Last year (late 2018, to be specific), I discovered a fun literary magazine called f(R)iction. What I like best about f(R)iction is that they highlight new and emerging authors, which are often the types of authors who are writing the works that I like to read, but can never easily find. Seriously, have you ever tried to go out and find a good new fiction author to read? It’s difficult! In one issue of the magazine, they highlighted The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson and after reading the small bit in the magazine, I was hooked!
The main plot of this book is that there is a worldwide epidemic that essentially ended civilization as we know it. The book follows a family that is doing their best to make life work out for them in the Yukon and, in particular, it follows the experiences of a young girl as she tries to live whatever life is leftover after civilization came to an end. Johnson goes out of his way to bring you into the desperation and seeming hopelessness of this new world and he tells this story though the eyes of these few remaining humans. It is a story that we sometimes see in movies and sometimes on television shows, but Johnson brings that story of despair to life in the written form.
While the family thinks that they are alone in the wilderness (with one big, burly, creepy neighbor living nearby), they soon find out that there are others who are still alive out there in this otherwise dead world and that not all of them have the most noble intentions. What struck me about Johnson’s writing on this theme is that he painted a very dreary, hopeless vision of the life that this family was living, but then when he introduced the outside world there were vibrant sparks of hope that glittered throughout the remainder of the remaining narrative. That’s the type of impact that Jax has on this story; for the family living in the wilderness, Jax is the beginning of the unraveling of their understanding of the end of the world. In other words, if Jax is out there (and the people hunting him), then maybe there is something, some bit of the world, that survived what they believed was the apocalypse.
Every once in a while, Johnson takes you back to the way the world was before the epidemic took over. As you might imagine, the longer the book goes on, the more the reader learns about some of the most compelling plot points that span from the pre-epidemic world to the post-epidemic world. We learn about how the epidemic spread, how the government tried to take control, how there was research going on into a vaccination and possibly a cure – all of the things that you might imagine in this genre and dealing with this type of content. What makes this all compelling in this story, though, is how the characters are woven into the larger narrative.
And that is what is fun about reading Johnson’s The Wolves of Winter. The story shifts from despair to action/adventure and excitement to, ultimately, hopefulness. Johnson does all of this by weaving the characters that you know (remember, these are likely the last people alive) into a story that starts as small as a log cabin and expands to, potentially, the entire planet. If your are into new writers and you are into well-told stories about the apocalypse, then check out Tyrell Johnson’s The Wolves of Winter!
It is not that I did not begin reading the book. Rather, it is that I stopped reading new books and reviewing them on this blog for a number of reasons. However, after rediscovering this book on my Nook a few weeks ago, I recommitted myself to reading it and I am so glad that I did. Years ago, I remember thinking, “What could I possibly get out of this book that is going to be worth the effort?” Years later (now), I am glad to have read a thoughtful, yet fun travel diary prepared by Adam as he spent one year traveling to different parts of the world. What ultimately drew me into the book was the way that Adam told his story as he went from one country to the next. His story is written in a manner of new discovery – finding out about the peculiarities of new cultures through the eyes of someone experiencing them for the first time.
This is not to insinuate that Dreyer is incorrect in any of his suggestions, recommendations, or rules. Rather, this is to suggest that contemporary English has become so out of whack with the basic rules that we sometimes write in a piecemeal method akin to how Dr. Frankenstein built his monster (shout out to anyone who has read Dreyer’s English).
For example, I stopped at the 
Putting my own, initially incorrect approach to reading this book aside, if you are looking for a deep, highly detailed dive into the formation of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, then this is it. The Return of the Shadow brings you to the very first drafts of The Lord of the Rings – to a world where the familiar foursome of hobbits that are the stars of the trilogy are not Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Instead, the reader is treated to Faramond, Frodo, Merry, Odo, Folco, and a host of other hobbits that never made their way into starring roles in the final trilogy. The Return of the Shadow also takes its readers into the thought process behind Tolkien’s creation of iconic characters like Treebeard and Strider. Would you believe that in their first incarnations these well-known players in The Lord of the Rings were much different? For example, in Tolkien’s first draft, Treebeard was working in the service of Sauron. And Strider? He began as the hobbit Peregrin! And these characters are set in a Middle-Earth that includes a forgotten elvish land named Hollin, a Rohan that is still filled with horse lords – but whom are also working in the service of Sauron, and where Gondor is known as Ond.
Fast-paced, action-packed storytelling aside, if you are looking for a novel that has compelling characters that you actually care about and can become emotionally-invested in as you read, then The Hidden Reality is your book. In fact, one of the primary reasons that I could not put this book down was because Martino writes characters that I could relate to and whose stories I wanted to read. His characters mean something to the plot and are not just throwaway placeholders or MacGuffins. Alex Pella, for example, is a hero that you want to cheer for; he’s someone that you want to see win in the end because he awakens the best parts of how we see ourselves. Putting aside the main character for a moment, the novel has additional characters who are absorbing – and for different reasons. Without giving away any of the major plot points, in the beginning of the novel a character named Jules laments to his fellow board members that their corporation is so large and so omnipresent in the lives of everyone on the planet that it has rendered humanity weak and somewhat mentally-stunted. He goes into a diatribe about people no longer having the fortitude or desire to rise up against these types of overwhelming power structures because they rarely think any more. As a reader, I found myself considering the many times that I have felt the same frustration as Jules. I thought about the times that I have passionately implored people to wake up to what is going on around them only to realize that I am stuck talking to people who are mostly wearing blank stares on their faces.
