Book #74 of 2022:Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg LongThe protagonist of this YA novel reminds

Book #74 of 2022:Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg LongThe protagonist of this YA novel reminds me strongly of Katniss Everdeen: a teen girl, cold and toughened beyond her years, forced to enter into a deadly spectacle where she puts her wilderness survival skills to good use and gradually comes to open up and realize depending on others doesn’t have to be a weakness. In this case, the sci-fi action takes place on a future colony planet that has been ravaged by exploitative corporations, worsening the already-icy temperatures and dangerous storms. The path to the most profitable mining region, inaccessible to heavy-duty spacecraft and reached only by genetically-engineered wolves pulling sleds behind them, has become an annual event with an entire cottage industry around it — from the locals training to participate in the race, to their off-world patrons, to the audiences watching the drone feeds and gambling on every team’s odds. While it’s not as bloodthirsty as the Hunger Games, the competitors are encouraged to sabotage one another’s operations en route, above and beyond the inherently treacherous terrain.The worldbuilding doesn’t provide too many cultural details on this society, but debut author Meg Long brings the harrowing setting to life in viscerally descriptive prose. As our viewpoint character reluctantly gets drawn into this contest that killed her mothers, she finds herself torn between their two respective worlds: the population of racers who are at least tacitly supporting the capitalistic forces of climate change and the tribe of settlers who have renounced those ways and retreated to seek harmony with nature. She also bonds closely with the feral wolf that a local gangster has asked her to train as a prizefighter, a tender relationship that forms the true emotional core of the story. When she ultimately frees the animal and flees the settlement, she has no choice but to join a group of friendly scientists as they embark on the race, helping them towards their research site and hoping to earn enough credits to travel literally anywhere else in the galaxy.That mission only starts about halfway through the plot, but both before and after this point, it’s an absolute pulse-pounding rush. I am very impressed, and although the volume has been marketed as a standalone, the ending is open enough that I’d happily come back for a sequel. Maybe by then I’ll have finally stopped feeling the chill from this one.[Content warning for frostbite, violence against animals, amputation, and gore.]★★★★☆Like this review?–Throw me a quick one-time donation here!https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke–Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!https://patreon.com/lesserjoke–Follow along on Goodreads here!https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler–Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!https://lesserjoke.home.blog -- source link

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