Tag: female authors

 

Relative to the rest of the books in The Others universe, this one was ‘meh’.  But ONLY relative to the rest of the books.  In general it’s a great story and Bishop continues to create incredibly readable stories centered in a world where humans are resoundingly not an apex predator.  Or, at least, not the apex predator.

This is the second book in the off-shoot series called “The World of The Others”, but its placement on The Others Universe timeline puts it chronologically in front of the 1st book, Lake Silence; thankfully the author’s note at the start explains this and that the events in this book take place simultaneously to events in the last book of the original series, book 5, Etched in Bone.  Given that it’s been a few years since I read Etched in Bone, I needed to re-read it first to reacquaint myself with the characters and events.  Which then prompted a re-read of the entire series.

Wild Country is the story of the aftermath following the complete eradication of all the humans of Bennett, a small town in the western part of the continent (alternate universe, alternate names, but it’s generally based on North America).  The residents were members of the Humans First and Last League, and responsible for the wholesale slaughter of an entire Wolf pack.  After the Others retaliated, they took back the land Bennett sits on, and went about re-creating the town, bringing in a mix of Others, Intuits (humans, but humans persecuted for their uncanny intuitiveness) and select humans, experimenting to see if they could create a more cooperative community.

I was engrossed in this storyline – some of my favorite non-lethal bits of these books is how Bishop shows these wildly differing life forms working together cooperatively, finding ways to respect the differences and keep the similarities working harmoniously.  But then she went all Wild West on me and I’ve never been enamoured of the whole Wild West genre.  The showdowns, the gunfights, the cattle rustlers… meh.  I’m not saying that she didn’t do a good job with it, only that it wasn’t my jam, and towards the end it just lost me a little bit.  It also felt a tiny bit like satire; like an homage that put a toe over the line and got a little silly.

Still, my bias is just that; a bias.  Overall the story was great and kept me up, along with a taco dinner I made way too spicy, until 2.30am.  I hope Anne Bishop’s imagination is chock full of stories of The Others and their battles with the selfish gits that make up entirely too large a proportion of humanity, because I’m nowhere near tired of reading about them.

I love this series; I love it even more than the Mercy Thompson series.  I think it’s because I find Charles far more interesting than Adam.

Burn Bright ticked all the right boxes for me too; its entire setting was in Aspen Creek, which was a nice change from the previous books, where they were always somewhere new, with a new cast of supporting characters each time.  In Burn Bright,we get more information about the Marrok’s pack, and a smidgen more insight into Bran (some of it I’m not sure I like knowing – tiny bit of ick).  I also enjoyed the small mysteries to solve along the way that aded up to the big plot point – I felt like it kept the pace fast without feeling ridiculous.

Each of the books in this series and the Mercy Thompson series all work together, each one contributing to one of many over-arching plots she’s got developing in this universe.  It makes it impossible to be able to recommend reading this series out of order, or honestly, without reading the Mercy Thompson series as well.  The latter isn’t strictly necessary, but it’ll definitely enhance the reading experience.