Black Wolves

Kate Elliott,.
November 3, 2015
Hardcover, 782 pp.
Buy it from a local bookseller or find it here

World: Epic in scope, creatively imagined, richly detailed.

Characters: Loveable, spunky, wise, tough, weird, featuring strong female mains! 

​Story: Varied and never-dull, but lacking much of a climax.

​X-factor: Great characters, but nothing really stands out. 

An Epic Line in the Sand

Not all epic fantasies deserve the title: limited in character, shallowly worldbuilt, some so-called epics read more like a thriller or an action move than a saga. Kate Elliott’s Black Wolves is not one of these. Epic in length, epic in scope, epic in its cast of characters and threads of storyline, the book is, well, epic.
 
Better yet, it’s an epic saga—starting with one cast of characters, after 100 pages (of 800, note) Elliott boldly skips us forward two generations, killing some of the characters we were following and severely aging the rest. Royal (and bastard) bloodlines are central to the story, and in a world where there are eight types of sentient species, crossed blood takes on a whole new significance.
 
The book is epic in scope: set in “the hundred,” a vast land with well-written cultures, climates and economies, we soon learn it has enemies, ancestors and trading partners to all sides, not to mention an Empire that dwarfs it. Black Wolves is mysteriously (and frustratingly) without an opening map, as though to say the world wouldn’t fit, so why try?
 
The book is epic in character. They are old and young, male and female, from every culture and species important to the plotline. Elliot has a touch for creating loveable, unique characters, whether major or minor, and they a big part of the reason this 800-page book never feels long.
 
Okay, it’s epic. But is it worth a read? That depends on what you’re ready for. Though it never gets ponderous, the many plotlines don’t come together in an (ahem) epic finale so much as sort of crisscross as the plot thickens. Something like the end of Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, or some of the middle Wheel of Time novels, the ending lacks a big climax—it feels more like middle action for a climax that’s so epic we need another 800 page book to get there. So here’s where the line gets drawn in the fantasy sand: an epic reader will be okay with this. Many others, after 800 pages of reading, will not.
 
And some of us will have a foot in both camps. I’m a lover (and writer) of epic fantasy—but also a lover of solid beginnings middles and ends—which Elliott doesn’t really give us. A few well-timed surprises or plot twists might ameliorate this somewhat, but most of the twists and reveals that come are foreshadowed enough to carry little surprise when they hit.
 
This can be a strength, if you’re invested for the long haul. At book’s end we feel we’re just scratching the surface of the magic and plots afoot, and the cultures and people that inhabit Elliott’s world. That’s impressive for an 800-page book that never gets dull, but may be a stretch for those of us without Dostoyevskian amounts of time to sit and read by firelight.
 
There’s no doubt which side of the epic line Elliott’s new novel falls on. And if you’re not sure where you do, Black Wolves will sort you out.