Seekers at the Wulfrock

The Wolves of Time #2

by William Horwood

THE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION TO THE MAGNIFICENT SAGA OF WOLVES FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S FAVOURITE STORYTELLERS... 'The wolf's eyes transfixed me, commanded me to rise and leave now, commanded me to journey on, journey home where I began, to where you and I must go.' Under the austere yet inspiring leadership of Klimt, the Wolves of time have taken back the Heartland. They have defeated the treacherous Magyar wolves, successfully avoided confrontation with the Menne, and their first cubs have been raised, one of whom is the god Wulf, inmortal form. But now Klimt faces a new responsibility. as the loathsome Magyars regain their strength and the Mennen enter a phase of war and anarchy that threatens to engulf Europe, the Wolves must find a new spiritual direction and purpose. Both Wolves and Mennen must make their separate journeys to the Wulfrock, there to play out the dramatic events decreed by destiny, and bring the Dark Millenium to a triumphant close.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Wolves, Animals, Animal Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

500 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

William Horwood is an English novelist. His first novel, Duncton Wood, an allegorical tale about a community of moles, was published in 1980. It was followed by two sequels, forming The Duncton Chronicles, and also a second trilogy, The Book of Silence. William Horwood has also written two stand-alone novels intertwining the lives of humans and of eagles, The Stonor Eagles and Callanish , and The Wolves of Time duology. Skallagrigg, his 1987 novel about disability, love, and trust, was made into a BBC film in 1994. In addition, he has written a number of sequels to The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

In 2007, he collaborated with historian Helen Rappaport to produce Dark Hearts of Chicago, a historical mystery and thriller set in nineteenth-century Chicago. It was republished in 2008 as City of Dark Hearts with some significant revisions and cuts under the pen name James Conan.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is something almost rushed about this conclusion to the Wolves of Time. If you are looking at a start to read Horwood, go with the Duncton novels or Skalligig. Not this series.

[Lone Wolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the second volume of 'The Wolves of Time', which was originally supposed to be a trilogy. Due to some sort of dispute, it was reduced to two books, meaning volumes two and three are essentially squashed together into this one – it’s obvious when reading that certain sections have been rushed, and some story arcs eliminated altogether. The off-putting elements of the first book, such as factual errors, religious lecturing, and sexual deviancy, are all still present. It’s really only worth reading if you desperately want to learn the conclusion of the story begun in 'Journeys to the Heartland'.

[Clodagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

more of the EPIC! adventures of The Wolves of Time as they attempt to occupy The Heartland, fighting the baddies, befriending other wolves all across Europe.
Set against the backdrop of the final days of a european war, with some really nasty depictions of the horrors of war seen (impassively) through the wolves' point-of-view.

[Casimir Laski · Rating 2 out of 5]

For whatever reason, Horwood’s publisher forced him to combine the planned second and third novels of The Wolves of Time trilogy into one book, resulting in a highly rushed ending in the final act, and largely negating the merits of the fairly strong characterization and mythological worldbuilding present throughout the rest of the duology. [4/10]

[London Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

As this series has been on my TBD for quite some time now and I only just got around to obtaining copies of this duology, I was really looking forward to reading it. I really, really wanted to like this book. While not a masterpiece by any means the first book was at least pretty decent and had an all around intriguing premise and I was curious enough to see what they did with it. The answer? Basically nothing.

This book felt much longer than the 500 pages it was because god did it seem to meander. There was zero clear focus of what was going on. While the first was clearly focused on building up the pack dynamic it just seemed to be sidelined and really fell flat here. New characters and packs were being introduced with little to no foreshadowing with any real bearing on the plot, and while I feel like, in concept, the former circus wolves and those of Krobin's old pack could have been really interesting characters, they weren't given the character development and enough bearings on the plot to really make me care, nor even really remember that they were there. I could barely tell you anything about the so-called prophesized son of Elhana since his role as wolf is barely even acknowledged until the last ten pages of the book. None of the other siblings really seemed to stand out, either, as one of the sisters was "killed" and randomly came back within the last five pages only to again be forgotten about and one of the others just existed to be in a suggested age-gap relationship with one of the protagonists from the last book.

Speaking of not really remembering they were there, I can't go without mentioning the down-right useless human sideplot that adds absolutely nothing to the story. The first forty pages were such a slog that I swear there were points my brain just went into autopilot. Like many things in this book, I feel like the shaman as a plot device could have actually been pretty interesting had the author taken the time to weave it into the plot. I could easily see his involvement helping the wolves learning to live peacefully aside the Mennen following this post apocalyptic society, but ultimately these chapters added absolutely nothing to the story and it would have been much more interesting to allow the distraction to be shown to us through the wolves' point of view rather than shoehorning in the human conflict.

Before I keep ranting, I have to admit there were a few things about this book that stopped me from abandoning it completely, that being the conflict with the Magyars. While the alliance hinted at in the last book was basically an abandoned plot thread I still liked where they took it and I genuinely was worried for the protagonists whenever they made an appearance, because good lord were some of these scenes gruesome. Fuhrer suffering some trauma after being forced to literally eat his sibling alive and basically adopts one of Aragon's cubs in order to experience the brotherhood he was starved of was really sweet and the abuse his mother puts him through was really heart-wrenching. I'm quite glad he got a redemption, but, of course, he had to be randomly killed off at the end before we could even really see him adjust to life in the pack.

That leads me to the next point which is the Huntermann. My god, it was like the author was trying to make him the most revolting human being possible that rather than threatening he just felt cartoonishly evil without a single redeeming quality or even any admirable characteristic that would make him stand out. Of course he had to have an incestual relationship with his daughter that resulted in a child (who didn't add anything to the story in any capacity, big surprise.) The fact that incest as a manner of shock-value is used liberally throughout this book actually makes me quite concerned on the author's behalf because at a certain point I began to just feel sick to my stomach reading it. I could have gone my whole life without having to read about Huntermann's daughter had sex with the underage incest baby. Oh, and there was also that somewhat detailed scene of Dendrine mating with her son. Yeah. Somebody tell this author that there are other ways to create threatening villains without having to result to showing them having sex with their family members. It just feels cheap and uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons.

Also, I'm still trying to process the end of the book since I genuinely cannot even comprehend what happened. Everyone just died and the humans continue to destroy the planet as if absolutely nothing was accomplished? I was incredibly disappointed and it was quite clear that this was intended to be a trilogy, and I really wish it had been since I feel like most of my gripes with this book would have been fixed if it had just had some breathing room and cut down on unnecessary plot points. All in all, I do give it a star for memorability and I do believe that this author could pull off something truly amazing if given the time to do so, so at some point I'll be reading Duncton Woods in the hopes of finding out.

[Matt Cote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first one, and disappointingly so. I looked for a copy of this for literally YEARS, and though it neatly ties up the story of the first novel, it seemed unsatisfying, and I can't put my finger on why. It's as though the first was all mysticism and how the wolves might save the environment by going back to their ancient roots and the second one was: Nope, they just have to survive in an increasingly inhospitable landscape while an unspecified world war rages around them and their Wulf god learns his lessons and comes back a thousand years later.

[Carol Aldred · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was obvious that there was a missing book. But at least I found out what happened to Klimt

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I so want to love this, because Wolves are really special, as us William Horwood. But I don't. Might give it another go at some point.

[Alex T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating 1.5 stars

Oh dear...

Full review at: https://skybookcorner.blogspot.com/20...

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that really feels like it has way more meaning than I could ever decipher. But I liked it a lot. A lot of people said they didn't like this as much as the first book, and I can agree because it kind of lost me with the Wald stuff and all, but I think it was a good conclusion to the first book and I still really enjoyed it. If you liked the first book, this one is satisfying and I recommend it. I especially liked how things happened with Führer; the characters in this book didn't disappoint after the first book. Anyway, I'm rambling.

[Dietmar · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are not many books I've started to read and did not finish. This is one of the few, because the story did not grip me after 60 pages. I found it rather boring ... but that might also have been a fault of the translation. Nevertheless only 1 star from me.

[Bec · Rating 1 out of 5]

Digging out of my 15 year old brain, that this one just went kinda creepy or at least weird enough for me to stop.

[Patrick Geoghegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

not as good as the first one, but once again a truly excellent book

[Heather Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Horwood is a genius at personifying animals. Brilliant.