The Silver Wolf

Rating:
Summary: A Caged Princess
Review: The Silver Wolf tells the story of Regeane, a pale and beautiful woman by day and a delicate silver wolf by night, of her odyssey seeking self-recognition and true love. Regeane¡¦s late mother was a distant kin to Charleman the Great, by then only one of many feudal lords rising to power, but had unrivaled potential. Her father was another man-wolf, rich and powerful but had fallen prey to human¡¦s evil conspiracy. Her uncle, Gundabald, a wicked and mean scum, had used her mother as a pawn of splendid future, and had killed her father with a crossbow bolt directly through his heart. At the beginning of the story, Gundabald, being Regeane¡¦s only relative alive, had arranged a political marriage for her in order to gain court favor, and the bridegroom-to-be was the barbarian lord Maeniel, who had occupied a mountain fortress overlooking the pass of Alps. Because of Maeniel¡¦s future usefulness in conquering Rome, Regeane¡¦s marriage had become extremely important for both the Roman pope, Hadrian, who had been suffering from neighboring kingdom of Lombard and had hoped to gain aid from Charleman, and herself.

Being Anne Rice¡¦s elder sister, author Alice Borchardt wrote with poetic delicacy and stunning beauty. The story unfolded with fast pace but lacked in Anne¡¦s detailed descriptions at the same time. Some sentences were among the most beautiful I had ever seen. Alice wrote about a water pool in the evening as ¡§The reflecting pool was beginning to fill with stars,¡¨ and rising moonlight as ¡§Soon, very soon, its journey across the sky would bring it to her window where it would throw a pool of silver light on the floor.¡¨

Since this was a story both historical and supernatural, there were fantastic elements such as a woman shifting into the shape of a wolf, walking into the land of the dead and meeting the ghost of her lost father, and sharing the Spring of Youth in the garden of eternity with Daedalus, the famous Greek architect, as well as historical events, such as Julius Caesar¡¦s life and death, the origin of ides of March, and Roman poets¡¦ works. Alice mixed fantasy with history in a never-seen-before style, using fantastic aspects to explain historical figures and adding mysterious flavor with bits of ancient mythology. Readers familiar with Western legends and folklore would find delightful surprises, like the Authurian Romance and Greek mythology, constantly during their process of page-turning.

Under the disguise of Dark Ages history and wild imagination, The Silver Wolf was actually a novel of feminism, of feminine self-awareness. Regeane was a typical woman who had lived under men¡¦s threats, and to strike a balance between her humanity and the wolf¡¦s wild nature, she must struggle for her own freedom and happiness. The author¡¦s feminism intention was obvious, since the beginning most characters were female and kind, good in nature, and most male were symbols of violence and lust. Regeane received help from Lucilla, the pope¡¦s courtesan and a very powerful woman in Rome, Elfgifa, a Saxon little girl of a brave and intelligent heart, among the others. On the contrary, Gundabald and his son Hugo were bad to the bone, two helpless scums, knowing nothing but sleeping with low-price prostitutes and eating. There were some exceptions, though, Antonius, Lucilla¡¦s bastard son, was a benevolent young man stricken by leper, though still kept a good heart. Maeniel, the barbarian lord, was actually an immortal wolf-man, and all his followers had the same shapeshifting ability just as Regeane.

I had expected Regeane in The Silver Wolf to be independent, brave and graceful, and in the end found her salvation and freedom. And when reading through the story, seeing Alice mocking the traditional value system built by men (¡§I can¡¦t think why God created them. I suppose for the same reason he created mosquitos, and fleas.¡¨ 231), and at the same time praise the female¡¦s greatness, (¡§The female is respected. She gives life, she is life. Her body is a temple.¡¨ 359) I had been glad to find a woman¡¦s awakening and independence. But in the end, the story still fell into the typical prince-and-princess-live-happily-ever-after archetype, with Regeane being accused witch, Lucilla being tortured almost to death, and Hadrian and Antonius having no power to save her. The male (Maeniel) still played the role of ultimate hero and savior. He fought as Regeane¡¦s champion and defeated the challenger, and together they lived happily ever after. The ending really disappoint me, since I had had enough prince and princess fairy tale, I had wanted some real characters. Regeane was a successfully built character, but the author failed her job in the end.

Over all, The Silver Wolf was an easy-to-read, light and interesting book. Alice masterfully mixed historical facts, mythology, fantastic elements and humor, in the end creating a believable and unique story, although we can see images from other famous works, such as Jack London¡¦s The Call of the Wild, and traditional supernatural stories like vampire and werewolf. As a popular novel, The Silver Wolf shined with silver glow. But as a true literary work or a feminism story, it had a long way to go.

Rating:
Summary: I felt like I was watching a bad movie
Review: really uneven. basically a bodice-ripper romance novel trying to pass itself off as fine literature (I guess being pretentious runs in the family) -- sorry to be so harsh, the author must havwe put a lot of work into it, because the book weighs like 5 pounds.

There were a couple of things I liked about Silver Wolf, but they were pretty well outweighed by the author going on ad nauseum about the heroine's pert breasts and magical silver hair.

It is just not my cup of tea, personally. Give me Marion Zimmer Bradley or even Stephen King over this.

Rating:
Summary: Page turner!
Review: Slow to start, race for the end. Excellent read. Hope there will be a sequel in the making. Rich in detail and history.

Rating:
Summary: a great book!
Review: This is one of the best books I have read in a while. There is a lot of realistic detail in it and the characters are great. But the person who reviewed this book for Kirkus Reviews must have been asleep or something! Lucilla being Maenial's mother! How the heck did they get that? Weird. I agree that the ending was abrupt, but other than that it was great.

Rating:
Summary: Very Neato Book
Review: I thought The Silver Wolf was a great book. At first it seems like everything is bunched together and you would never think that it all comes together in the end. I think Alice Borchart did a wonderful job describing and listing the details of how the people looked and how the landscape looked. I liked her perspective on ancient Rome very much and I would recomend this book to anyone and everyone who likes books with love, hate, mystery, and intruge

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful tale of a Dark Age werewolf
Review: I've never read much Anne Rice since I don't care much for vampires. But I love werewolves, so I was happy to give this book by Anne's sister a chance. I was a little concerned that Ms. Borchardt may have gotten her work published due solely to being Anne's sister, but I needn't have worried. The writing style is excellent and transports us back to a fastinating but seldom explored time period. I enjoyed all the characters and especially the portrayal of werewolves -- beautiful, mysterious and powerful. If you're into werewolves, this book is a treat. I can't wait for a sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Dreadful.
Review: This book is tied with another for the all-time worst book I have read. The character development is trite: characters are either very good or very bad. The character's actions are not consistent with their personality and there is a serious lack of continuity. I found myself very hard-pressed to be at all interested in what was going to happen to these characters.

Rating:
Summary: Clever use of unusual historic period combined with magic.
Review: The Silver Wolf cleverly intertwines an excellent view of a little known historical period with a romantic fantastic magical character. The heroine is appealing and sympathetic and the setting, Rome in the 8th century, is unusual and reasonably accurate. The book is well written and compelling reading.

Rating:
Summary: Best were-wolf novel ever written!
Review: Moved by a fascinating premise and characters that are not clearly evil or good, 'The Silver Wolf' is a fascinating book. Fast-paced, intriguing, thrilling and with a plot full of unpredictable twists and turns. Perhaps the only reason that I did not give this book five stars is that the central romance of the book is made possible by a quaint coincidence and all the built up tension dissipates usatisfyingly as a deus-ex-machina ending is offered to the romantic element of the story. But this is only on small facet of the novel and its fascinating historical background, adept usage of language and the dual-nature of its protagonist make it a book well worth reading. By far the best treatment of the were-wolf I have read ...AND BELIEVE ME I'VE READ A LOT.

Rating:
Summary: Quite enjoyable
Review: Although I must admit the book started out a little slow, the premise itself was quite intriguing, and that kept me reading. Thank goodness--because the book turned about a lot more interesting and elaborate than I had expected. I love Alice Borchardt's descriptions and the low-key but hilarious humor. I liked how the book kept you guessing (I thought Maeniel was a total wimp at first, but he turned out to be quite the catch,'eh? ;-) and wondering what would happen next. The characters were well-portrayed and had such a real vibrance about them; stereotypes were not played upon. I look forward to reading Ms. Borchardt's next book. One last thing--what's with that Kirkus Review about the book? It says "Lucilla, who has eyes for the virgin, also has some secrets of her own: She, too, is a werewolf--and the mother of Maeniel." I had three words for that--"WHAT THE HECK?!"