Wolves of the Beyond
Author: Kathryn Lasky Genre: Animal Fantasy Years of Publication: 2010-2013 Pages: (per book) ~250 Number of Books: 6
Writing: 5/10 Plot: 3/10 Characters: 3/10 Creativity: 5/10
Overall: 4/10
Disappointing
Spoilers Ahead!!
Wolves of the Beyond is a weird book series. This tale was written by the same author of the more popular Guardians of GaHoole series. I’ve never read Guardians. I’ve been meaning to for sometime now, but honestly, after reading this… it’ll be a long while before I do. I read Wolves of the Beyond ages ago in middle school. I was about 12-13 years and I wanted to read something that wasn’t Warrior Cats. I saw Wolves of the Beyond and said “Huh, I like wolves” and bought it. However, I did not like the first book Lone Wolf, and so I did not read the second book until one day at the library I decided to give the series a second chance. After that, whenever the Scholastic Book Fair came around, I got the next book in the series.
This series is a weird mark on my shelves. I barely remembered these books until I revisited them. All I did remember was that I liked them. And well… I don’t like them anymore. This was a mess.
The Plot: Faolan is a wolf who was abandoned as a puppy by his natal pack because of his deformed paw. Luckily, a grieving mother bear comes across him and raises him as her own. Faolan grows into a strong, large wolf. When his bear mother, Thunderheart, goes missing one winter, he goes out only to get lost. Eventually, he comes across his natal pack and rejoins them. Because of his splayed paw, he is ranked a “gnaw wolf,” the lowest ranking member of the pack. As a gnaw wolf, he is tasked to gnaw on the bones of prey and inscribe them with rules, stories, and whatever else. While in the pack, Faolan is bullied by Heep, a vicious tail-less wolf. Though gnaw wolves are mistreated, they are allowed to compete in a competition that picks wolves to be a part of the coveted Ring of the Sacred Volcanoes, an order of gnaw wolves who protect the Ember of Hoole, a magical ember that holds a lot of significance to the owls of this world. Faolan and Edme, a one-eye female wolf, win the competition and join the Ring. While there, Edme’s old pack, The McHeaths, are angry that Edme rejected them and so they forge a plan to cause a war between the wolves and bears by kidnapping a bear cub. Faolan and his friends save the bear cub and chase off the McHeath pack. Then, randomly, there’s a neverending winter that scatters the herds and starves out the wolves. The ancient packs disband and scatter. There’s a mysterious wolf who wears a owl helmet called The Prophet who goes around and preaches to the lost wolves, telling them to “dance themselves to Heaven.” The “enlightened” starving wolves dance around until they drop dead. Faolan and his surviving friends find and put an end to the Prophet. Then a massive glacier somehow destroys the entire Beyond, killing damn near everyone. The survivors travel across an ice bridge that was never there before to a new home. Heep, the disgraced gnaw wolf turned leader of a group of rogues, follows and threatens Faolan’s group. Faolan and them rid Heep by pushing him off the ice bridge and getting him impaled by a narwhal. Yes, really. And that’s it. That’s the whole series.
Oh yeah and Faolan is a reincarnation of Fengo, the ancient spiritual wolf leader who started their whole culture. And he’s a reincarnation of a bear and an owl. Edme is also a reincarnation of Fengo’s mate, therefore she is now Faolan’s mate even though they had no chemistry before.
The first three books have their own self-contained stories and I’m not going to go into them in any detail. The last three, however, are about the destruction of the Beyond. I really disliked this shift. We spend three books with the wolf packs and their world, but then book four comes around and everything goes to hell. In Frost Wolf, wolves are dying, they’re going crazy, cannibal wolves are stealing bodies and eating them, there’s some crazed Prophet going around and urging wolves to dance to death, and at the end of it all, the wolf packs with all of their order and nobility are utterly destroyed. Despite my whinging, I did like book four quite a bit because it has the best villain and the best plot, however I do not like what it does to the rest of the story. Instead of it being about Faolan reforming the packs and changing their rules, it is about a giant glacier somehow crashing through the landmass and killing everyone except Faolan and his ragtag group. It’s stupid. Why did you waste our time, Lasky? Why did we even bother with The Watch if you were just going to destroy it a book later? If you planned on destroying the world, why did you not properly foreshadow that? You foreshadowed the endless winter. I don’t like it, man. It’s like Lasky didn’t know what to do with her own world.
The Writing: These books are super short, but yet they are not paced well. Book two Shadow Wolf is a great example of this. This book is about Faolan adapting to his life as a gnaw wolf, dealing with Heep- a fellow gnaw wolf who hates him- and then competing in the gaddergnaw, a game in which gnaw wolves from different clans compete in order to become members of The Watch at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. Gwyneth, an owl who befriended Faolan, and the Sark of the Slough, an old female wolf who can brew medicines, work together to solve the murder of a wolf pup. The bulk of the book is about Faolan going around apologizing to others for his screw-up during a hunt and the Sark and Gwyneth investigating the mystery. At the very end, we get the competition that has been built up to all book. The competition consists of two challenges: a hunt, and writing a story. This sacred event that only chooses the best of the best gnaw wolves has two challenges. The gaddergnaw should have been the entire book. The wolf pup mystery takes away from it. Gwyneth and the Sark don’t do much. The Sark has the “best nose in the Beyond” so she sniffs out the culprit pretty quick. We know from the jump that Heep killed the pup because it’s not subtle. Heep is a nasty wolf and he’s the only wolf we’ve met who has the gall to actually kill a puppy. At the end of the games, Heep blames the murder on Faolan and the other wolves are like "yup, he did it” and damn near kills Faolan until Gwyneth and the Sark vouch for him and accuse Heep. Heep then runs away. It’s very anticlimactic. It would have been better if the murder was never present. Heep could’ve been ousted for trying to interfere with the results of the game. The pacing is off. What should be important is not given enough time to showcase its importance.
Lasky has a habit of repeating information she just told us. This is especially infuriating in this series because the books are so short! There is no need to give us a recap on what happened just a few pages ago! Kids aren’t that dumb. They don’t need to be reminded so often.
The Worldbuilding: Here are the things you need to know.
The Beyond: This is where the story takes place. It’s just a forest.
The Outermost: A lawless place where cannibalistic wolves live. Yes, really.
The Cave of Souls: A sacred cave full of wall paintings that depict the history of the Beyond.
The “Clans”: We have the MacDuffs, MacNab, McAngus, MacDuncan and the McHeaths. There are multiple smaller packs within one clan. For example, Faolan joins the MacDuncan Clan and then joins the Pack of the Eastern Scree.
The Ring of Sacred Volcanoes (The Sacred Watch): A renowned group of former gnaw wolves that are tasked to protect the Ember of GaHoole from graymalkins aka bad owls who want to use the ember for nefarious purposes.
Wolf Language: There are a bunch of constructed words thrown about. Here’s a few that are important to know.
Malcahd: “cursed one” This describes wolves born with deformities. Faolan is a “malcahd” because of his splayed paw.
Obea: a rankless role given exclusively to barren female wolves. Their job is to take “malcahds” from their mothers and leave them at areas where they are expected to die.
Tuumfraw: The place the Obea leaves a malcahd to die.
Gnaw Wolf: The lowest ranking wolf. A malcahd who somehow survived and found their way back to their natal pack becomes a gnaw wolf. They gnaw on bones and somehow inscribe words onto them. Idk.
Lupus: Wolf god.
The Star Ladder: The stairwell to Heaven for wolves.
Skaarsgard: The spirit that leads wolves’ souls up the Star Ladder.
Brrygis: The hunting parties wolves form.
The Fengo: The highest ranking wolf in the Watch. They are named after Fengo, the ancient leader wolf that brought the packs to the Beyond.
Sark: Wolf word for “witch.”
The Great Chain: The ranking system the wolves go by.
Lupus
Star Wolves (the spirits of dead wolves)
Chieftains (clan leaders)
Lords (pack leaders)
Skreeleens (Pack Howlers/ announcers)
Byrrgis leaders
Captains
Lieutenants
Sublieutenants
Corporals
Packers
Gnaw Wolves
Unranked Obeas
Owls
Other four-legged animals
Other birds, except owls
So it’s a lot. I really dislike the wolf ranking crap. Real wolves don’t really have ranks. There are the two parents and then their pups (and sometimes an unrelated straggler who joins the pack). That’s it. Wolf packs are families, not military units. The wolves in Wolves of the Beyond are “wolves in name only” or WINOs. As the series went on, the WINOs felt less and less like wolves and more like humans, which I strongly dislike in xenofiction. If you’re going to have animals that are just people, make them anthro. Give me Beastars, not Warriors. Now, I did give Lasky points for creativity because the world she created is unique and interesting. I just don’t like it.
I had a hard time understanding how these animals did anything. The chieftains wear headdresses, bone necklaces, and pelt cloaks. They also have braided chin hair. How? Just how? How in the hell are these wolves making necklaces and headdresses? Since this story takes place in the same universe as Guardians of GaHoole, the owls are blacksmiths and I don’t know how logistically they can forge armor. On one hand, that’s pretty cool. I’ve seen plenty of art from Guardians and the owls look pretty damn cool with their helms and talon gauntlets. On the other hand, how in the hell did they make them? With their beaks?? How are wolves making necklaces? With their mouths???? How did the cave paintings in the Cave of Souls get there? Don’t tell me these damn wolves with their paws somehow painted them. No they didn’t. They can’t. Where did they get the brushes? The paint? What? How do these animals do these things?? The Sark of the Slough, an old lone female wolf, can somehow brew potions in clay pots. She even has a kiln. Where and how? I can overlook some things like gnawing = writing and various species speaking to one another, but my suspicion of disbelief can only stretch so far.
And look… I know this book series is for kids and I’m sure kids wouldn’t question these things and that’s fine. Honestly, if the story wasn’t so full of itself and more tongue-and-cheek, I would be less harsh. All of this, however, gets to me because the animals do not feel like animals. They barely exhibit animal behaviors. The WINOs hunt like wolves, they howl like wolves, they look like wolves, and that’s it. They’re humans in wolf clothing and that’s a shame.
Now the gnaw wolves. I have mixed feelings. First of all, how in the hell do the gnaw wolves survive? Malcahds are abandoned as soon as they are born. Realistically, they would perish immediately and there would be zero gnaw wolves. Faolan was rescued so he makes sense, but what about the rest of them? How did The Whistler, a wolf with a raspy voice, survive those first few weeks when he needed to wean? How did Heep survive? This is another thing that bothered me throughout. Also, I really don’t like how needlessly cruel the wolf packs are. Abandoning a wolf pup that has a deformity because they “want to keep the bloodlines strong” is so fucked. Heep is a perfectly fine wolf (bodily-wise, not personality-wise. We’ll get there). He’s just missing a tail. He’s fine other than that. The Whistler has a raspy voice. Why was he abandoned in the first place? Faolan’s paw was slightly skewed, so how would he be fucking up the gene pool? Faolan is a pretty silver wolf with a broad, strong build. Wouldn’t the packs want his genes? I really don’t like the message this sends to children. People who are born missing a leg are not going to “ruin the bloodlines” of the human race. That’s not how genetics work and it’s ableist to think this way. This aspect of the wolves’ culture is never deconstructed or reformed which is detrimental! This is eugenics and I shouldn’t have to explain why promoting eugenics to children is a very bad thing.
Now, I will concede and say that Lasky does show how unfair it is for the gnaw wolves. Faolan is perfectly able to participate in the brrygis, but because his paw is slightly skewed, he is forced out. Faolan expresses distaste towards this and he wants out. Getting out and receiving respect are his main reasons joining the Watch. However, he never question the role itself or works to reform it. Gnaw wolves, despite how abused they are, are important members of the packs because they’re basically the scribes. They gnaw the rules of the packs, they log events, they tell stories, they make art via poetry, etc. They are vital to the culture of the wolves, but yet they are mistreated. Skreeleens are wolves that howl out news and stories. They’re basically vocal gnaw wolves, but yet they’re treated with way more respect. It’s not fair and needlessly cruel and it’s never brought up. AND, to add insult to injury, the gnaw wolves get their deformities fixed in book five. When the glacier hits the Beyond and destroys everything, the Ember of GaHoole goes out. There was a prophecy stating that whenever the Ember goes out, all that was “broken” gets mended. I hate this because for four books straight, Lasky has shown that the gnaw wolves’ disabilities add to their strengths. Faolan with his splayed paw is powerful and swift. The Whistler with his raspy voice has a beautiful howl. Tearlock, a wolf born without ears, has remarkable hearing. Edme who only has one eye is perceptive and can see things others cannot. I really liked this at first. Because of, or in spite of, their deformities the gnaw wolves have abilities and strengths the able-bodied wolves do not have. That’s cool… and then it goes away when they all get “fixed” by magic. Faolan and the Whistler are shown to miss their deformities, but they soon get over it and never think about it again. Why even write this? Why “fix” what was not broken? Why “fix” what was perfected? Again, this is such a horrible message to send to children, especially children who have disabilities themselves. They will never be “fixed” by magic, but the characters they saw themselves in did. I thought it was so nice to show the gnaw wolves’ strengths. Imagine being kid with a lisp or tourettes and then reading about the Whistler. The Whistler has a raspy voice, but yet he has a beautiful howl. A child can see themselves in him and gain the confidence to pick up singing or rapping. But then the Whistler gets “fixed.” You, child who gets bullied for having a lisp, will never be fixed. It’s fucked. I hate it.
I wish that, instead of “fixing” what was never broken, Lasky had Faolan dedicate his time to reforming the packs and letting the gnaw wolves gain more respect and power. I wish we saw him demolish the “Obea” role (which I also dislike for how it treats barren females) and remove the “malcahd” stigma. But instead we get the random destruction of the Beyond.
The Character: Since the whole cast is boring and bland as hell, I’m only going to talk about Faolan. Faolan started off pretty interesting. He’s a wolf pup who was raised by a grizzly bear. Because of this, he has a deep gruff voice, he’s huge for a wolf, he can stand on two legs, he uses a lot of bear words and phrases, and he has a deep affection for bears. He has a hard time understanding and fitting into wolf society because of his upbringing. He doesn’t like the ranking system and is upset that he isn’t allowed participate in the brrygis when he single-handedly took down prey before. Faolan knows his strengths, but yet the other wolves mistreat him because of his splayed paw, a paw that he favors. I like all of this. His relationship with his bear mother, Thunderheart, is genuinely heartfelt and moving. Faolan thinks of his bear mother constantly and holds her lessons close to his heart. He loves her and misses her dearly. It’s so good! The love the two had for each other is the best thing about the series. Hell, book one Lone Wolf is the best book because of this relationship. It was tragic when Thunderheart died while trying to look for her son. There are poems Faolan inscribes on bones that are about his love for Thunderheart and they are so good and heartfelt. Now imagine my shearing hatred when it was revealed that Faolan’s bear-like behaviors had nothing to do with his mother, but were instead caused by faint memories from a past life. Faolan has a spiral print on his splayed paw, marking him as important. The reincarnation stuff was foreshadowed early on, but I thought it was because he was a reincarnation of Fengo, which I still don’t like. But no, it means that Faolan had multiple past lives, one of them being a bear. I hate how the narrative points to this being the reason why Faolan is so bear-like. So, if Faolan was raised by his birth mother in a pack, he would still be bear-like because of his past life, not because of Thunderheart. This retroactive reincarnation stuff cheapens his relationship with Thunderheart and I hate that!
Faolan is like the perfect wolf, guys. He’s writes the most beautiful stories and poetry, he killed a cougar when he was a yearling, he has the most beautiful work out of all of the gnaw wolves, he’s a reincarnation of their holy wolf leader, he’s a natural born leader, he very powerful, he’s huge, and his pelt is the prettiest shade of silver. Faolan is perfect. Ugh… The first two books were creating a good arc for Faolan. An arc about him adapting to wolf life, gaining friends and allies, and combating Heep and other obstacles within the rigid wolf hierarchy. But once he joins the Watch, all of that is gone. He’s just the best wolf. Edme begins to see his previous lives within him. When Faolan fights, she sees a bear rearing up on his hind legs. It’s all dumb and cheap. Faolan’s not a character. He doesn’t have a personality. He’s the most perfect most special wolf to ever live ever. It sucks.
Let’s talk about the villains. There are the outclanners, groups of packless wolves who eat each other, Heep the jealous gnaw wolf who killed a wolf pup, the McHeaths a crazed pack of wolves who nearly started a war, and the Prophet a wolf who led others to their deaths. Heep is a delightful asshole. I love characters like this. He’s slimy, envious, full-of-himself, vindictive, and petty. He sits around and schemes on ways to annoy the fuck out of Faolan. It’s very entertaining. Unfortunately he becomes a pretty dull villain by the last book. He’s leading a group of outclanners and is stalking Faolan and his group across the ice bridge. He’s just evil now. He lost all of his smarm and arrogance that made him fun to read. Now he’s just after Faolan because he hates him and that’s it. His death is hilarious though. Guy gets impaled by a narwhal. I have nothing else to add. That’s funny af. The outclanners are screwed up, man. They are cannibalistic wolves who live lawlessly in the Outermost. They’re unreasonable, dangerous, and distant. Very strange to have something this dark in a children’s series, but whatever. The McHeaths are lame. They’re Edme’s old pack and they’re known for being cruel and violent. I’m not a fan of villains who are just violent to be violent. Give me reasons as to why they resort to violence. Edme is the only wolf we meet that was “malcahd-made.” When she was a puppy, the chieftain of McHeaths tore out her eye, turning her into a malcahd. He did this because the McHeaths never had a gnaw wolf become a Watch member. When Edme discovers this, she rejects her natal pack and returns to the Watch a packless wolf. This upsets the chieftain and he vows to destroy the Watch by forging a war between the wolves and the bears. The third book is the worst one in the series because it is so damn boring and the McHeaths don’t help it. The Prophet, on the other hand, is great. During the famine, wolves are left confused and worried. Incomes the Prophet, a mysterious wolf that wears an owl helmet (don’t ask me how a wolf got his head through a helmet made for owls), who tells the desperate wolves that the way out of all of this misery is to dance. Dance to Skaarsgard so that he can take you up the ladder to Lupus. When Faolan and his group corner the Prophet he is revealed to be Liam MacDuncan, the chieftain of the MacDuncan pack. Liam was a weak leader and he had no clue what to do to help his fellow wolves during the famine, so he cooked up this idea that gave other wolves a way to escape their troubles and die peacefully. He thought he was doing a good thing when in reality what he was doing was perverted and wrong. The Prophet is the most compelling villain.
This was a mess. It could have been great. I remember liking these books as a kid and they always stuck with me, but now I can’t stand them. They’re not the worst books I’ve ever read obviously, but they are a huge disappointment. If I wasn’t so dead-set on keeping my childhood books I would get rid of these.
Recommendation: No. Not even for children. Read something else.
