THE WOLF KING

by Ann Turnbull ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1976

Turnbull isn't particularly inventive but she employs the familiar conventions of curse and quest with a sober facility in this fantasy which is set in some vaguely Celtic countryside at the dawn of the iron age. Here Grayla, the daughter of a wandering smith, and Coll set out to redeem Coll's brother, Ruadh, from the powerful Wolf King and meet both the Dark People, a Stone Age remnant who live in hiding, and the faery Elder Folk who tell Coll how to kill the Wolf King with a specially forged iron sword. Of course the reader may guess what Coll doesn't know until the deed is done--that the Wolf King was really Ruadh in the throes of a terrible spell. However, the very fact that Coll and Grayla, unlike Will in Cooper's Grey Wolf, must make their own choices and accept the responsibility for humanly ambiguous acts, imbues their quest with consequence despite the comparative thinness and anonymity of both the locale and the symbolic superstructure.

Pub Date: April 1, 1976

ISBN: 1904529402

Page Count: -

Publisher: Seabury

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1976

Categories: FICTION