The Tiger and the Wolf, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
This is the first Tchaikovsky book I’ve read that has no bugs in it. However, it makes up for it with VELOCIRAPTORS.
In a land in which everyone is a shapeshifter, Maniye has shapeshifter-related problems. Her father is the asshole leader of the patriarchal Wolf clan that defeated the previously dominant Tiger clan, and her mother was the captive Tiger queen who was executed immediately after Maniye’s birth.
Most people can only shift into one animal form. But Maniye can shift into both wolf and tiger. She’s kept the latter secret, as usually having two shift forms drives you insane, and if she reveals her tiger self, it will be cut from her. This is even worse than it sounds, as the shift form is also your soul, so she’d be losing half her soul.
First level of spoilers here. This covers stuff in the first few chapters which might be more fun to discover by yourself.
Comments will include spoilers through the end of the book, so don’t read the comments if you only want first-level spoilers.
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The worldbuilding in this book, especially when it comes to shapeshifting, is beyond outstanding. Every detail is incredibly cool and often very original, from naming traditions to magic to Gods. To take just one example, a human wearing armor and carrying a sword who becomes a wolf will be a wolf whose hide is almost as tough as iron and whose claws are almost as hard and sharp as the sword.
The cultures roughly correspond to pre-Columbus America, Asia, and Africa, but it’s pretty rough. There’s no “the wolves are Japanese,” and while wolf culture is very different from hyena culture, the wolves and hyenas all also have their own clans with their own customs, and within the clans, people still have different ideas about things. But it’s all distinctly non-European bronze age as it begins to become iron age, which is an unusual setting that I really enjoyed.
Despite some dark elements and the rape in the backstory, the overall feel of this story was just incredibly fun. It has the same gleeful inventiveness of the Apt books, only this time it’s shifters rather than kinden.
I feel confident that bugs will appear at some point, though. There are three fat books, he won’t be able to resist.
Second level of spoilers, through the end of the book!
( Read more... )
Engagement with premise: A+. Delivers both iddy wish-fulfillment of a downtrodden girl coming into her own, and ALL the cultural and magical shapeshifter worldbuilding you could possibly desire.
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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In a land in which everyone is a shapeshifter, Maniye has shapeshifter-related problems. Her father is the asshole leader of the patriarchal Wolf clan that defeated the previously dominant Tiger clan, and her mother was the captive Tiger queen who was executed immediately after Maniye’s birth.
Most people can only shift into one animal form. But Maniye can shift into both wolf and tiger. She’s kept the latter secret, as usually having two shift forms drives you insane, and if she reveals her tiger self, it will be cut from her. This is even worse than it sounds, as the shift form is also your soul, so she’d be losing half her soul.
First level of spoilers here. This covers stuff in the first few chapters which might be more fun to discover by yourself.
Comments will include spoilers through the end of the book, so don’t read the comments if you only want first-level spoilers.
( Read more... )
The worldbuilding in this book, especially when it comes to shapeshifting, is beyond outstanding. Every detail is incredibly cool and often very original, from naming traditions to magic to Gods. To take just one example, a human wearing armor and carrying a sword who becomes a wolf will be a wolf whose hide is almost as tough as iron and whose claws are almost as hard and sharp as the sword.
The cultures roughly correspond to pre-Columbus America, Asia, and Africa, but it’s pretty rough. There’s no “the wolves are Japanese,” and while wolf culture is very different from hyena culture, the wolves and hyenas all also have their own clans with their own customs, and within the clans, people still have different ideas about things. But it’s all distinctly non-European bronze age as it begins to become iron age, which is an unusual setting that I really enjoyed.
Despite some dark elements and the rape in the backstory, the overall feel of this story was just incredibly fun. It has the same gleeful inventiveness of the Apt books, only this time it’s shifters rather than kinden.
I feel confident that bugs will appear at some point, though. There are three fat books, he won’t be able to resist.
Second level of spoilers, through the end of the book!
( Read more... )
Engagement with premise: A+. Delivers both iddy wish-fulfillment of a downtrodden girl coming into her own, and ALL the cultural and magical shapeshifter worldbuilding you could possibly desire.
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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