Wolf and Iron by Gordon R. Dickson

As is my wont, I sometimes will Google 'apocalyptic fiction' to see if it has discovered my blog. So far I've been disappointed. I always get left out. Today when I looked I decided to look at the wikipedia link that is at the top of the page. Nothing new there. I looked at the bottom of the page at the external links part. Just for the hell of it I looked the Post Apocalyptic Media link. I registered so I'd be able to read the forums. I get some good recommendations from PA forums. I was reading some of the posts when I stumbled on one that linked back here. A comment below the first took issue with this blog because I couldn't force myself to finish 'Wolf and Iron' by Gordon R. Dickson.

I did enjoy the basic premise of the story. World goes to shit because of economic collapse. For a while it looked as though it may actually come to pass. I had no problem with the main stem of the plot line. My problem was the wolf. I made the egregious error of reading the foreword. In this section a Harry Frank relates how this book is an expanded version of a much older (and shorter) story. He also explains his offense to the portrayal of the wolf in the original story. Harry is a wolf behavior specialist and he thinks that the wolf and the domestic dog are being conflated.

Mr. Dickson decides to revisit the short story and update it with advice/suggestions from the wolf specialist. So to be more specific I had trouble getting through all the text book type details of wolf behavior. The book should have another author listed. I feel that the chair of the psychology department at The University of Michigan, Harry Frank, Ph. D should share cover credit.

Some critics have lambasted Stephen King and claimed he had 'diarrhea of the word processor' when he reworked The Stand. Trust me, King has nothing on Dickson. He managed to turn a short story that is just a scosh under 34 pages into a rather daunting novel of 468. Too much wolf information. Way too much. I had to hit the eject button on it.

Also when I read I prefer to do it for pleasure. I do enough reading to learn in school and with my master's research an' things an' stuff an' junk.

I still have the book and now is a good time to give it a second go. Good news/bad news: I can read this for a break from my thesis and at sub-jobs without being sucked into it too badly. Might be quite awhile before I finish it though.