Posted by I wouldn’t have known about this book without spfbo, and going into it I knew very little about it outside it being YA. It has currently it’s been eliminated by Ventureadlaxre in the spfbo contest. Here’s Ventures review: https://ventureadlaxre.com/2017/08/21/review-destiny-of-the-wulf-by-harrison-davies/
Plot:
Two young boys lose their parents early on in life to a band of orcs on a raid, and go to live with their uncle, who isn’t a very nice person. He trains them how to fight daily with obstacle courses and swords, the reason for this is unknown at first.
As it turns out the boys are special since they are the last of their line and descendants of a very important person. It turns out their father was once part of The Order and had left after falling in love with their mother. They are taken off to a temple to go train and meet their destiny. Destiny plays a really big part in this book, and one of the bothers has repeated visions from a god to try and sway his brothers heart back to the gods. This book has a lot of religion involved, and it appears as though the gods are real in this world.
The Uncle has been cast out of this group of priests at the temple for his past behavior and has been accused of dabbling in the black arts.
Final Score: 7/10
Characters:
- Coinin – one of the brothers 17 at the start of the book. He’s a little more devoted to the faith and a little smarter than his brother. There’s a divide between the brothers in the classic brains vs brawns kind of way
- Marrok – the older stronger brother, 20 at the start.
Both of the brothers are kind of immature, if I hadn’t been told they were 17 and 20 I would have guessed 13 and 16. It doesn’t look like they’ve had much interaction with girls, and their first encounter with Reena was kind of funny, kind of cringey, they had no idea what to do with themselves.
Final Score: 7/10
World Building :
There’s a fair amount of world building, and this will appeal to people who like the classic fantasy races, like elves, orcs, dwarves, and goblins. There’s a specific area of the world each race resides, and although we don’t see a ton of elf stuff we do have dwarven characters and goblin fights.
There’s a lot of lore revolving around the gods, and how the gods rule over the humanity and the rest of the world. Apparently, there were swords given out by the gods to the races of the world, and every 1000 years they need to be brought together as a show of strength and unity under the rule of the current god. If the swords are not together at 1000 years the other gods can challenge the current god for the throne, and a change of power can happen. What you really don’t to have happen is have the Death God (Mort *snort laugh*) become the ruler of the world because he would turn it into a hell on earth.
Final Score: 8/10
Pacing/Prose:
It’s a little long at 518 pages, I think a bit could have been cut and it would have sped things a long a bit, however, given its length it didn’t take me forever to get through either, I think it took a few days at most so it’s not like I was dragging myself through it. The prose was pretty utilitarian just speeding along the story, it could have used a little editing but overall was decent.
Pacing Final Score: 7/10
Writing Final Score: 7/10
Originality:
I’ve seen stories like this before, but there was enough that was original and fresh to keep it entertaining.
Final Score: 7.5/10
Audience:
- People who like YA
- People who like classic fantasy races
- People who like real gods
- People who like coming of age stories
- People who like siblings as the cast
- People who like destiny/chosen one themes
Final Score: 43.5/60 or 7.25/10 or 4 stars on goodreads.
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