Skinwalkers

Pathfinder Tales #19

by Wendy N. Wagner

The Longships Are Coming!

As a young woman, Jendara left the cold northern isles of the Ironbound Archipelago to find her fortune. Now, many years later, she’s forsaken her buccaneer ways and returned home in search of a simpler life, where she can raise her young son Kran in peace. When a strange clan of shapeshifting raiders pillages her home, however, there’s no choice for Jendara but to take up her axes once again to help the islanders defend all that they hold dear.

From author Wendy N. Wagner comes a new adventure of vikings, lycanthropes, and the ties of motherhood, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Genres: Fantasy, Role Playing Games, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

385 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 2014

About the author

Wendy N. Wagner grew up in a town so tiny it didn’t even have a post office. With no television reception, she became a rabid reader, waiting impatiently for the bookmobile’s fortnightly visit to her tiny hometown. Today, her family struggles to find room for her expanding book collection in their Portland, Oregon, home.

Wendy's work ranges from horror novels to poetry to environmental essays. Her books include THE SECRET SKIN (a gothic novella), THE DEER KINGS (a horror novel), AN OATH OF DOGS (science fantasy), and two tie-in novels for the Pathfinder role-playing game. A Hugo award-winning editor of short fiction, she currently serves as the editor of NIGHTMARE MAGAZINE and the managing/senior editor of LIGHTSPEED.

Reviews

[Heather Faville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically 4.5, but very worthy of rounding to 5 stars.

*Disclaimer: I know the author...like really know her as I have hugged her tight many times, although it has been entirely too long since the last hug. That being said, I am not one to be biased in my reviews. I have no problem letting a friend know whether I like or dislike something they have written. This piece of work...I just happened to have thoroughly enjoyed.

To start and for clarification, I have absolute no knowledge of the Pathfinder Roleplaying games, so for this reviewer Pathfinder Tales: Skinwalkers is strictly a fantasy based novel. Set in the cold north during the days of Vikings and Pirates, we find our heroine, Jendara, living in a small village attempting to make a simpler and better life for her and her son, Kran. However, her dream of the quite life is short lived when a group of her people are found brutally murdered and the attackers, who have already disappeared, must be hunted down to pay for this act of violence. During their quest Jendara and her group come across some mysterious leads that begin causing Jendara to question the truth behind many of the stories that have been share regarding Skinwalkers. Could they really be myth come to life?

To find out, dear reader, you must go and pick up your copy of Pathfinder Tales: Skinwalkers as soon as you finish this post. The writing style of Ms Wagner is clean and refreshing, very detailed settings and descriptions of people, places etc without becoming lengthy and overly wordy, which a lot of authors cannot seem to avoid. But most importantly for me, the author has weaved a web of characters that I want to know more about and would love to sit with in front of a roaring fire listening to their tales of battle with a nice strong ale. If you have followed my blog for long you know that I love characters that I can get behind and find realistic even in a fantasy setting and the characters in Pathfinder Tales: Skinwalkers are just that. The breath of life was blown across the page and because of the characters and the wonderful story Wendy had to tell I cannot wait to read more in this world.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I said in some of my updates, you have to go into any Pathfinder-or-other-similar-gaming-system branded book with some expectations of format, world lore, etc. I knew going in that the story would certainly have a Pathfinder campaign feel to it, and to a degree, it did. However, it had more than that - some depth, some history, some lore, and some creative use of creatures and motivations.

Overall, I saw promise in the book - Wagner's first shows she 'gets it', and has a ton of potential to write some great characters and I would love to see what she can do with her own world framework and format, and see if she can expand on what she's done here. I will say I definitely had some feedback on the book - a lot of the story flow was stiff and mechanical, as was a lot of the dialogue. Characters went along with almost anything, and rebounded from massive traumatizing events almost immediately, both physically and mentally. Massive injuries were sustained by the protagonist, yet she always bounced back immediately and was barely hampered, and though Wagner would mention the injuries, they wouldn't actually stop her. Everyone just kind of accepted everything that happened, reacted accordingly, and moved on. That part felt very "D&Dish", almost like how players would handle their game characters in these situations, knowing that the action and adventure were what they were after, not realism.

The battle scenes were fairly well done, with some decent back and forth and fighting sequences. However, the protagonist and her side were somehow overpowered against a much more dominant physical force, and I never felt any real chance of them losing at all, or even of one of the ancillary characters (who I never really got remotely attached to at any point) was in any real risk of dying. Jendara goes through hell but somehow comes out just fine, every time, in every situation.

I think there is a lot of improvement to be made from this book, but I like what I've seen from Wagner overall, both in this book and elsewhere, and I look forward to future works.

[Garrett Calcaterra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fast paced, action packed story. I've not done any gaming in the Pathfinder world, so I'm sure I missed a lot of contextual background stuff, but the story stood out just fine on its own. If anything, I'd say the pace was maybe too fast, at times, but again, I enjoyed it. Reading this book definitely makes me excited to read Wagner's new unrelated novel that's coming out soon, An Oath of Dogs.

[Ahimsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are cannibals and scholarwarriors and lycanthropes and desperate battles and adventure aplenty, but what makes this story shine are the human connections.

[Adam Windsor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This explores similar themes (though with a different plot) to the earlier Pathfinder novel 'Called to Darkness'. I don't think it lands that theme anywhere near as well, though, which is a shame because with one glaring exception the moment-to-moment scenes and plot elements are generally a little better executed. At the end, though, I found it less enjoyable work due to (a) the thematic through-line not working as effectively and (b) that one glaring exception, which was basically an entire chapter and a half of me rolling my eyes at the book.

[Filip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice if somewhat by-the-numbers adventure in a fantasy world, for me serving as a pleasant introduction into the fiction set in Pathfinder. The protagonist is definitely a plus, but apart from that the book is competent but unremarkable.

[Laura Scribner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never read anything in the pathfinder world and know little about it, but loved this book. It was fun, quick paced, and had an enjoyable, relatable character in Jendara.

[Taskuhecate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally I would've put it between 2.5-3 stars. It wasn't horrible, but some of the phrasing and writing sort of took me out of it. It's possible that it just wasn't what I was expecting.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable story but some of the plots were easily guessed early. The solid character helped keep it as a good read.

[Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun and easy read!

[Cape Rust · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review: Skinwalkers (A Pathfinder Tale)

June 13, 2014 / Cape Rust

Jenderda has gone home to escape her pirate past. It happens that Jenderda lives in a stark rough island chain known as the Ironbound Archipelago, which is dominated by Nordic culture, longships and all. Jenderda wants to settle down and raise her son away from the swashbuckling life she led. She returned to find her childhood home ransacked, her father brutally murdered, and her sister missing a presumed dead, thanks to raiders. Many years later she has put her past behind her and has become a respected trader. All this comes crashing down around her as the islands are once again threatened by a strange clan of shapeshifters known as Skinwalkers, who start pillaging nearby islands. The raids and their grizzly results follow the same pattern of the raid that killed Jenderda’s father. Now Jenderda must take up her father’s axe and defend her fellow islanders and, most importantly, her son.

Skinwalkers comes really close to being a pirates and Vikings mash-up, without feeling like Wagner was trying to make it an actual mash-up. There are so many similarities between the two, yet they are so different. I could easily see where Jenderda growing up in a Viking culture would make her a really great pirate. This book is full of everything thing it should be. There are myths, legends, sea trade, sea battles, shapeshifters, combat, and a sense of community and unity, even when people are from different islands in the Ironbound Archipelago.

By far, the strongest aspect of this book was the characters. Wagner caught us up on all of the characters’ past very quickly and the knowledge gained about those characters flowed naturally. I never felt like I was reading a dossier. Rather, I felt like I was being told someone’s life story by a close friend. Even the minor characters felt like they mattered, but at no point did getting to know them bog down the story.

Jenderda was just the right balance of regret and hope. Her love for her son and for the community that she grew up in was never in question. Yes, she left, and, yes, the pirate crew preyed on some of the vessels coming out of the Ironbound Archipelago, but she never forgot where she came from. I actually would like to learn more about several of the supporting characters, and that is one of Wagner’s many talents as a writer.

Wagner’s descriptions really help set the mood, I could feel the weather worsening and the onset of the colder months as it was described in the book. I could picture the mangled bodies after of the Skinwalker raids, I could hear the flies buzzing and almost smell the decaying, mutilated bodies. Wagner’s descriptions didn’t go into the gruesome details that Stephen King goes into; rather she used economy of words to set the tone and mood, and the characters’ reactions to most of those situations was realistic and fitting for who they were and what they had encountered in life.

Some of the fight scenes felt like they were rolled up on a standard RPG random encounters table. Jenderda’s encounter with the squid was a perfect example. Then, when the fights did start, I didn’t feel like Wagner had complete control of the fight or the flow of battle. Combat is confusing when you are involved in it, but that confusion should be conveyed by an author without being experienced. I could understand if every fight was written from a first-person perspective, but not all of them were, and when they were not, they seemed disjointed and narrow in their view.

For me this novel broke even: I loved the mash-up, the characters were developed well and were interesting, but the combat and some other minor aspects gave parts of the novel a disjointed feel that was hard to overcome. I’m glad I read this novel, and I would gladly read other works by Ms. Wagner, but for Skinwalkers once was enough.

This review was first published @ www.koboldpress.com

[Joel Flank · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I want to say that I was torn in picking a rating for this book. If I had the option, I'd have given it 3.5 stars.

That being said, this was a solid first novel from Wagner, and it did a good job driving characters and plot from a dramatic beginning through a middle trying to unravel the puzzle of what was happening, and to a satisfying conclusion. Skinwalkers is about the ex-pirate Jendara, now living a simpler life in the Ironbound Archipelago. These are viking islands, off the coast of the viking themed mainland country of the Land of the Linnorm Kings, from the Pathfinder campaign setting. Overall, it's a pretty remote region and fairly isolated from much of the rest of the world. This is reflected in the book by having most of the characters and towns feeling somewhat apart from the rest of the tone of the overall world, and this is somewhat of a disadvantage. Overall, I felt that while technically fitting in the same world as other Pathfinder products, this story would have worked a lot better in a separate world, with a much lower level of magic.

When Jendara finds victims of a brutal attack during one of her trading visits to a nearby town, and discovers they have been tortured and mutilated, as well as partially eaten, she's drawn to do something about it, as the events eerily echo a tragedy from her past. She immediately thinks of the tales of Kalvamen, cannibals from another island. Things are complicated by the fact that she and other hunters reported seeing a beast fleeing the scene, not a man. This is where things break down in the ties to being a Pathfinder story. Everyone in the book seems to pretty much have so little knowledge of the world they live in that they can't say, "oh, could be werewolves, or maybe some evil wizard behind this." Pretty much the entire rest of the book relies on living in a low magic world, even though the most isolated parts of the setting have lots of actual events where magic has a large impact. Even if there's a more remote area that doesn't, tales of dragons, wizards, subterranean horrors, etc. abound. Even if you can accept that some of the isolated townsfolk don't know about this, Jendara has traveled all over in her pirate days, and should know that there's a large array of supernatural things that could explain things, and that it's pretty easy to go into any sized town and buy magic potions, wands, etc. even if you're not a wizard or cleric who can perform magic yourself.

So, overall, a decent book, but it would have been a lot better not as part of the Pathfinder universe.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another of the Pathfinder Tales books set in the Paizo Pathfinder world of Golarion, a fantasy world where magic abounds, monsters teem, and people solve many of their problems by turning to swords. In this story, we find the barbarian Jendara returned home to the northern islands in the Ironbound Archipelago. She is the captain of a ship and has committed piracy in the past, and she has come home to her roots to put the past behind her and raise her deaf mute son, Kran. Kran's father, the pirate, is dead, and Jendara is running from that past a bit. She becomes sucked into an adventure that involves skinwalkers--people who can transform into animals. Not lycanthropes; they are not cursed. They use the pelts of dead animals to become those animals. Soon, the quest becomes personal for Jendara and she is in a fight for her life--and the lives of all of the sailors, fishermen, and townfolk of the Ironbound Archipelago.

I was entertained by this book. I thought the story was fairly well conceived. There were a couple of surprises that I figured out before they were revealed, but, all-in-all, I thought the story was involved enough to keep my interest. Characterization was a bit spotty. It seemed as though the Ironbound Archipelago borrowed a lot from George R. R. Martin's Iron Isles from The Song of Fire and Ice. On the other hand, I thought that Jendara's son, Kran, was one of the most unique characters I have encountered. And the motive for Jendara to protect her son was well done. In sum, I was favorably impressed with this story.

[Susan Harlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this book was my best friend when I was a child, so I could have loved the book, even if it sucked.

Luckily for me, because I am a terrible liar, it didn't suck. Instead I found that reading Skinwalkers was like being with my friend again.

It was not a comfortable read, but it made me stop and think about things. The story has all the usual elements, a solid hero with a deep love of family, and a vaguely mysterious past, faithful companions, a villain creepy enough to bring out a real concern for the characters' survival. But that is where the usual ends. The hero is a single mother, fighting (sometimes literally) to keep her son safe. The companions are not simply backdrop, but real people with real opinions, who don't always agree with, or even like, Jendara. The villian turns out to be unexpected, and somehow more terrifying for it.

The ending was sweet, but slightly bitter, like a good cappuccino, like endings in real life.

I came away feeling like there was much more to the story than I was seeing, meanings and symbolism that I sensed, but could not define. This novel was sneaky, with plenty of twists and turns, intelligent and very like the friend I remember.

And reading it makes me curious about the Pathfinders Universe, so I will definitely be reading more about it.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this story, partly because the setting is my favorite region of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, the Lands of the Linnorm Kings (the Viking-like culture that most closely resembles the setting of my own campaign). While not great literature by any means, the story is engaging, the characters have some depth, and while many of the plot elements are somewhat predictable, that's not necessarily a bad thing . . .

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very good story. If I was able to I would give it 3,5 stars.

This is the debut novel by Wendy N. Wagner and sometimes it shows. Some parts are a bit predictable, and some decisions made by the characters seem a bit strange. But other then that this is a nice modern (meaning a bit dark) fantasy story in the pathfinder world.

I will keep an eye open for more books by Wendy N. Wagner.

[Dave Walls · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good story in a new part of Golarion. The heroine is interesting and multidimensional, and the story is always exciting. The end seemed a bit compact, though. I hope we get more from Wendy Wagner.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like ladies doing Things and Stuff, this is so for you. Aw yeah. The cover suits the book so well, too. Lovely pairing.

[Heather Clitheroe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great book - good pacing for action and drama. A neat, tight plot that twists and doubles back on itself to great effect. I enjoyed it!

[Bryan Stiltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creepy and heart-wrenching.

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review forthcoming. Definitely a 3.5 Star book.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent Pathfinder book. The ending felt a little rushed.

[Clifford Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read, I thoroughly enjoyed every page.