Review: Wereworld - Rise of the Wolf by Curtis Jobling

‘YOU’RE THE LAST OF THE WEREWOLVES SON. DON’T FIGHT IT . . . CONQUER IT.’ When the air is clear, sixteen year-old Drew Ferran can pick up the scent of a predator. When the moon breaks through the clouds, a terrifying fever grips him. And when a vicious beast invades his home, his flesh tears, his fingers become claws, and Drew transforms . . . Forced to flee the family he loves, Drew seeks refuge in the most godforsaken parts of Lyssia. But when he is captured by Lord Bergan’s men, Drew must prove he is not the enemy. Can Drew battle the werecreatures determined to destroy him – and master the animal within?

Imagine a fantasy world on par with that created by Tolkien for his Lord of the Rings books, and then take away the orcs, elves, dwarves, etc. and throw in a werewolf. And some werelions. Oh yes, and whilst you're at it wererats, werefoxes, wereboar and even a wereshark. Add to this a huge amount of writing talent and the end product is Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf by Curtis Jobling, the most exciting fantasy story I have read for years.

I imagine that many readers will make the same incorrect assumption about this book that I made: i.e. it is about a werewolf so therefore it must be a horror story. I couldn't have been more wrong - yes, there are some pretty nasty moments throughout the book, but this is truly a traditional fantasy story, although the kind I feel would still have great appeal to horror fans who claim that they "don't do fantasy". The main title, Wereworld, is the big clue to this books genre, for that is exactly what Curtis Jobling as created - a whole new world where the ruling elite are the werelords, all of them shapeshifters, and all able to turn into their own particular animal. Some of these werelords belong to long and magnificent dynasties, others have fallen from grace and now serve the more powerful shapeshifters in some way or another. 

Like all great fantasy writers Curtis Jobling has not just created a world for his story, but in Rise of the Wolf has has also created a back history, elements of which he reveals teasingly as the story progresses. This left me completely torn in two as a reader - dying to know how the events of the story would unfold, but also desperate for the action to be put on hold so that I could find out more about this incredibly original fantasy world. This made for perfect reading in my opinion - the pages kept turning and the chapters flew by long into the night as I became totally immersed in the story. This man really knows how to tell a story!

As you can probably guess from my praise so far, the world building is one of the huge strengths of this book, but a well-built fantasy world does not on its own make a great story - for that you need believable characters who readers will grow to love and hate, and Rise of the Wolf is certainly not short of these. First up, there is Drew, a farm boy who lives a simple life with his parents and brother. He is most definitely a mummy's boy, his father very obviously favouring his brother, with whom Drew has very little in common. But he is happy. However, one night something happens that finds Drew on the run, wrongly suspected of a heinous crime committed by a hideous beast, the like of which Drew has never before seen, and so begins Drew's epic journey of discovery. For he is the only remaining werewolf, last in a long line of an ancient royal line, but also a threat to the power of the land's ruler - the evil and merciless werelion King Leopold.

For many authors it can be quite a challenge just to create one or main characters that will pull the reader into their world. However, along with world-building the other gift that Curtis Jobling has as a writer is that of character creation as his fictional world of Lyssia is populated with myriad colourful characters that somehow all manage to stick in the memory of the reader, whether they have appeared in chapter after chapter, or have only made a fleeting appearance in a couple of key scenes. Some of them will make your laugh, some of them may make you cry. Some of them will most definitely pop up in a nightmare at some point in the future, I am sure. The beautiful thing about the whole werelord concept is that as readers we have pre-conceived notions of the personalities that various animals might have, and then when reading about the werelords in their human forms we automatically associate those traits with them. This helped me create very vivid pictures in my mind of what these various characters looked like, thus making them all the more memorable. Sometimes when reading large scale fantasy stories populated with vast numbers of characters I find myself having to stop and remind myself who some of the main characters are; in Wereworld this did not happen even once.

This really is the kind of story that could get reluctant readers hooked on books, although a degree of confidence when reading is needed. I know a good number of academically able boys whose parents despair because they supposedly find book boring, and would rather be playing on their X-Boxes, PS3s, and so on. Having just equipped myself with an iphone 4, and wasted a great deal of time playing with games and apps, I wonder whether I would have read as much if all these fab gadgets had been around back then. What I do know is that Wereworld is one of those books that would have pulled me away from those other distractions and had me enthralled from the first page until the very last, leaving me hungry for the next instalment. 

If you have a 12+ boy (or girl) who loves fantasy, or who you want to get reading more, then Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf is THE book to buy this January. My thanks got to Jayde at Puffin for sending me a copy - watch this space for a Q&A session  with Curtis Jobling, coming up on 12th January. 

Review: Demon Games (Changeling) by Steve Feasey

Teenage werewolf Trey is facing the most important and dangerous mission of his life. He must journey into the dark Netherworld and rescue Alexa, daughter of his vampire guardian Lucien, who is being held hostage by a powerful demon lord. But strength and courage alone are not enough to succeed – instead Trey must ‘win’ both their freedoms by participating in a death-match against his deadliest nemesis yet. The forces of evil are stacked against him and Trey can only be certain of one thing . . . one of them WILL die.


Even though it has only been five months since I read the first three books in the Changeling series (pretty much back-to-back as I was playing catch up), it feels like much longer. I wrote a review at the time in which I stated that I was really looking forward to seeing what happened to Trey, Alexa et al next, and this sense of anticipation was heightened even further by the interview that Steve very kindly did for The Book Zone. It was with no small amount of excitement then that I came home from work recently to find a package from Macmillan waiting for me - Demon Games had finally arrived.

The thing I like most about Steve Feasey's writing is that he manages to make  every book seem fresh - even though each one is a continuation of a story, he skilfully alters the tone for each new episode. The first book was very much about Trey discovering that he is not a normal boy; Dark Moon saw him gradually coming to terms with his powers, and developing them to the point where he was able to use them in combat, albeit still somewhat reluctantly. And then along came Blood Wolf, a book that was far more about Trey's feelings and his character than the previous two episodes had been; yes, there were other events happening involving Alexa, Philippa and Lucien, but exciting though they were, as a reader I fraced through these scenes to get back to the story of Trey in Canada. With Demon Games Steve Feasey yet again allows his writing to take a different direction - this book is all about bringing the various plot strands together to set us up for a (hopefully) mind-blowing finale in the final book in the series, Zombie Dawn. 

Demon Games sees Trey entering the Netherworld proper for the first time in the series. Whilst he was soul-searching in Canada things went pretty badly for his friends back home, and Alexa has now ventured into this land of demons on a mission of her own. Trey, who is finally admitting his feelings for Alexa (to himself at least), realises that the only option is for him to launch his own rescue mission and follow her into the unknown, especially as Lucien is currently AWOL. As such the story is a little more fragmented than previously, as the point of view jumps between the stories of the different characters, from Trey to Philippa, then on to Lucien, Alexa or Caliban and back again, but this jumping around adds to the excitement I felt as a reader as many of the chapters end on a cliffhanger for one character, and we don't necessarily get to discover the resolution of this moment of tension until a chapter or two later. By using this method of telling his story Steve Feasey manages to keep the tension levels are almost inbearable levels, and the reader fully interested in every character's story, and not just Trey's.

Having the whole story set in the Netherworld also allows Steve Feasey to let his imagination run riot, with vivid descriptions of landscapes, cities and inhabitants, and it is this latter category where he really lets rip - there are more demons and nether-creatures in this book that any of its predecessors, and most of them are pretty nasty. The Demon Games of the title are an event that Trey find himself competing in (I will leave you guessing as to the prize if he winds), and I have a feeling that the author had a great deal of fun in writing these scenes.

Like all great 'penultimate book in a series' books Steve Feasey leaves some tantalising loose ends to keep us hungry for the final episode, and judging by the final revelations in Demon Games, and the amazing cover for Zombie Dawn, I think Changeling fans are in for one hell of a treat with the next book as well. Steve also has a growing legion of fans in the US, where the first book in the series was released as Wereling back in April, and Dark Moon scheduled to be published in February 2011. I feel a little sorry for American fans of the series that they are so far behind us UK readers, but please believe me US readers of The Book Zone - the wait is more than worth it.

Demon Games is available to buy right now and my thanks go to Macmillan for providing me with a copy to review. I love this 'job'!


(That's book two finished in the R.I.P. Challenge)

Review: The Changeling Series by Steve Feasey

Trey thought he was an ordinary teenager. Then he meets a mysterious stranger, Lucien Charron – luminously pale, oddly powerful, with eyes that seem flecked with fire and skin that blisters in sunlight. Somehow Trey finds himself in a luxury London penthouse, like a Bond villain’s lair. It’s the heart of a sinister empire, built on the powers of the netherworld – werewolves, vampires, sorcerers, djinns. And Trey himself has a power that’s roaring to break free. Is he a boy or is he a beast?

The world has gone vampire crazy and adult books featuring these creatures of the night and a host of other supernatural beings are being released almost daily under the banner of Urban Fantasy. In YA literature however, vampires and Shan's demons were reigning supreme, until the beginning of 2009 when the first book in Steve Feasey's Changeling series was released (the series is known as Wereling in the USA). Having become a little bored with the genre I never picked up Changeling at the time, and it is only recently that I have read the books, thanks to Dom Kingston at Macmillan who sent me all three of the books released so far. I am so grateful that he got in touch through my blog - it was a rare luxury to be able to read three excellent books in a series for the first time, almost back-to-back.

The first book in the series focuses on orphan Trey's personal voyage of discovery as he finds out that he is a werewolf, the only pure blood still in existance. He is helped on this journey by his new vampire mentor Lucien Charron, Lucien's daughter Alexa, and tough guy/troubleshooter Tom Callaghan, one of the few humans we come across in these books. This new found 'family' aid Trey in coming to terms with his new abilities, and also train him in the skills he will need should he ever come face to face with his nemesis, the evil vampire Caliban, who is determined to wipe all pure blood werewolves off the face of the planet.

I am determined not to give too much away in case you have not yet read any of these books, so I am not going to mention too much of their plots. Suffice to say, Steve Feasey has created a well imagined world, where creatures of the netherworld are used for both good and bad. The author has dreamed up a myriad of these nether-creatures, including shapeshifters, a battle-angel and my favourite, the particularly nasty Necrotroph. This demon is pure evil, desribed as a "hard-to-kill parasitic demon. Inhabits a body and controls the victom's mind. Leaves its prey dead or insane". The Necrotroph plays a big part in the second and third books and the scenes in which it appears are particularly dark and terrifying. Steve Feasey very kindly provides us with a demon lexicon in each of the books, a nice reference aid to help the reader keep up with the array of creatures that appear throughout the story.

Boys will love these books (and probably a large number of girls as well). Trey is a very believable character and despite being a werewolf many boys will be able to identify with him and the challenges and new emotions he faces. The plot is very fast paced and full of great action scenes, and there are many quieter moments that help build the tension so that the final climactic scenes feel even more rewarding when you get to them. 

Trey is no Twilight Jacob Black-style shapeshifter; when he changes he becomes a werewolf in the traditional sense - half human, half wolf - a brutal, towering beast who manages to retain his human thoughts and emotions only by wearing an ancient amulet that prevents him from becoming Wolfan, when his animal side would completely take over. It is not until the third book, Blood Wolf, that we see what a Wolfan is really capable of, and it certainly ain't pretty. In this book Trey's voyage of discovery takes him further afield, when he flies to Canada to search for his long estranged Uncle Frank. Where the other books focused on Trey's fight against Caliban and his netherworld forces this book is much more about Trey trying to find somewhere he feels he truly belongs. During this Canadian visit he discovers the LG78, a pack of Wolfan living on Frank's land, and these creatures do not have an amulet to suppress their basic animal instincts, and at this point Steve Feasey really lets rip and we see far more blood than in either of the previous books.

The greatest benefit of reading a series of books back-to-back is seeing how the characters develop, especially the secondary ones. The first book in any series has to focus primarily on devloping a small handful of characters. This is especially the case in books in this genre where a main protagonist has to come to terms with discovering they are not human and Changeling is no exception. Dark Moon and Blood Wolf see characters other then Trey having to deal with new challenges and emotions and then leave us wanting even more. The great news is that according to Amazon Demon Games, the fourth book in the series, is due to be released in September. I am very excited about this book, but I am not going to say any more about it now as very soon The Book Zone will be featuring an interview with Steve Feasey in which he tells us a little more about this book.