Midnight's sun: A story of wolves

by Garry Kilworth

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 058621495X
• ISBN13: 9780586214954
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Grafton
• Length: 317 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Very good. Better than its reputation.

Although Kilworth has alternated between SF and anthropomorphic animal novels, this book forms a loose sort of pair with 'Hunter's Moon' ('The Foxes of Firstdark', sharing some of the same mythology (interestingly wolves are basically atheists, though they have a nebulous mythology of the creation and the afterlife) while foxes are regarded as mystics). Consequently I'd read this book compared unfavourably with 'Hunter's Moon'. It's a long time since I read the excellant HM, but I must say that if 'Midnight's Sun' is slightly the lesser book, that still leaves an awful lot of room for it to be good. It's true, and an interesting observation, that there is a lot interior monologue and not as much dialogue, because of the amount of time Athaba spends alone, but this didn't bother me at all (I remember A Stephen King book where the protagnoist spends 27 pages sitting on a roof thinking about a hornet's nest. By those standards, it's positively chatty) One thing shoould perhaps be cleared up. The back cover of the paperback leads you to believe that this is basically a story of a wolf and human who are forced to rely on each other to survive. That's not completely true. The human depends on the wolf far more than the reverse, and more importantly, this whole sequence, though substantial, is not really the central concern of the story. The story is more the biography of a young wolf who is cast out of his pack for being unconventional, and of the trials, hardships and triumphs which befall most of the rest of his life. Though there a few points where it creaks and groans just a little, Kilworth is a fine wordsmith and you'll find this bringing a lump to your throat if you love wolves. There is some rather graphic and/or gut-wrenching stuff here, though not quite as bad as the most graphic scenes of William Horwood's 'Wolves of Time', which is its most obvious point of comparison. Pleasingly, unlike WoT, it doesn't rush to an unsatisfactory conclusion in the final stages, either. Definately recommended.

midnight sun

i fort that this waoz the best book in that kilworth has written. i luved the structure and the way in which u grew 2 luv the characters. there woz a fantastic stiryline and i cudn't put it down. i wont liusten 2 ne1 tellin me that it woz bad. I LUVED IT

Beautiful Wolves

It's been ten years since I looked at this book, but as no one has reviewed it so far, I will, as it deserves a review."Midnight's Sun" is an animal story in much the same spirit as Richard Adams' "Watership Down", or William Horwood's "Duncton Wood". Rather than focussing on rabbits or moles however, this book is about intelligent wolves. It tells the story of a lone wolf, Athaba, who is outcast from his pack, due to his inability to follow the pack's fundamentalist dogma. Alone on what we assume to be the North American tundra, he finds love in the person of a beautiful white wolf, only to lose her when he is captured be a man. But the man himself becomes lost, and both wolf and man have to learn to work together to survive in the hostile cold of the sub-Arctic.Like in most books of the "Watership Down" genre, the culture and mythology of the non-human world is well developed. Although fanciful, the story portrays well the misunderstood plight of wolves as a threatened species in the real world. Kilworth drew on wolf literature, including Barry Holtspun Lopez's book, "Of Wolves and Men" for realistic impact. It is also extremely pleasant to read. Noncomformists to modern society might be able to sympathise and identify with the lonely lupine protagonist.