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The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Wolf Brother
By Michelle Paver
Harper, 2005. 293 pages.
Reviewed by Christy Risser-Milne
In a recent online charity auction, well-known British actors were asked to donate a book they particularly enjoyed and inscribe it for the buyer. Sir Ian McKellan (Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and too many other amazing performances to mention) donated a copy of The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Wolf Brother, which was released in Britain in 2004. His inscription read: “I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have.”
Although I did not bid on that auction, it is easy to respond to his hope with a clear “Yes.”
In Wolf Brother, the first of an anticipated series of six books by Michelle Paver, the reader is transported back 6,000 years into truly ancient Europe where tribal identity is paramount and the magics of creation itself are still near to the surface of reality.
Although this book is correctly considered to be “fantasy,” Paver has provided readers with a well-researched look into the little that is known of the millennia-old cultures of the region. The cultural settings, in which outsiders are generally mistrusted and may well be condemned to death for trespass, are believable.
Sent on a mystical mission by his dying father, our hero, twelve-year-old Torak, is alone for the first time in his life. His father has been mauled to death by a bear. Of course, this is not just any bear. It is a demon that has taken over the body of a large bear. This demon kills for the pleasure of killing, which is completely out of the realm of reason to Torak, a hunter-gatherer whose knowledge of killing has to do with food and survival and not hatred.
At Torak’s feet lay a dead foal, its small hooves still crusted with river clay from its final drink. His gorge rose. What kind of creature slaughters an entire herd? What kind of creature kills for pleasure?
He remembered the bear’s eyes, glimpsed for one appalling heartbeat. He’d never seen such eyes. Behind them lay nothing but endless rage and a hatred of all living things. The hot, churning chaos of the Otherworld.
It is the task of destroying this demon bear that Torak’s father has laid upon his young son. It is a task Torak takes upon himself only reluctantly. But Torak is not alone in his quest to destroy the demon bear. His father promised him a guide on the journey, and an unexpected guide it is.
Some time before, a flash flood had come roaring down from the mountains. The waters had since subsided, leaving a mess of wet undergrowth and grass-strewn saplings. They’d also destroyed a wolf den on the other side of the gully. There, below a big red boulder shaped like a sleeping auroch, lay two drowned wolves like sodden fur cloaks. Three dead cubs floated in a puddle.
The fourth sat beside them, shivering.
Torak and the cub, both now orphans, eventually become companions on this dangerous journey. And it is Paver’s well-paced sentence structure that allows readers to run with Torak and the cub. When there is danger, her sentences are short and simple, conveying the urgency and rapidly beating heart of the hero. In those few passages in which Torak and Wolf are able to be more relaxed, Paver allows a more descriptive prose rise to the surface of the story.
It is Paver’s style that, more than anything, makes this story worth reading. It is an excellent exercise in seeing how the right number of words in a story makes all the difference.
On the whole, Sir Ian is right. This story is enjoyable. Nothing earth shattering, but solidly enjoyable. By the end of the story, Torak has fulfilled his quest, but there is a sense that more should be coming. Paver gives us reason to hope that the next installation will be as enjoyable as the first as Torak’s adventure continues.
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