Skip to main content

★★★★☆ Not quite wrapping up the Grishaverse

Rule of Wolves

Leigh Bardugo

Rule of Wolves is novel seven in Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse series, and the last currently extant (as of 31-May-2023). I'm going to assume that you have read the previous six novels. (If you haven't, there will be spoilers.) And you should, because they are good, and they will enhance your enjoyment of Rule of Wolves.

In fact, my first thought on beginning Rule of Wolves was "It's so much fun to be back in the Grishaverse!" I had most recently read several books that, while good, were challenging and required nontrivial effort to read. Rule of Wolves was not like that! Bardugo dives right in, and it is immediately fun. Of course, she can get away with that because we know the characters and the universe from previous books. This is not cheating -- this is making plans and being smart.

So, when we left the Grishaverse at the end of King of Scars Nikolai Lantsov had a shadow demon inside him, Zoya Nazyalensky a dragon inside her, and the Darkling had come back from death. (Honestly, I think Bardugo loves the Darkling so much that she just had to bring him back.) These were obviously issues that Bardugo had to deal with somehow.

She does, in a wide-ranging plot that takes place in Ravka, Shu Han, Fjerda (Nina Zenik having been left there at the end of King of Scars), and Ketterdam. The only major Grishaverse nation we don't see much of is Novyi Zem. (Novyi Zem has a part to play in the story, nonetheless.) My only complaint about the plot is that it wraps things up too neatly in ways that feel rather deus-ex-machina-like, although strictly speaking they are not. Bardugo does leave a few loose ends dangling, enough to serve as a hook for that eighth Grishaverse book she has promised us.

One of the most delightful things about Rule of Wolves is the banter. It is full of smart, witty characters whose conversation is a joy to eavesdrop on. For instance, here is a little snippet of conversation between Nikolai and Zoya

“Keep spewing inanities and you may see me at my worst.”

“All Saints, are you saying I haven’t seen you at your worst?”

Zoya tossed her hair. “If you had, you’d be under the covers, gibbering prayers.”

“A unique way of getting me into bed, but who am I to question your methods?”

The dialogs, especially those in which Nikolai has a part, kept me chuckling throughout.

So, this is a fun book. I don't need to convince you to read it, because if you have read the previous six books, you know you want it. And it didn't disappoint.

Amazon review

Goodreads review
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

★★★☆☆ Introducing Rincewind and Twoflower and The Luggage

The Color of Magic Terry Pratchett I have an ambiguous relationship with  Terry Pratchett  and the  Discworld . On the one hand, I have enjoyed everything I've ever read by  Pratchett , some more than others. On the other hand,  Pratchett  is so relentlessly and extravagantly hyped by his supporters that it always put my back up. ( Pratchett  himself is innocent of the hype, claiming that "his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.") The  Discworld  is equally daunting in a different way. It consists (according to Amazon) of 41 books. I didn't want to commit to a 41-book series.  Pratchett , no fool, understands the reluctance of readers to embark on such a journey, and claims that "The Discworld novels can be read in any order." I will not say that he's lying, because it is certainly physically POSSIBLE to read the series in any order, but he is definitely indulging in some heavy-grade misdirection. I know because I tr...

★★★☆☆ The Great Geometer

The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius Patchen Barss If I were asked to name the greatest physicists of the second half of the twentieth century, I would probably choose three:  Richard Feynman ,  Steven Weinberg , and  Roger Penrose . (I am a neuroscientist and a mathematician with a long interest in physics. I'm not the best person to choose great physicists, but I'm not the worst.) Thus when my local Theoretical Physics Institute (every town should have one!), the  Perimeter Institute , announced a public presentation by  Patchen Barss , a science journalist who has written this biography of  Penrose , I immediately snagged a ticket. Barss  wounded my confidence by emitting that cliché of the science popularizer: that you make science interesting by telling the "human story." Oh, please! I don't read a biography of  Penrose  for the sake of the human story. Why do science popularizers find it so hard to believe that there...

★★★★☆ Alana in show-biz

Saga, Volume 4 Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) If you're like me, your first question on seeing  Saga, Volume 4  is, "Who is that woman on the cover?" That, my dear friend, is Alana. About halfway through  Volume 3  Alana and Marko had a brief conversation about The Circuit, which is a performance venue of some kind that people can tune into with a virtual reality helmet. Before she became a soldier, Alana harbored ambitions of performing on the Circuit. Now that their lethal pursuit has been temporarily distracted or put out of commission, they're focused on making some kind of living. Marko encouraged her to audition. So now Alana is performing on the Circuit, and what you see on the cover is her bewigged with wings bound and hidden in order to perform. She's the family breadwinner. Marko is a househusband, staying home and taking care of Hazel. The Marko-Alana-Hazel story in this volume is a bit dull. Without giving away any spoilers, it's kin...

★★★★☆ Clothes make the Victorian girl

The Case of the Missing Marquess Nancy Springer The Case of the Missing Marquess  is the first book in  Nancy Springer 's  Enola Holmes series . Thus, its main business is to tell us who and what kind of person Enola Holmes is. Mystery purists (I am not one) may be disappointed by the shallowness of the mystery of the Missing Marquess, which is less than half of the book and which Enola solves almost instantly simply by virtue of being a teenage kid herself (like the Marquess -- well, actually, he's 12, but close enough) and guessing correctly what he would do. The much bigger mystery, which is not solved here, concerns Enola's mother Lady Eudoria Holmes, who is also the widowed mother of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Lady Eudoria is known to associate with suffragettes, and to wear "rationals" -- that is, comfortable and practical clothing of a type that is widely considered inappropriate women's wear in Victorian society. On Enola's 14th birthday Lady Eud...

★★★☆☆ Lacking the common touch

100 Selected Poems: John Keats John Keats Well, that was disappointing. I am ready to admit that this is an "It's not you -- it's me," case. Since I suspect that some other readers, even readers who love poetry, may likewise find  Keats  disappointing, I will try to explain why he disappointed me. Thus you can judge whether you, too, might suffer the same fate. First thing to say is that the young  John Keats  was not really that great a poet. (By "young", I mean up to and including  Endymion .) That, of course, is a judgment many readers will disagree with, but don't discount it! It was  Keats 's own judgment. In his preface to  Endymion , he says "I apologize for the lousy work, but I just had to get this out of my system." (Obviously I'm paraphrasing.) You may dismiss that as false modesty, but I am more inclined to accept it as the judgment of a man who knew what he was talking about, especially because the quality of his poetry abr...

★★★★☆ Fantasy of a corrupt golden age

The Familiar Leigh Bardugo The publisher describes  Leigh Bardugo 's  The Familiar  as a "historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age". That description is accurate, but gives a misleading idea of the book.  The Spanish Golden Age  or Siglo de Oro is a name given to the period from 1492 - 1659, during which Spanish art, culture, and political power flourished. It was also the height of persecution of anyone suspected of heresy or Jewish ancestry. "Golden" is not the adjective that will come to mind as you read. The main point-of-view character is Luzia Cotado, a scullion in the household of Valentina and Marius Ordoño. Luzia is the orphan child or parents who were secretly Jewish. From her Jewish ancestors she inherits the ability to make "milagritos". ("Milagrito" is a diminutive of "milagro" -- miracle, thus "milagrito" is "little miracle". There is a lot of Spanish in  The Familiar . You don't nee...

★★★☆☆ What a difference a few inches make...

Fed Mira Grant **Spoilers for  Feed  follow ** (Also spoilers for  Deadline  and  Blackout , but I will protect those in spoiler tags.   Fed  is an alternative ending for  Feed .  It is available free from Orbit books as a PDF download.  At 53 pages it's either a long short story or a very short novella. When I reviewed  Feed , I wrote, "The book ends well".  Feed  ended with Shaun Mason putting a bullet in the brain of the love of his life, his sister Georgia Mason, because she had become a zombie. (That's the big spoiler for  Feed  I promised above.) I thought this was a splendid ending. Tragic, yes, Gruesome, yes, but  Feed  is, after all, a zombie novel. I added the remark, "While I say, 'The book ends well,' I'm pretty sure that many readers are going to be unhappy with the ending." That was certainly true. For instance, one Amazon reviewer, following in the long tradition of people inventing ar...

★★★★☆ Courage and principle, betrayed by history

Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South Elizabeth R Varon My first knowledge of Confederate general James Longstreet came as a result of reading  Michael Shaara 's splendid historical novel  The Killer Angels , which  Elizabeth Varon , in  Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South  describes thus A finely grained fictional account of the Gettysburg campaign, the book conjured the strained relationship of Longstreet and Lee, casting Longstreet as a prescient pragmatist oriented toward the future, who symbolized modern warfare, and Lee as the prideful romantic, backward-looking and resigned to fate. Why had I never heard of Longstreet? Because the USA doesn't want to remember him. At the end of the Civil War, Longstreet, unlike the huge majority of Confederate officers, accepted defeat. Longstreet was a great friend of Union general Ulysses S Grant, and he was inspired by Grant's generosity in victory to behave in such a way as to d...

★★★★☆ Is it over now? I don't want it to be over!

The Case of the Disappearing Duchess Nancy Springer Nancy Springer 's  The Case of the Disappearing Duchess , brought the  Enola Holmes  mysteries to a close in 2010. As is often the case in a series,  Disappearing Duchess  has two plots. One is the plot of the entire series -- Enola's family drama: her abandonment by her mother, her flight from the tender guardianship of her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft, and her attempt at an independent, free life. This plot is brought to a close in  Disappearing Duchess . The second plot is the particular mystery we are solving this time. As usual for self-styled Scientific Perditorian Enola this one is a missing person mystery, and the missing person is of course the titular disappearing duchess. The most surprising thing about  Disappearing Duchess  is that Enola, Sherlock, and Mycroft must work together openly to find the duchess. Previously this has never happened because Enola didn't trust her brothers en...

★★★★★ Tactical Assault Clown

Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass—How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up Dave Barry There is one living human who can write prose that makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe. That person is Tactical Assault Clown  Dave Barry .  Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass—How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up  had that effect on me at least twice -- an automatic five-star rating. ("Tactical Assault Clown" is right up there with "Combat Epistemologist" ( The Jennifer Morgue ) on my list of creative military specializations. And if you're one of those people who get their knickers all in a twist when someone uses parens inside of parens, you know what you can do about it.) (Yes, I know I'm not funny.) It's not all ROFL funny. In fact, he tells about his father's alcoholism ( that story has a happy ending ) and his mother's suicide ( that one obviously does not ). Later in the book he tries to convince us that his real li...