Book Review: Seekers at the Wulfrock by William Horwood (The Wolves of Time #2)

 

The second and thus final book in this duology! Let's see if it's as good as the first. Content warnings for parental abuse, cannibalism, ableism and incest apply to this review (and the book, obviously). Spoilers ahead.

The Wolves of Time once more struggle with their enemies: the Menne and the Magyar pack. They all go on their unique journeys, and the Wulfrock lies at the heart of it all. Will they prevail?

Honestly I do consider this book a downgrade from the last. And quite a big downgrade at that. It was largely boring. The parts with the humans (Menne) feel too stretched-out and I literally couldn't care less about what they're up to. The chapters with the wolves themselves were a bit more interesting, but even then the plot dragged a lot and the characters just aren't defined enough for me to care all that much.

The conflict with the Magyars was really the only plotline in this book that kept me going. They're a depraved bunch, these Magyars, making the reader want to see the Wolves of Time succeed all the more. Dendrine is a pretty good villain. But then there's the stuff with her son...Yikes.

I've already brought up in the last book how Dendrine pretty much saw one of her pups (the deformed one) as her evil chosen one to lead the Magyars after his father's death. She pretty much mentally stunted him as well due to her incredibly abusive parenting tactics, and forced him to eat his own little brother alive piece by piece. Not only that, but she's also in an incestuous relationship with her chosen one son, and she named him Führer of all things. Just...what the hell. There is dark and then there's taking it a bit too far, especially with how lacking the nuance is here. The reader can infer from the text that these things are all wrong, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that it's honestly a bit too dark for its own good, because it made me want to put down the book because I felt disgusted by the author describing these scenes and acts.

Also, the ableism towards F (not going to call him by his name, fuck that) isn't addressed. In the first book and sometimes here he's repeatedly called stuff  like abhorrent and disgusting simply for his deformities, which is just awful. Shouldn't the fact that he leads a murderous cannibalistic depraved pack and wants to kill our heroes make him such, not just him looking different? 

They do end up redeeming F after his mother dies. But they don't change his name. I guess for wolves maybe the term "Führer" isn't as charged as for us humans, but the readers are still human and the associations we have with the term aren't good. Which would make sense for while F serves as villain, (Dendrine, our main villain, named him this after all). But after he gets redeemed he doesn't get a name change or anything? Just feels weird and wrong. 

Other than that the book was a boring slog to get through that easily could've been 2/3rds of the length it currently is. None of the stuff with Huntermann interested me and I wanted to skip most human-centric parts in general. The book feels too long and is too dark, and the dark subjects aren't handled with a lot of nuance. I'll give it one star for the authors admittedly pretty decent writing style and world-building, and half a star for the conflict with the Magyars that was at least somewhat interesting in comparison to the Menne-stuff.

Rating: 1.5/5