#meg long

[erineisenhour]

“Cold is the night that falls.

Yet,

Fast are the wolves that race the storm.”

–Meg Long, Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves

[bigdreamsandwildthings]

A very wintry book haul ❄️

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: Edge Worlds

Author: Meg Long

Series or standalone: series

Publication year: 2022

Genres: fiction, fantasy, science fiction, dystopia, adventure

Blurb: 17-year-old Sena Korhosen hates the sled race, especially after it claimed both her mothers' lives five years ago. Alone on her frozen planet, she makes money any other way she can...until she double-crosses a local gangster. Desperate to escape, Sena flees with his prized fighting wolf, Iska, and takes an offer from a team of scientists. They'll pay her way off-world on one condition: that she uses the survival skills her mothers taught her to get them to the end of the race. But the tundra is a treacherous place. When the race threatens their lives at every turn, Sena must discover whether her abilities are enough to help them survive the wild...and whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive. As the girl and the wolf forge a tenuous bond and fight to escape ice goblins, giant bears, and the ruthless gang leader intent on trapping them both, one question drives them relentlessly forward: where do you turn when there is nowhere to hide?

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Swift the Storm, Fierce the Flame | Author: Meg Long | Publisher: Wednesday Books (2023)

[traveltobeprovedwrong]

Thanks @euphcme for tagging me! I’m always down to talk about books. Please note I am one of those chaotic people who cannot help reading more than one book at the same time lol.

Last read: Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves

Currently reading: A River Enchanted (somewhat on pause because I just received…), The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi (was SO excited for this book and loving it so far), The Two Towers (audio), and Swift the Storm Fierce the Flame (ebook)

Next read: planning on Cloud Cuckoo Land which I got in hardcover from a used book sale for like $5!

Passing it on to: @jamdoughnutmagician @mountainwanderer @thischick25 @teenytinyjamjar and anyone else who wants to share their reads!

[ladzwriting]

ARC Review: SWIFT THE STORM, FIERCE THE FLAME by Meg Long (2023)

Genre: Young Adult Science FictionYear Release: January 17, 2023Buy Links: Bookshop.org | Unabridged Books | Libro.fm ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. Read a NetGalley eARCContent warning: gun violence, weather disasters, blood, explosions, loss of parents, colonialism, implied nonconsensual medical experimentation, mentions of torture. There is a wolf. The wolf experiences some peril, but the wolf…

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[lesserjoke]

Book #74 of 2022:

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long

The protagonist of this YA novel reminds me strongly of Katniss Everdeen: a teen girl, cold and toughened beyond her years, forced to enter into a deadly spectacle where she puts her wilderness survival skills to good use and gradually comes to open up and realize depending on others doesn’t have to be a weakness. In this case, the sci-fi action takes place on a future colony planet that has been ravaged by exploitative corporations, worsening the already-icy temperatures and dangerous storms. The path to the most profitable mining region, inaccessible to heavy-duty spacecraft and reached only by genetically-engineered wolves pulling sleds behind them, has become an annual event with an entire cottage industry around it — from the locals training to participate in the race, to their off-world patrons, to the audiences watching the drone feeds and gambling on every team’s odds. While it’s not as bloodthirsty as the Hunger Games, the competitors are encouraged to sabotage one another’s operations en route, above and beyond the inherently treacherous terrain.

The worldbuilding doesn’t provide too many cultural details on this society, but debut author Meg Long brings the harrowing setting to life in viscerally descriptive prose. As our viewpoint character reluctantly gets drawn into this contest that killed her mothers, she finds herself torn between their two respective worlds: the population of racers who are at least tacitly supporting the capitalistic forces of climate change and the tribe of settlers who have renounced those ways and retreated to seek harmony with nature. She also bonds closely with the feral wolf that a local gangster has asked her to train as a prizefighter, a tender relationship that forms the true emotional core of the story. When she ultimately frees the animal and flees the settlement, she has no choice but to join a group of friendly scientists as they embark on the race, helping them towards their research site and hoping to earn enough credits to travel literally anywhere else in the galaxy.

That mission only starts about halfway through the plot, but both before and after this point, it’s an absolute pulse-pounding rush. I am very impressed, and although the volume has been marketed as a standalone, the ending is open enough that I’d happily come back for a sequel. Maybe by then I’ll have finally stopped feeling the chill from this one.

[Content warning for frostbite, violence against animals, amputation, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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[ademella]

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