I picked up The Red Wolf Conspiracy because it has a picture of a full-rigged ship on the cover. As a passionate, but certainly not exclusive, reader of age-of-fighting-sail historic naval fiction, I am intrigued by the possibility of successful HNF/SF hybrids. There are some quite good cross-overs between HNF and mystery fiction, as well as espionage and even romance, but I'm still looking for the perfect mix of HNF with the genre I read avidly in my long-ago youth, Science Fiction. Taylor Anderson has produced an excellent SF/Naval Fiction series, but it is based on WWII destroyers – fun, but not my cup of sunshine. Tom Grundner did a creditable hybrid with the first book of his Sir Sydney Smith series, but then wrote out the SF elements when he republished. (I haven’t read Naomi Novik yet, but I have high hopes there. So little time…) The action of TRWC does take place on a sailing ship but, despite the occasional “stunsails aloft,” it is not really naval fiction. It is, however, a damn fine novel and I was forced to put my quirky expectations aside and enjoy it on its own merits.

The Chathrand is by far the largest ship in the world, the last survivor of a distant era, and she is being prepared for a mysterious voyage. She carries not only a variety of nationalities and classes, but a mixture of sentient species. The action centers around two young people, Pazel Pathkendle, a tarboy (the lowest of the ship's crew) and Thasha Isiq, the daughter of the ship's most exalted passenger. Everyone aboard has secrets and few people are what they seem.

Secrets are revealed as the characters pursue their competing ambitions and the reader is forced to confront questions about the nature of good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, life and death.

The world of Alifros is richly drawn and the action is compelling. As in the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy, young people struggle to be more than pawns in great schemes to which they are not privy. Like Pullman, Redick creates a sense of constant foreboding amid awareness of poorly understood menaces. Redick's readers, like Pullman's, cannot avoid that most imponderable of questions, “How can grown-ups be so stupid?” This first of four volumes, despite all the action, is really only exposition. Over the first three months of the Chathrand's voyage we achieve a better understanding of the characters and the issues that drive them, but the story doesn't come close to a resolution. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Mr. Redick's debut novel, The Red Wolf Conspiracy, takes place in a fantasy world in which the main mode of travel is by sailing ship, which leads to adventure on the high seas for the story's main characters. This story begins shortly after a terrible war, when a six-hundred-year-old ship sets sail for enemy lands in order to create an enduring peace between the world's two greatest monarchies. When the characters uncover a dark conspiracy surrounding the Red Wolf, a legendary and dangerous artifact, they must face a host of dangerous foe and fight for their very lives while uncovering secrets that could destroy both empires.

While the first half of this novel is fast-paced and well written, I found the middle to be slow and cumbersome, not nearly as well-fashioned as the first part. The ending, though satisfactory and set to merge well with the sequel, failed to make up for the humps, bumps and downright clumsy feel of the middle part of the book, where some elements seemed ill-timed or out of place. The concept is marvelous, very intriguing, but the middle of the story could benefit from some editing and possibly from another draft to smooth out some of the inconsistencies.

Over all, not bad for a first novel. I eagerly await the next installment of the series and hope to see some improvement in the flow of the storyline. Recommended to adult fantasy and sea-faring fans who don't mind the violence, which may be disturbing to some readers.

This review was previously published on Dragonviews ( )

When a new fantasy author is being compared to such standouts as George R. R. Martin, China Mieville, and Philip Pullman, there's bound to be quite a bit of buzz. Redick proves himself worthy of such buzz, but leaves plenty of room for improvement in the sequel to this nautical adventure fantasy. The book centers on a handful of characters human and animal sailing on the great ship Chathrand. These include Pazel, a teenage tarboy with the power to understand any language; the Arquali daughter of the ambassador to the other superpower, Mzithrin, whose marriage to one of the Mzithrini princes is meant to bring about a lasting peace; a sentient rat; and the queen of a race of tiny humanoid stowaways hoping to return to their home across the sea. As it gradually becomes apparent to these characters that the ships's captain and others in league with him are conspiring to somehow begin a war rather than induce peace, the various heroes must band together to thwart the conspiracy or risk the unleashing of an ancient evil upon the world.

"The Red Wolf Conspiracy" has two major strengths - it is a fine nautical adventure (from which comparisons to Mieville's "The Scar" spring, although Redick is nowhere as wildly imaginative or skilled at worldbuilding) and a complex, sympathetic teenage lead in Pazel (the Pullman comparisons). As other reviewers have commented, this is a good, fast-paced book that is hard to put down, but it fails to be a great book for several reasons. First and foremost, too much of the plot is revealed and advanced through huge chunks of character dialogue, especially limiting the appeal of what would otherwise have been an excellent tale of intrigue. There's a lot of "telling" rather than showing here, and at no point does this book rate anywhere close to George R. R. Martin's skill at court intrigue. Second, most of the characters, both good and bad, are rather one-dimensional and hard to distinguish, aside from Pazel, the ambassador's daughter Thasha, and Captain Rose. Overall, the book has its exciting moments and promises more in the following sequels. Here's to hoping Redick fixes the leaks in this literary ship and finishes the voyage with more favorable winds. Moderate violence, mild allusions to sex. Ages 13+.

A fine fantasy, I do say...
http://www.madnessabides.com/2009/06/... ( )

The Red Wolf Conspiracy
Robert V. S. Redick
Historical Fiction
Del Rey (2009), Hardcover
464 pages
Advance Readers Copy

The first moment I opened this book I could smell the salty sea spray and feel the snap of the heavy canvas sails in the wind. I could hear the creak of ageless magical timber and twisted hemp and the sound of a thousand activities as sailors scurried the deck of the Chathrand as it plied The Quiet Sea. Not since Raymond Feist’s “The King’s Buccaneer” or C. S. Forester’s “Hornblower” books have I had such fun on the high seas.

I truly enjoyed “The Red Wolf Conspiracy” and was pleasantly surprised and impressed by such a highly imaginative debut novel. I’m looking forward to all his future works. This is an historical seafaring romp with a magical/fantastical twist entwined with political intrigue which kept me turning pages at a furious rate. This is an enjoyable read with intelligently crafted characters, locations and scenes and was undeniably captivating. Best of all, there wasn’t a single misplaced or wasted word. I ask you to recall the first time you read “Lord Valentine’s Castle” or any of the “Pern” stories and you’ll begin to understand how wonderfully immersed in the fantasy I became while reading this tale.

My favorite characters were the tiny Ixhxchr which appear to be loosely based on Ireland’s “Little Folk” and Captain Nilus Rose, the stalwart skipper of the greatest ship to ever sail.

I can’t think of a single negative thing to say about this book. And, after an hour of thought I still can’t seem to find the right words to praise it highly enough.

5 of 5 stars

The Alternative
Southeastern Wisconsin ( )