A Wolf in Space
Series: The Raoke Gang, #1
Author: Alex Valdiers
Genre: Space Fantasy
Book Description:
Gunslinger. Skyhorse rider. Lone Wolf. Malvius is a veteran gunslinger in Larragon, a six-planet solar system with two rivers: two train lines linking each planet together. The two rivers are a beehive for opportunistic merchants and feisty gunslingers.
All you need to survive in Larragon is a skyhorse to roam the open space and a gunblaster to protect your hide and earn your keep. Wild moons and saloons are aplenty, and money is easily made and lost, but life for Malvius isn’t about money; it is about helping who needs helping, shooting who needs shooting.
Along comes the Raoke Gang: shattered, their leader wounded, half of the gang incarcerated. Malvius feels compelled to help. Little does he know that simply relaying a message from their leader to the survivors of the Raoke Gang will send him on a wild course of events that will see him facing off a space wizard, assisting a space train heist, and becoming Larragon’s most wanted man.
Review:
From the first chapter, the main character, Malvius, stood out to me. I enjoyed the friendship and care he shares with his skyhorse, Rhiann, and his impulsive, intuitive, helpful nature. He’s a wanted man, outside the law, and he just steps in to help people. He’s a gunner, but he goes out of his way not to kill people. He scorns fear, and follows his interests, and from the beginning, the story makes very clear that it’s about Malvius himself, as it delves into all the complexities and contradictions of his thoughts.
This initial interest kept me reading, since for the first quarter or half of the book, I found the first person narration to be some of the most boring I’ve ever read, in a way that reminded me distinctly of what little Terry Pratchett I have tried to read.
I should also warn readers that there’s a very disgusting character, and a very disgusting and perverse on-page sexual scene, that almost made me quit the book. Neither the character nor the act is at all excused, but I found it perhaps a bit overdone, as I was already quite repulsed by a conversation in which the disgusting character had casually mentioned his perverse habits, and I did not feel I needed to read that.
I also found there was a lot more sex in the novel that I usually prefer. The rest of it wasn’t nearly perverse in the same way (though there was some noncensual sexual behavior – not on Malvius’ part, to be clear), but there was just too much of it for too long. Fortunately, it is easy to skip without losing too much of the story, if that is also not your thing. I would also note there is a fair amount of untranslated French dialogue, though most of the time you can still follow the basic gist of what’s going on, even if you don’t know any French at all. It wasn’t really an issue for me, but I note it because it’s a different experience.
But with the mention of French – a lot of real Earth cultures and religions are referenced in this book. Most of the time it was distant enough and such that it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book too much, but it was certainly not my favorite element. However, I should note, complaining about this would be like complaining about technology in sci-fi: the novel is quite clear about what it is.
Apart from all of this, once I really got into the book, I enjoyed it a lot. The plot seems to ramble a bit and is all over the place for a while – though that is tied up eventually – but even if it were not, I would not have minded, as the feel of the book is one that’s very focused on Malvius, who he is, why he does what he does, what he thinks and doesn’t think … it’s a character novel, so the seemingly unimportant, haphazard moments matter as much as anything else, and I would have been more than content if they had truly been as haphazard as they might seem at first. The choices he makes and doesn’t make, the things he feels, thinks, and doesn’t, big or small, are important to seeing who Malvius is.
And I really enjoyed that. Malvius makes – or doesn’t make – some choices that don’t look good, but the whole feel is one of a human being, and he’s a very thoughtful character, too. His philosophical musings, his thoughts on freedom, on fear, on what friendship means and the cost of friendship, on the human fear of being known, and his responses to these things, make the book sing in a lot of ways. He feels human, he has very interesting thoughts on the impressions other people try to make and his reactions to them, and what sets him apart most of all is that he’s aware of some of the pressures that chain people, and he’s trying to be true to himself – even if with only partial success. And that makes him unpredictable in a way.
I will also mention again that I really enjoyed his relationship to Rhiann. That was probably one of the individual things that made the book stand out most to me: there’s a time when Rhiann gets very injured, and he would never give up on her. There’s a woman involved as well, and what I loved most of all, is Malvius gets the sense she would never think of asking him to give up on his skyhorse friend. In a world where there’s so much of “putting creatures down” when they’re crippled, I loved that loyalty and compassion. For the sake of avoiding potential spoilers, I won’t say who that woman is, but I will mention that she’s a very real part of the story, I expect her to be a big part of the story going forward, and I really like her. I liked her courage, her compassion, her adventurous spirit, and more. I can’t describe it all, because she was one of those characters who “came alive” and I could just see her.
I also really enjoyed the way the story shows these rough people, these gunslingers, these criminals of one sort or another, gangs, and poor people, and just … stuff. And you see people. Some of them are pretty bad. Some of them are pretty great. Some of them are everywhere in-between. You see lots of people who despise and don’t give a care for a man who’s completely beaten down – and you see a couple people who do, for whatever reason it is they care in that moment. You see people who deserted from opposing armies come together. And you see they’re people, regardless of their class or origin.
And one of my favorite things was also the moment when the name of the book – A Wolf in Space – is revealed and given its meaning. It’s quite a while in, and it’s really neat.
As for the world-building or setting, I think it would best be described as high fantasy, but set in space. There’s all this fantastic space stuff, these moons with gravity and atmosphere and rivers, these glowing-dust rivers that trains ride, these space pegasi. It was pretty cool, though I found it a little jarring to have commentary about things like the speed of light among all these other fantastic things, like it just didn’t fit.
All in all, this is very much a character novel. It’s told through one character’s voice – though it is very complex with a lot of different people doing different things for different reasons. So it kind of feels like a huge epic, in that the world is that layered and full and complex, but it’s one of the most character-focused and -driven novels I have read. Almost like it’s just about who Malvius is, and who Malvius thinks he is. Some of it I enjoyed. Some of it I didn’t, really. Some of it I didn’t relate to at all. It definitely is one of those books that’s like nothing else that I have come across so far.
About Alex:
Alex Valdiers is a French indie Space Western Fantasy author of Laotian descent who currently lives in the South of England. The lack of a suitable platform and market for French Fantasy prompted Valdiers to move to the UK in 2012. After years of practice, his debut novella The Choice of Weapons, the first Raoke Gang novella, was released in August 2023 and reached the SFINCS Semi-Finals. His debut novel, A Wolf in Space, the first Raoke Gang novel, comes out on January 23rd. Valdiers has over 40 novels planned for the Raoke Gang series.
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