The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The first book in a brand new fantasy series by Adrian Tchaikovsky.This is an ever popular coming-of-age story, in an epic fantasy setting featuring warfare, tribal loyalty, twisted politics and invasion.A young girl is estranged from her tribe, as her mother was from a despised rival clan. This is despite the fact that her father is chieftain. Her greatest secret is that she's gained powers from both factions. A child of two worlds, she must escape to survive.But even as her actions trigger war, a greater threat appears on the horizon, which will signal a battle to the death for all the tribes.

Imagine a world where humans had animal spirts and could shift between their animal and human form with nothing more than a thought.

Now, imagine the people express and share the characteristics of their animal spirits.

Add in some intrigue, some existential threat, rebellious teenagers, misinformation, and ancient history.

Mix.

This story is beautiful, exciting, and refreshingly different.

// the speculative fiction authors challenge
// part 3 continued: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Prior to this novel I've only read Elder Race, a novella I wasn't particularly excited about, but for the sake of this reading challenge I wanted to read a novel length book as well.

I will acknowledge that Tchaikovsky is very thorough in his worldbuilding. I do really enjoy this universe of tribes that worship these animal gods and can shapeshift into said animal. But... The pacing of this book is unfathomably slow. And most of the character building is aggressive male behaviour (and sometimes aggressive women trying to prove their worth in this animal universe) and I got really tired of the stereotype animal characteristics projected onto these “humans” very early on. I don't know... It didn't work for me.

I don't know if it's the same for all Tchaikovsky's books, but I'm thinking they work better for someone who loves rich worldbuilding more so than complex characters. I'm the opposite: I prefer to understand the world through the characters.

So it's a 2.5* for me, I'll round up to 3. And the verdict of this challenge is Tchaikovsky is not for me.