"Insufferable. That's the first word that came to mind after I finished reading this book. Ok, that's a lie; the first words were, ""Thank God that's over!."" While reading this book, I kept imagining that I knew exactly how Alex felt in Clockwork Orange when they strapped him to that chair.

Anyway, this book was awful. The characters were boring, the story was non-existent, and the dialogue was incredibly stilted. I wish that the author had just written this as an essay instead of as a novel. A piece of fiction has to work on *several* different levels, none of which this book achieved. While reading this, I kept feeling that the author simply wanted to get his point across, which is fine... for an essay. Why even bother writing a book if you don't care about plots, good writing or memorable characters or events?

I will probably never read this book again, and I won't be suggesting it to any friends any time soon. The only reasons I finished this were A) it was free and B) I'm just a little stubborn." ( )

The Gnoll Credo tells the tale of Gryka and Aidan, two tremendously different individuals - one being human and the other being a Gnoll. The two share tales and learn about each others' cultures through conversation, and we learn what it means to be a Gnoll in a world that initially seems distant but is littered with references from our world. This lack of a different fantasy setting may be enough to deter some readers, but the real deterrence may be in the actual writing. Though it is a book that can quickly and easily be read, there is not much to grasp from it. This is the typical story of a white man who goes above and beyond to join a native culture because modern society is bad. He learns what it means to be strong, fast and efficient.

As countless reviewers have suggested, reading this is like reading a book version of Avatar, Dances with Wolves, The Lost Samurai, Pocahontas or many other modern movies - except the characters are weaker and the author's agenda is to make the reader feel as if he is living a wasted, weak life. For pure entertainment purposes it isn't a terrible book, but expect to be preached to for not living your life differently. ( )

I’ve put off writing a review of this for quite awhile. When I finished this totally engaging work, I wasn’t sure I knew what to say about it. It may not be possible to describe this work without making it sound like one of many other-world sci-fi or alternate world fantasy novels. This could be categorized as sci-fi or fantasy, but that doesn’t really say what this work is about.

Writing about a time/place somewhere between Tolkien’s Middle Earth and 19th century Australia, Stanton uses the interaction between an academic bureaucrat and a ‘savage’ (whose people are direct competitors with humans for space) to explore questions of what is ‘civilized’; was the shift to agriculture, settlement, and ever growing communities good for humankind; and, can we even consider abandoning the path we’re on for an alternative that we rejected thousands of years ago. Stanton presents these issues without answers while weaving a completely engaging and sometimes shocking story that encourages the reader to empathize with a creature and a culture that one would normally reject outright.

Well, there’s my attempt to describe the experience of reading this book. The short review is this – Just read it. It’s a quick read, with no wasted pages, and whether or not you enjoy the story itself, as I did, it will leave you thinking about how we live on this planet in ways you probably have not considered before.

Os. ( )

I have very, very mixed feelings about this book, and I am going to try to express them as best I can.

Overall, I found the book itself, purely as a piece of writing, to be not difficult to read. Other than the awful Epilogue, the book is tightly-paced and does not drag. Aside from that, however, I found it hard to enjoy the book for several reasons.

Firstly, the world in which the book is set confuses me. At first, I figured that it would be a subtle fantasy world, something with which I have no problems. However, as the book moved on, references to people and religions in our world show up -- even an "in Soviet Russia"-style joke, which really jarred me. It really confused me that the book's world would be so different from ours and yet contain contemporary references. Secondly, the story is rather stereotypical: white man (and yes, you can tell he is white, despite the fact that his world is not ours) goes out into the African wilderness and falls in necessarily unfulfillable love with a strong-willed native woman (or hyena-woman, whatever). Thirdly, the book, like any book or movie about a white man who goes out into the wilderness to spend time with a native woman, has him idealizing the heck out of the native culture without having to deal with its harsh realities first-hand. The fact that it's a hyena-woman/gnoll doesn't erase the fact that the gnoll culture is a thinly-veiled reference to the way that native cultures are seen by idealistic white people in the real world, and a rather condescending and slightly offensive view at that. Fourthly, the hyper-masculine and mildly misogynistic world proposed for human life by the narrator is depicted by the narrator as ideal without ever really exploring any of the repercussions of such a world for non-white and/or non-male people. Last, but not least, any enjoyment I might have had of the book was utterly erased by the epilogue. The ideas hinted at and joked about in the book are taken and fashioned into a club with which the author then beats you to ensure that you understand that he wants you to stop being a squishy, lazy, sheep-le farmer and become a fast, efficient predator (even though the model for civilization that he proposes is utterly unrealistic, especially for human women).

The story of White Man Goes Native (and Usually Gets a Female in the Bargain) is one that has been done over and over again (see: Avatar, Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, even Ace Ventura). As a non-white non-male, I am kind of tired of seeing and reading the same story, but I suppose it's so compelling for certain people that we'll keep seeing it coming up. I guess I just can't get behind the ideas of anyone who see cultures that lack the basics of civilization as somehow superior to civilizations where we can actually cure diseases and such. ( )

The Gnoll Credo starts with a fantastic assumption: Gnolls, intelligent humanoids descended from hyenas, live somewhere across the Ghamor Desert. Rumor is that one has even learned to read and write. Aidan O’Rourke, a scholar specializing in Alpha predators, sets out to verify the stories.

Upon reaching the frontier, O’Rourke is met by Gryka, who seems to be waiting for him. She tells him that Gnolls do not have a written philosophy, but if he waits, she will write it for him. Gryka and O’Rourke spend the rest of the summer translating the document she produces; this is the Gnoll Credo.

Building a story around an ethnographic document and using episodic character excavation rather than a traditional plot makes The Gnoll Credo seem more a political treatise, like Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward or a Platonic dialogue, than the usual fiction. Stanton’s over-arching premise is that adopting agriculture was a mistake, that humans are hunters at heart and denying this has caused most of our collective misery. While we may disagree with this, Gryka is such a compelling representation of what is wild that it is easy to be swept along without considering the underlying argument and simply accept this alternative way of being. The end result is a hard to describe little book, but one that continues to demand thoughtful attention long after the final pages.