A high fantasy story of two men caught in the tendrils of justice, invasion, heroism, and dark recurring magic
Mairran is the son of the Dragon Queen, and her bloody agent. Bloody in the sense of covered in blood; an agent of the Queen’s command, Mairran is sent when justice requires the edge of a sword. Or sometimes something less noble than justice... and just the command of his mother the Queen.
Meanwhile, in another time period but in the same area, Lannesk is a bastard son, along with his younger brother Anzimor. Theirs is not an easy life, especially with trouble brewing in the north from dragonkin. His is a story of growing up and surviving in a cold, unforgiving land.
And both Mairran and Lannesk are going to be confronted by a mysterious figure from the forest, one whose power holds fate and secrets for them both. The mysterious and eldritch and titular Wild King.
This is the story of The Wolf and the Wild King by K. V. Johansen.
Johansen’s adult fantasy novels, particularly that of the Caravan series, are full of old gods, demons, devils, and dark magic that is definitely not of the Sandersonian school of comprehensible and documented “scientific magic.” Mysterious beings of power, landscapes evocative, rich and immersive. Complicated wheels within wheels of plots, characters whose motivations and true intentions only slowly reveal themselves. Complex and multi-varied characterizations of protagonists.
The Wolf and the Wild King is no different in this regard.
Our setting is a northern taiga near the coast, but the main feature of the area is an enormous lake, large enough to be a sea with islands. This is a wild and hard country, where winters are long and hard, and growing and warm seasons brief, intense, and all too short, and life is unending toil for anyone from the Queen (or local Earls) on down to the peasants. It’s of a piece with previous novels by Johansen, but this is a land that we haven’t directly seen before in the narrative. The landscape is winningly evoked on the page, and I could almost feel the chill whenever the story turned to winters that even a Minnesotan or Canadian would respect in their ferocity. The lake itself almost feels like a character, the center of a lot of the action and the plot, and we get to see it in multiple seasons as well. It feels like a large Lake Superior, but with an outlet to the ocean, and kingdoms, earldoms, castles, villages, towns and more all huddled around its shore.
It’s no wonder that Mairran, son of the Queen, and Lannesk, a poor bastard son clawing his way through life as best he can, don’t have the most pleasant of lives. There is also a strong and abiding sense of stubborn independence in the people of this land. The Earls chafe under the rule of higher nobles, such as the Queen, which is where Mairran and his justice come into play. The commonfolk are cold and stubborn and often look out for themselves. Lannesk’s life on the road with Anzimor, once they are forced by circumstance, is not an easy one.
One interesting puzzle that pulled me through the narrative was just what was the relationship between Mairran and Lannesk, both as characters and when they were aligned in time and space to each other. Johansen layers her worldbuilding and exposition with rich detail, and I enjoyed the puzzle of picking up the pieces to try and make sense of the narrative. There is a real sense of fantasy history in her novels, a history told in songs and stories rather than tomes, and the contradictions and complications of historical narrative comes across. The characters, especially Lannesk, really inhabit this sort of thinking and mindset.
Another interesting series of choices is in Lannesk’s narrative. Lannesk is a mute, and in fact, aside from a couple of attempts at music, all of his communication, especially with his brother, is nonverbal. In order to accomplish this narratively, Johansen breaks away from the intimate first-person PoV that we get in Mairran (whereby we really get into his head). Instead we get a third-person PoV, and no word or explanation that Lannesk isn’t speaking for some time, something for the reader to discover and then reveal the narrative possibilities of. It’s an excellent use of the craft and techniques of writing to better tell a story. This helps distinguish Lannesk’s story from Mairran’s and gives us an outside perspective on some of the events in the book.
I have not really detailed the meaning of the title, talked about the Wolf or the Wild Man. This is deliberate on my part, since who they really are, and what they are to each other, is another of the mysteries and past narratives unfolding in the book. Suffice it to say that there are a number of powerful immortal beings memorialized in songs and tales by the characters, and they do impinge on the plot itself. To say more would spoil some of the lovely surprises the book has. It’s a rich and well written story that entertained throughout for both narratives.
This does make the subgenre of the book an open question. It’s not quite a full-screen epic fantasy; the fate of the world or the kingdom isn’t quite at stake in either narrative. However, it’s not a narrow book, either. It is a secondary world fantasy, and it can be dark at times (Mairran is not really a hero, and Lannesk is just trying to survive). I don’t think this is quite grimdark, either. It’s brooding, lyrical, dark secondary world fantasy.
One major criticism I have for this story is that it is incomplete. The story is “to be continued” in the second volume, The Raven and the Harper. From a plot point of view, that means the story gives me an air of dissatisfaction, especially considering where Lannesk is left off at the end (Mairran is in a more stable situation, but his mission is far from done). While I do definitely want to read the second volume to find the conclusion of the story, readers who want a complete narrative in one volume will not find it here.
Highlights:
- Strong mythic narrative, with interesting plotting and worldbuilding puzzles
- Excellent use of setting
- Not a complete story in one volume
Reference: Johansen, K. V. The Wolf and the Wild King [Crossroad Press, 2024].
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin
