tasking existing Norse and Anglo-Saxon terms, like using wolfthreat and werthreat to differentiate between the wolves and their bonded brothers.

The logic of the human-wolf relationship also feels deeply plausible, for all its magical origins. The wolves are more than simple familiars; rather the relationship pulls in both directions, with the wolves benefiting from human ingenuity while the men benefit from the wolves' strength and sense of pack identity. But, as mentioned, this also means that wolves' emotions colour those of their brothers and that the humans get swept up in the animal instincts of the wolves when one of its members goes into heat. And because wolf society is largely matriarchal — it's the konigenwolf who selects her alpha and not the other way round — this means that the man bonded with the heall's konigenwolf is the man who takes on the somewhat maternal role of the wolfsprechend, giving the whole thing a gender-bending twist.

Extremely enjoyable.