Acquire Today Wolf And Iron Written By Gordon R. Dickson Supplied As Audiobook
love Dickson's social science fiction ideas, but parts of the plot were a bit unbelievable, The forward explains his extensive wolf research, so I believe all of those interactions are possible, Decisions like that one made me wonder if Jeebee was as smart as he seemed, but he's often in awe of the strong women around him and tries to learn from them whenever possible.
Unfortunately, I had to suspend my disbelief for the latter third of the book because there is absolutely no way he could have accomplished so much within a few weeks.
I don't care how sandy the soil is or if he only slept a few hours a night, There is absolutely no way he accomplishes that much while still hunting and caring for his horses, Time also collapses quite a bit towards the somewhat predictable happy ending, Definitely a good read for quarantine if you like survival stories with a little romance, An incredibly detailed post apocalypse survival story
I've been a Gordon R, Dickson fan for decades, since the lates, This book caught my attention because of the subject matter Wolf behavior and how it would tie in to a very human survival story after the crash of civilization.
In fact, the only thing that got glossed over during the course of the story was the crash itself, Sure, it was mentioned and even discussed but I'm not sure I caught onto the actual causes, But that's no problem because really it's more like background for the rest of the book,
Jeebee is sort of an unlikely hero, A former academic who had predicted the crash and still almost gotten killed by former neighbors when things got bad, He moves out, on his own, to try to locate an older brother living in Montana, Along the way he learns quite a bit, most of which is discussed in great detail, He also ends up partnering with a young male wolf who had been taken from the human family that raised it by some unsavory characters that now seemed determined to do harm to Jeebee.
The pair escape together and the story ensues,
Without describing the whole story, I will say that this was a good book, It covers a lot of deep thought concerning what it would take to survive in the wilderness and how the mind of a wolf works, It's obvious Dickson did his homework before writing this novel, I didn't read it with an overly critical eye, Didn't keep track of how many times Jeebee fired his rifle or how many shells he had left, Although it seemed like he should have run out at some point, If you like almost painfully detailed descriptions of how things are done by someone trying to survive the wilds with a wolf as a companion you might enjoy this book.
Cea mai frumoasă carte în care apare un luppersonaj principal pe care am citito, asta până în momentul în care lam descoperit pe Ochi Întunecați din trilogia Farseer scrisă de Robin Hobb și care a devenit imediat lupul meu favorit din toate scrierile posibile.
Ochi Întunecați era carismatic, avea simțul umorului, putea comunica telepatic cu oamenii care aveau acest har, un personaj aparte din toate punctele de vedere, în timp ce animalul lui Dickson este doar un lup normal.
Care, dintre toți lupii normali din toate cărțile pe care leam citit și în care aceștia apar, este de departe preferatul meu,
Poate că această comparație nu este una corectă, lupul lui Hobb era un personaj fantastic și bineînțeles că șia căpătat imediat statutul de vedetă iar lupul lui Dickson nici măcar nu are un nume deosebit, îl cheamă doar Lup și atât.
Dar dacă ar fi să mă “înhăitez” cu unul dintre ei laș alege fără să clipesc pe Lup, celălalt rămânând doar un prieten imaginar dintrun roman fantasy.
Câteva cuvinte despre roman Postapocaliptic, înfățișând o lume pe care o vom găsi repede dacă vom continua să ne distrugem planeta în acest ritm, o carte despre oameni buni puțini și despre oameni răi mulți, un ghid de supraviețuire cu sau fără un prieten Lup lângă noi.
Superbă, absolut superbă această carte,
Nota acordată romanului :
sitelink bucurestifm. ro Allow me to preface: I love Dickson, first of all, and second, I'm fully aware this book is a prizewinning novel, I love his attention to detail, and his wanting to make sure he imparts that he studied diligently the nature of wolves, how they act in the wild and in the social circle of humans.
I appreciate that he wants to explain the nature of natural childbirth, and how to use weapons and shoot firearms, In reading, I'm tolerant of some of those expanded details, But, here it is slightly tedious, and at times bordering on OCD, As a writer, I identify more with lean and mean, Saying that makes it seem I didn't like the story I did immensely, It pulled me through it quite successfully in fact, It's just that there was a wide dichotomy in the elements what works, works powerfully on the level of WOW! What doesn't work brings on cosmic eye rolling.
There are moments it reads like nonfiction with the author annoyingly present, but with the main scenes and the character and story arcs, it is some of the best I've ever read.
I can see why it won an award, but there are parts that simply should have been left out, yet there is all evidence of economy, This was an interesting read and a good read, It's overall a worthy addition to any postapocalyptic reading list, but it isn't your typical
postapocalyptic treatment, "It's being helpless, not being able to do anything, he told himself, Men aren't built to be helpless, Of course, women aren't either, No creature is. "
I mostly know Dickson through the Dorsai! series of military SF, and his wonderful novel Time Storm, and only read this one because a it's postapocalypse fiction, which is my jam, and b it is supposedly one of his best works.
"Apocalypse" might be a bit much, as there are no aliens, no radioactive fallout or demons scurrying about, The alternate reality of Wolf and Iron no date is ever specified but it clearly falls into the early's, when the novel was written is much more chilling because it is so believable: the economic breakdown of modern civilization leading to the collapse of all infrastructure, including fuel, electricity, law and order.
This book was not what I was expecting hoping for so I was a little let down, It does not follow the conventional roller coaster template of an adventure story, There is none of the chaptertochapter episodic format of The Postman and it does not share the massive cast of characters of Swan Song.
It is a much more personal narrative, Jeebee isn't really a hero in the mythological sense, As a wanderer of the wasteland, he avoids confrontation at all costs, He avoids people in general we discover why very early on until he is literally forced to confront them through a stroke of fate, He is highly intelligent, educated, a social scientist who saw the end coming and prepared, and still made it out of the city only by the skin of his teeth before it all hit the fan, and then only because his neighbors were literally shooting at him.
We join Jeebee midway on a journey across the country from Michigan to his brother's ranch in Montana, where he believes he will be safe,
Spoiler alert:
This is a common trope I've noticed in the author's stories: Men who set out with a purpose, are denied that purpose, forced to find a new purpose, and grow as human beings in the process.
He's really good at writing melancholy dudes, Jeebee is an incredibly thoughtful, kind soul in a world gone cruel, He doesn't know if he could kill someone if he had too, and he doesn't want to find out, His motivation for survival, beyond basic survival, is the selfassured idea that the knowledge in his brain is so important to getting humanity "back on track" that he must go on living at all costs.
One thing I found really curious was that whenever he came across a dead body or the bodies of an entire family, in one instance, he absolutely refuses to touch them, much less bury them, to the extent of even outright ignoring them even if he has to step over them repeatedly.
I'm not sure if it was an oversight by the author, but this aspect of his character is never addressed and left mysterious, and I like that.
He is "soft", and one of the main themes throughout was about finding the right balance of book smarts and street smarts, "knowledge" versus "action", in a world gone to hell.
Selfeducation is a major throughline here while bandits and marauders sack entire towns for food and supplies, they leave their libraries intact, Books have no value to them, You can be the smartest man alive, but you can't outsmart a bullet, Meanwhile, Dickson still struggles with writing women who aren't either villains or victims or in this case, independent women who finally give in and settle down to motherhood.
This was the least egregious version of his habit I've read so far, as Merry is still a badass who suffers through hell to earn her place of safety and comfort, so she gets a pass from me.
My biggest complaint would be that the book is overlong, If I had been Dickson's editor I could have easily cut the book in half, He is way too descriptive in every little action the main character takes, Everything is described in excruciating detail to the point of ad nauseum, There is simply not enough action here to justify the final page count, I can tick off on one hand all the major things that happened throughout, Now, if you get a thrill out of endless pages of, "The door was locked, He'd need a key to get through, He'd need a key to get past the locked door, The locked door barred his way, He needed a key. He couldn't get past the door without a key, Without a key he would never get past this door, He had found a key, Someone had forgotten his key, A key lay on the desk, He smacked his foot with the door, He cursed. The feeling hit him like a point blank shot through the toes" then do I have the book for you! I am of course exaggerating, but not by much.
It can get a little, . . repetitive.
Still giving this one a recommendation because Gordon is nonetheless very good at coming up with stories, He's just not always great at telling those stories, This is a mostly PGentry in terms of content, There is a fairly explicit birthing sequence toward the end, but, as with much of the story, it is not played for shock but to bring us into this visceral experience through the eyes of the characters, who are experiencing it for the first time themselves.
They have done their homework, and we want them to make it,
There is none of the raping or plundering that you usually get from this genre, Most of the violence is viewed from a safe distance, I appreciate how, at least in his nonmilitary fiction, Gordon always manages to squeeze some semblance of a happy ending out of the most dire situations, which is frustratingly absent from a lot of contemporary, "edgier" SciFi.
This is a book about human ingenuity and perseverance in the face of oblivion, There are no mustachetwirling psychopaths to be found, just lots of desperation, The real villain here is the elements, This is hardcore Jack London territory: the characters spend more time preparing than anything else, which is believable for a world that has almost completely and utterly been robbed of its reliance on the creature comforts of the digital age.
Winter is always out there, looming on the horizon, and all the money in the world won't pay the heating bill, so you might as well use it as kindling.
Yes, one of the main characters is a wolf, Yes, he is the best character, You will learn a lot about wolves from this book, And blacksmithing. And gun maintenance. And architecture. And insulation. And carpentry. And statistics. And hunting. And skinning. And midwifing. And all manner of basic science, This is less a thriller and more a survivalist handbook, Hell, there are pages and pages devoted to the main character perfecting a crossbow, Somewhere buried in all of that fascinating authorial research is a decent adventure story, .