COLD THE NIGHT, FAST THE WOLVES by MEG LONG
A REVIEW by ALEXA DUNCAN
When Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long first crossed my radar, I was instantly excited because I’m a lifelong wolf girl. Ask anyone who knew me when I was a kid and they’ll tell you I always carried around this stuffed wolf with me wherever I went. To this day, I still have a stuffed wolf that sits on my bed. But that’s neither here nor there. Point is, I love wolves and I was so stoked when I saw this title.
And then I read the description of the book. Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves follows our main character, Sena, as she steals a prized fighting wolf from a mob boss and enters a deadly sled-dog race for her frozen planet’s wealth of exocarbon. This book blends light sci-fi with
a concept we don’t see a lot of in YA: sled-dog racing. I was obsessed with this book from then on and eagerly awaited its release. I’m happy to say I’ve not been disappointed!
What I loved most about this book–aside from the wolves–is the setting. We find ourselves on Tundar, a frozen hellscape of a planet where corporate greed runs everything and even the trees will kill you. I love a snowy setting more than anything, and to top it all off, some of the names and creatures on this world are clearly inspired by Scandinavian culture, which I enjoyed. Long’s writing is very descriptive and I could feel myself getting colder as I read. I also loved the sci-fi elements incorporated here. They were well done and not at all out of place.
If I had any complaints about this book, however, it’s that the pacing was a little off for me. You go in expecting an exciting sled-dog sci-fi book, but the actual racing bits of the book don’t happen until halfway through. I kept wanting something more to happen in the first half, but the plot dragged a little. Sena also has this habit of reminding the reader of how alone and cold she is, and also that her mothers are dead. Variations on these phrases and ideas are repeated over and over again, and by the 50th page or so, I was like, okay, I get it. Sena is alone. She doesn’t want to race. Her moms are dead. An editor should have caught this and it would have made the prose flow a little better if some deletions were made.
Despite these gripes, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the setting and the idea of a wolf as a main character (she doesn’t talk or anything though). This idea is so inventive and I can’t wait to see what Meg Long does next.
You can check out Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves at the Argenta library today.