Book Review: Swift Lightning by James Oliver Curwood

 

This is one of these books I've reviewed before, but due to me never being content with my old reviews I keep re-reviewing. This has to be my third time now. Anyways, let's dive in, spoilers ahead!

We're introduced to Swift Lightning, a wolf with dog ancestry living in the cold north. During the harshest winter that he or any other inhabitant of the north has ever seen, humongous wolf packs form that attack anything on sight out of hunger. Swift Lightning ends up joining one of these and befriends a southern wolf named Mistik, yet something keeps pulling him towards humans, though he himself doesn't know what.

The book isn't bad. It's just... all right.

It's biggest flaw is definitely that it's not memorable. I could barely remember any of the characters the day after I put it down. I mean, Swift Lightning and Mistik and the mate (Firely) are kind of memorable, but besides that it really stops. There aren't really a lot of interesting characters in the book. Swift Lightning himself also probably has to be the dullest of the Curwood protagonists of his books that I've recently read. Miki from Nomads Of The North and Kazan from Kazan The Wolfdog were all pretty memorable, but I just feel nothing for Swift Lightning. 

The book keeps trying to tell us that he's different from other wolves because he's part dog, but I feel that nothing really sets him apart other than he does things that maybe wolves don't usually do. But even then, real wolves have different personalities, even without having dog blood. Here, the book is trying to portray SL as "one of a kind" and special, but he really feels like just another wolf protagonist that happens to have some very distant dog ancestry. His wolfdog-ness doesn't even play much of a part in the story until he finally settles down and becomes a pet after being injured and being taken care of by some nice people. I just feel that the characters are a very weak aspect of this book. If you want a book with a better protagonist, I'll refer you to the books I mentioned previously. Mistik also does little to nothing. He's just there to be the "brotherly friend", but he lacks a personality or even doing very vital things. Firefly feels more like a trophy mate for Swift than a real character and I don't feel any real connection between her and SL. 

The premise of the book is interesting, because I love stories of wolves/wolfdogs/dogs in the north, but it just feels very generic in its execution, just like with the characters. Nothing really sets it apart for me. It feels a little like there also isn't really a main plot. Besides the basic goal of "survive the winter" (which even gets dropped after the winter is over), there isn't really much of a plot going on except it just being Swift Lightning and sometimes Mistik or Firefly goofing around in the northern wilderness doing wolf-y things for the most part. Nothing really sets it apart and it doesn't have any real memorable moments to me. The only moment I kind of remember is when Swift, Firefly and some humans get stuck on a woodpile during a flood and they have to survive with an angry lynx being among them, but even that wasn't really interesting. I just feel that this book needed more memorable moments to make it stand out and not just feel like a generic Jack London-inspired work.

What else kind of bothers me is how repetitieve it got. You could almost make a drinking game out of it. Take a sip when:

• A random animal is given a name despite being not necessary to the plot at all
• It points out that Swift Lightning is not like most wolves/unique
• Swift's dog ancestry get's brought up
• Bonus points if it's said that his doghood twenty generations away
• Bonus points if it refers to Skagen, the Great Dane that is the cause of his distant dog blood

I don't know, these things just stood out to me and it became pretty obnoxious sometimes.

Also, something else I noticed, though this might be misinterpreted on my part or mistranslated into Dutch, but the book also kept switching between Swift's dog ancestry being twenty generations away or being twenty years away. This seems to imply, to me, that all of his ancestors gave birth when one year old, whereas wolves/high content wolf dogs don't usually seem to mature until the age of 2-3 years old-ish. Just something I noticed. 

So, despite me harping on about this book, it was actually decent. I just feel like it has potential but could be better, especially since the author has done better before. 

If you want a better wolf story, let me refer to Kazan by the same author, or obviously The Call Of The Wild or White Fang by Jack London.

But if you want to check this one out, I say it's worth at least one read if you like stories like this. It just might not be in your mind for very long.

Rating: 3/5