Wolves of the Beyond 11 Years Later

As a teen, I absolutely loved Kathryn Lasky’s books. Whatever she wrote, I would read it, especially when it came to books related to the world she created in Guardians of Ga’Hoole. Therefore, when I had finally finished reading those books, it was only natural that I should move on to what was then her ongoing Wolves of the Beyond series. I remember getting the first two and devouring them within a week or so, then eagerly awaiting each successive book as it came out in the following couple years.

I recently revisited this old classic in audiobook form to see if it has held up or not. Such is the topic of this week’s post. I will try not to give too much away, but I make no guarantees.

For those who don’t know, Wolves of the Beyond is a 6-book series about a wolf named Faolan, and covers everything from his puphood to the fulfillment of his destiny as a “gyre soul.” It takes place in the region known in the Ga’Hoole series as Beyond the Beyond, and in standard Lasky style never lets you forget that fact. Chronologically, it is set in the years immediately following the events in Guardians of Ga’Hoole. As the title suggests, 90% or more of the characters are indeed wolves (who seem to have inexplicably lost the “dire” status they were granted on their initial appearance in the previous series).

To begin with, I will say that back when I first read this series, I did so at a very rapid pace–about 3 days per book, as I recall–so I am not entirely sure how much I was truly able to take in. Thus, I found I remembered only a few highlights when coming back to read this again 11 years later. And that would be my first note: how unmemorable most of the storyline is. I have read many things over the years and some stuck with me better than others even over a similar time span, but between the endless review passages and whole chapters devoted to the internal thoughts of the wolves, the moments of memorable action or even dialogue in this series are few and far between. Perhaps the best examples of this are books 4 and 5, where it is hard to even detect a climax before you have already moved on to the resolution.

And that brings me to my second point: audience. This series is classified as “Middle Grade”, which is to say it is aimed at readers roughly 9-12 in age. However, I find it extremely unlikely that a child that age would have the patience to read through an entire scene devoted entirely to Faolan pining for his “second milk giver” (the grizzly bear who raised him), then proceeding to carve one of her bones with the story of his puphood on it. Granted, the whole bone-carving business gives the wolves a more doglike air that I suppose makes them a bit more relatable to dog-lover readers out there. On the whole, though, this series is filled with such chapters, which often retread the same ground over and over to the point that even the most emotional moments become uninteresting to an adult, never mind a kid who picked up this book hoping to have all kinds of wolfish action. Especially if that child read the Ga’Hoole series first, and expected this one to be the same way. On the other hand, if Lasky intended these to be bedtime stories to send children off to sleep in a hurry, I think she succeeded admirably.

This leads me to another noticeable feature, and that is the endless repetition. It seems to be part of Lasky’s style in general when writing a series to pause and remind the reader in detail what happened in every previous book in that series. This can be very helpful the first time through, when the reader only gets to the next book every few months to a year, or if a reader somehow comes into the series halfway through. However, when reading the whole thing through back-to-back, it becomes very tedious very quickly, and comes off more as filler than as necessary information to fill in the blanks. She did this to a certain extent in the Ga’Hoole books as well, but there was enough happening in the series to take it. Here, with the memorable moments so sparse, the review passages stand out like a needle in the eye of the reader.

Regarding the plot itself, it is questionable how much was planned out in advance. The first three books were the best, in my opinion, and the ones with the most memorable happenings despite the constant psychodrama tucked in between. With book 4 things seem to slow down, and by book 5, after the initial shock, things practically come to a dead halt while the author determines one by one who survives the great cataclysm and who does not–to the extent of introducing a character and her entire backstory into the plot after she’s already dead! Things pick up again in the final volume as they necessarily must in a series finale, though even in it there is a lot of obvious filler meant to pad what is otherwise a very simple plot (to the extent of spending an entire chapter talking about the life cycle of a caterpillar, I kid you not). So, while all 6 books fit well together into one cohesive narrative, the pacing leaves a lot to be desired, and the core narrative itself is so short that it could have benefitted greatly from having far less filler stuffed in between.

One thing this series does fairly well is create a few memorable characters. Perhaps it is because of the endless review, but you can come away from this series with a pretty clear idea of at least the main players. Considering that, with the exception of two owls and a few bears, every single character is the same species, this is a pretty notable achievement. The side characters are harder to distinguish, in part because the number of talented female wolves becomes rather astronomical by the 3rd or 4th volume, but there may be one or two who stick out depending on the reader’s sensibilities.

So, at the end of the day, does this secondary series measure up to Lasky’s signature Guardians of Ga’Hoole series? Most definitely not. It seems clear that Scholastic thought Lasky’s reputation (coupled with the idea that wolves are somehow a more “relatable” animal than owls because of their doggishness) would sell this series. And perhaps to an extent they were right: case in point myself at the time. However, upon rereading, it seems to me that this series is a mediocre read at best whose audience is only superficially the same one that read the Ga’Hoole series. Between the slow pacing, the endless psychodrama, and the occasional insertion of high concepts and words that your average 10-year old is extremely unlikely to grasp, I would say Wolves of the Beyond is a masterpiece of Lasky self-indulgence that doesn’t seem to know its target audience and doesn’t seem to care. There were moments of that showing through in the latter books of the Ga’Hoole series as well, but this one took that beyond the pail.

Would I recommend it? Maybe. But then, I still have fond memories of it from my young adulthood. If you’re looking for a slow-paced read with a lot of self-reflection punctuated with occasional natural disasters and very occasional external conflict, then this is definitely the series for you.