Hmm i feel ambivalent about this story. I enjoyed the initial 70% of it, but the last 30 were never-ending. As much as I loved Sena'story and the evolution of friendship with Iska, the race spoiled it for me: too luch struggle in the snow or storm, too much fighting, i felt often bored toward the end. But the beginning was exciting and promising. I particularly enjoyed Sena's coling face to face with wolf Iska and Sena letting down her guards as she rather quickly ubderstood that Iska wasnt trying to fight or hurt her, she was there "for " her. But the race dragged for too long, there wasnt nuch happened. This is really too bad

This book is amazing! And that cover 😍 The bond between Sena and Iska was my favorite part of this book but I loved every page!

I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to read this book. With its stunning cover and unique premise, I had high hopes and genuinely believed this was something I’d enjoy. I think it ultimately boils down to me not being the right reader for the story. There isn’t anything wrong with the book.

I would like to thank the publisher for providing an eARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This incredible debut tells the story of Sena, an orphan who wants nothing more than to get off her frozen planet and away from the race that killed her mothers. She is willing to do absolutely anything, including antagonizing a local crime boss, in order to get the money she needs to get away. Anything, that is, except join the race. That she won't do for anything - until she has no other choice.

As other reviewers have noted, this book starts slowly up until the race. There are a lot of things happening, but it seems like the author is creating more and more conflict to avoid getting to the main action. However, once the race starts the story moves incredibly quickly through the second half. The relationship between Sena and Iska is amazing, but I found I didn't care about most of the other characters until close to the end of the novel.

Long does a great job of creating a compelling world and an interesting main character. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

3.5 stars

For those who need it, "does the dog die" hidden behind spoiler tags in the Goodreads review.

Oh my I was not expecting everything that this was! What a fantastic, atmospheric and descriptive debut!! I could not stop reading. I was so immersed in the world, I wish there was more. Sena and Iska's bond shines through everything and is rooted in the backstory of Sena's moms. It was just an overall wonderful read.

A very big thank you to Netgalley, Meg, and Wednesday Books for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately this was not the book for me, I couldn't connect with the characters, and the lack of specific details in the world building felt lazy. The idea behind the book sounded really cool, but sadly it missed the mark for me. I DNF'd it after 20%.

Still working on this book, but the plot is interesting, the main character seems like a badass young woman, and I love books involving animals. I'll update the review once I finish!

Wow what a surprise and a treat, the first half is like a Sci/Fi Urban Fantasy mash-up, (I got some Mistborn/Six of Crows vibes here, but in space on a hostile winter planet) while the second half is pure survival/adventure thriller. **Thank you so much to both Netgalley and Wednesday Books for an eARC in exchange for my honest review!** I'm a week or so late getting this up, but I already ordered myself a copy and shortlisted in and have it on promo in my store:)

I loved that this was essentially a survival adventure set in a Sci/Fi world that still felt like Urban Fantasy. This was one of those stories that after reading the synopsis I wasn't sure this was going to be my kind of read, but boy was I wrong. This is one of those universally great entertaining (and action-packed) and heart-felt reads that crosses genres and readers alike.

The Low Down: Lots of intrigue and danger happening here (there's a criminal under world along with corporations that run the planet more or less, and our MC is a thief who's crossed the big bad criminal underworld boss), and a ton of action (through out the town and into the wilderness where creepy monsters roam), along with some very hear felt developments, namely the bond that occurs between our MC Sena and the wolf Iska, and found family themes (family bonds and friendships). The plot culminates in a deadly sled race across the frozen mountains and planes (ala the Iditarod but with bigger bio engineered wolves), where our heroine must face off against rival teams, thugs determined to kill her, a hostile frozen environment, otherworldly predators, and ghosts from her past.

Overall there was lots of intrigue and danger - it was super fast-paced with lots of action, but also with a lot of heart! I definitely want more from this universe/world, and wish it wasn't a stand alone novel. That being said there's an open-ended-ness to the ending that has me hoping to return to another adventure alongside Sena and Iska:) I highly recommend, especially to those who usually steer clear of SciFi, this book will make you a convert.

This book starts with a fascinating premise and then just runs with it! While the story may sound interesting from the summary, it only hints at the wild ride that is Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves. While there weren’t any shocking plot twists, the author does a great job of building tension and adding some fun surprises. My only complaint is that in order to build some tension and increase the stakes for the protagonist at the beginning of the novel, there are some repetitive scenes of Sena trying to make a living by herself.

Sena is the protagonist and she’s a fun character to follow through the story. She is street smart and savvy. While she does make decisions that sometimes made me want to smack my head against a wall, she has the confidence and unpredictability that make for a great narrator. The wolf she becomes intertwined with, Iska, has a great personality for a non-human character, as well. There are also some compelling and well-rounded secondary characters to balance out Sena and Iska’s strong personalities.

This story is set on a small ice world named Tundar, which has been abandoned by governments and run by corporations. The author does a great job establishing the dynamics and rules of this world before throwing the reader into the thick of the plot. However, since this is an entire ice planet, the descriptions, while beautiful, do get slightly monotonous by the end of the book.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is Meg Long’s debut Young Adult Science Fiction novel. If you grew up loving the movie Balto and other (literal) underdog stories, this book is a must read. The book has a great plot that will keep you reading, a kickass main character and a chilling setting that will make you feel right at home during this chilly January weather.

I found this book so stressful (in a good way). The book begins with high stakes that only become higher as the book progresses. Sena’s desperation to survive and leave her frozen wasteland of a planet behind is central to the plot, and what I really appreciated is that we as readers are shown rather than told about how desperate Sena is to escape. We see her desperation in how she puts herself in dangerous situations to scrape by. When Sena chooses to join the same sled race competition that killed her mothers — something she has actively avoided for years — her actions were completely believable because I knew she had no other choice.

As someone who lives in a pretty cold climate for most of the year, I appreciated that the cold weather was portrayed as unforgiving and dangerous. Nothing irks me more than when a story is set in an arctic wasteland, but the weather is treated as a secondary problem. It’s not, and I love how Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves never forgets where it’s set. The climate is an adversary in of itself and serves to increase the tension and desperation that is woven throughout this book’s plot.

Overall, an incredibly strong debut novel that I felt resonated with me on so many different levels.

A difficult read to get into. I read the first 50 pages but then sped-read the rest. I couldn't connect to the writing or the characters and thus zones out one too many times. That being said, the book's premise is wonderful and intriguing, but the execution is just a tad off.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for gifting me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the idea of this story, with lots of adventure and a deadly race with wolves, but it just didn’t excite me as much as I hoped it would.

Sena irritated me to no end. I understand that she lost her mothers and was severely depressed because of it, but her bitter, untrusting attitude drove me crazy. I did like that she was intelligent (when she actually stopped to think things through rather than being impulsive) and didn’t back down from a fight.

I loved that there was a found family. Remy and Iska were my favorite parts of the book. Both of them are fierce and loyal and just wanted a friend. Iska honestly surprised me and grew on me very quickly, though why wouldn’t I love an awesome wolf? Her and Remy are just the kick that Sena needs to fight her depression and move on with her life.

I did enjoy the race, it’s where I really think the book picked up, though it did take half the book to get there. It was faster paced and there was more action in it. And the world building throughout was great, I easily envisioned everything that happened at every point of the book. But I do feel like I have a lot of questions that I still want answered.

Overall, I think the idea of the story was different and exciting, but that the characters just needed to be fleshed out a bit more.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books, and Meg Long for the e-arc of Cold The Night, Fast The Wolves in exchange for an honest review.

On a frozen tundra planet, Sena Korhosen is forced to flee the safety of the city after angering the local gangsters and take part in the deadly race that took her mothers from her. She teams up with a group of scientists that promise to take her off world, on the condition that she guides them to the finish line so they can study the precious material everyone is fighting to control.

I love how action-packed this was. It was exhilarating and kept me on the edge of my seat through the latter half. The world-building and the premise were very well done. As we travel through the story, I could feel the brutal, icy weather and Sena’s struggle to survive in it.

I grew very attached to Iska, the wolf, and really felt the bond that grew between her and Sena. The found family element added a whole other dimension and heart to this adventure/sci-fi story. Sena, as a character, was a little annoying at first. She was so stubborn and hard-headed. But as her backstory is revealed, her motivations became clearer and I started to sympathize with her. The side characters were also very well written.

I would love to read more from Meg Long, whether in a new world or the one she has masterfully created.

Okay, so I was a little iffy about this book at first, but I’m so glad I stuck with it!

It turned out to be such a good, wintery read! A frozen ice planet, a Mad Max-esque sled race through the tundra, dangerous creatures in a desolate forest: what more could you want?

While I didn’t always agree with Sena’s choices, I loved watching her grow throughout the book! Not to mention her stubborn wolf counterpart. They made quite the pair on their journey and I would definitely read more about them—or even stories set in the same world. Maybe following another great character, Remy!

It was a little hard to pinpoint where this book genre-wise. It felt a little like sci-fi and fantasy and a little post-apocalyptic. It ended up a fun mashup set in a world I was eager to keep learning more about.

If you make it to the halfway point, don’t give up! It only gets even better from there.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is a science fiction fantasy set on tundra planet that is known for having a valuable metal that the corporations who run the planets want and need. Every year there is a race with genetically modified wolves. Sena is the daughter of two racers who died on the tundra, so Sena refused to ever race again. But when she finds herself in trouble with a pit boss and steals a fighting wolf named Iska, Sena does what she has to do to survive. Even if it means joining the race and taking on those threats.

This whole book was a JOURNEY. It took a bit to get into really and the world could have been explained better in my opinion, but once the action started I was hooked. Sena by herself in the beginning was irritating as a character, but a main factor in this book is found family and once Sena is with her group she really starts to shine. Also, this book does not include a romance, which is frankly almost unheard of. There isn't a subplot or even hint of a romantic connection and I really appreciated it. This book was about grit and survival, basically what The Hunger Games should have been without the love triangle.

I definitely recommend this for fans of science fiction YA. This is a very different take and personally I think it was a win for Meg Long. If you pick it up, be mindful of trigger warnings - there are a few to look out for.

**Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review**

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is a YA fantasy/dystopian novel set in a futuristic world filled with cold snow, ice and blizzards. Seventeen year old Sena is among the many who are competing in a dangerous race across the tundra to win her way off the frozen planet. Along with a team of scientists and a very special wolf, Sena is in for the fight of her life in this thrilling adventure story.

I thought this book was a lot of fun! I enjoyed the adventure aspects of the story and flew through the pages. The relationship between Sena and her wolf Iska was great, and while I'm not really a huge animal person, even I grew fond of the wolf by the end!

It sounds like there might be a sequel in the works? At least the book ended with an ending open enough to allow a sequel, and I would definitely willing to keep reading a story set in this world.

Thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Originally posted on Tor.com: https://www.tor.com/2022/01/17/book-reviews-cold-the-night-fast-the-wolves-by-meg-long/]

The Wolf Does Not Die in Meg Long’s Sci-Fi Iditarod Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves

The dead of winter is both the worst and the best time to read. It’s cold; you curl up with a book and a hot cup of tea. Maybe you have your dog next to you. Maybe there’s snow, or rain, or hail, or some other weather at your window. It’s cozy. It’s also, maybe, a little lonely.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is not cozy, but it is a deep exploration of loneliness, desperation, and survival. Our main character, Sena, is a teenager who lost her mothers during a dangerous dog sled race that underpins the entire economy of her small ice-planet. In this book, if people don’t race, they train wolves, or fix sleds, or play host to the Corpos that drop down when the race is about to start. While everyone around her is consumed by their need to mine the extremely lucrative ore under the ice that reveals itself only seasonally, Sena only wants off the frozen rock that’s been the only home she’s ever known. But when she rescues a brutalized fighting wolf from a ruthless crime boss, she gets pulled into the deadly race, and surviving the run across thousands of miles of tundra is her only hope of getting money for a space convoy before the criminal underbelly catches up with her.

The novel can easily be split into two parts: before the race and during it. The build up to the race itself is a slow-paced justification of how Sena will do anything but work the race. Then, about halfway through, when literally every other door she could try has been shut, locked, or blown up, and Sena finally runs to the starting line, the drag bar never lets off the ice. As Sena fights against nature and the other teams, she becomes a leader on this massive Iditarod-inspired race through an arctic landscape. While she bonds with the other members of her scientific team, she’s betrayed over and over, leaving her with only her native knowledge and a very ornery wolf to rely on.

I do want to reassure you; the wolf does not die. But… there are moments that come close.

This book, a debut young adult science-fantasy novel by Meg Long, is the kind of story that warns you to ice over your heart before reading. As you read, as Sena drives herself forward with a single-mindedness that is frustratingly simplistic and weirdly perfect for a seventeen-year-old girl, you can’t help but warm to her. A deeply flawed character, her earnestness and (forgive the pun) dogged desire to stay out of the dog race across the planet creates a sympathy that slowly melts off the page and into your heart. It’s hard to like Sena, but she’s trying so hard and sometimes that’s worth a lot more than just being charming.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves tackles a lot of difficult subjects, but tends to keep them at arm’s length. Issues of homophobia, bigotry, classism, and even climate change are all mentioned, providing a background of gritty reality amidst the ice goblins and genetically modified racing wolves. Long doesn’t pursue any of these with much dedication, but for a book like this, firmly grounded in the deep POV of our teenage protagonist, Long doesn’t really need to. Death, violence, and problems of survival are easily contended with, as they are the problems that Sena deals with in the immediate. The other, cultural issues are background problems that only occasionally come up in slurs and bigotry.

While this lack of a deeper introspection into the internal struggles of various cultures is a weakness of the book, it’s perfectly acceptable for a YA novel that isn’t focused on delivering a morality message at the end of it. There are native/first-contact scavvers that live outside of commerce, and Corpos who live inside of the planet itself. There’s not a lot of trust (or any) between the scavvers and the corporate colonizers, and Sena is caught firmly in the middle, with one mother a scavver and the other from the corpo. These lines of bigotry are much more clearly drawn between the culture of haves and have-nots, but both sides consider themselves the haves. In Cold the Night there’s really no need to go deeper into the easily drawn metaphors between real-world first-nation people and issues; more explaining or additional characters would only muddy the ice-clear narrative. Sena wants to leave. For that she needs money, and eventually she will be forced to run the race.

Plots like these are predictable, but that’s to Long’s strength. She can focus on worldbuilding, on the twists in the middle of the large decisions, on the nature that threatens Sena and her wolf from all sides. It’s a frigid, emotionally rich book, and while Sena’s motivations and dead mothers could probably take the backseat in the narrative a little more often, the core survivalist story at the heart of this book is compelling and immersive. The worldbuilding is focused, with a whole frozen planet focused on the act of mining ore. Long doesn’t let herself get distracted. There’s the town; there are the woods; there is the nebulous Outer Space, where Sena is desperate to go. You don’t need much else.

I enjoy reading about characters who have a deep knowledge of their surroundings, and reading Sena as she teaches others, trains her wolf, and simply survives, is very satisfying. She makes bad choices, and a lot of them, but never because of incompetence. Her choices are driven by desperation, anger, and frustration. While this is slightly maddening to read, it ramps up the tension, like a pack of dogs straining at their harnesses, until the book finally lets loose and the plot races forward without any hope of stopping it.

Delivering a Jack London-style survival story, Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves only asks the readers to remember that those who survive are determined and ferocious, even in circumstances that require them to be kind, to have faith, and to trust in their own knowledge.

The world-building in this book was absolutely fantastic. Set on a barely-livable planet that has one resource, exo-carbon, it follows a Sena and a fighting wolf, Iska as they race (literally) to freedom. The first half of this book is mostly getting to know Sena and where a bulk of the world-building takes place. We quickly learn that her mothers both died in the sled race that also serves as annual expeditions to the exo-carbon deposits that are only reachable during the non-stormy season. The sleds are pulled by vonenwolves, which are genetically enhanced and difficult to train. Luckly, Sena is one of the few that can, so she is basically kept by rich people to train their wolves.

The actual race starts about halfway through after the pair (Sena and Iska) make their escape. There is a good character arc that happens where they learn to trust each other and Sena starts to open up emotionally. However, the pacing is quite slow. The author spends a lot of time vividly building the world so that, although it was easy to immerse myself into it, the plot sometimes felt like it took a backseat. I definitely recommend this if you liked the movie Balto and are fans of survival stories.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves reads like Star Wars if Anakin was a cynical thief girl who grew up on Hoth instead of Tattooine. There are even a few moments later in the book where I went "Is that an intentional Star Wars reference?" I can't tell! Anyway, the Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is very the Iditarod meets pod racing. Mobsters included!

The entire first third of the book is just: This planet focuses entire on racing, I hate racing, I need to get off planet, all anyone cares about it racing and I hate everything about racing! 'Sena, why don't you race?' I hate racing, why doesn't anyone understand that?! I need to get off this planet. I hate racing, the only way to make money is racing and that's why I'm a thief, because I refuse to have anything to do with racing. Sena, why don't you just race? UGH, I hate racing, I need to get to a different planet! ...Lather, rinse, repeat.

I almost DNF'd, but WOO, I'm glad I stuck with it because right at the 30% mark the plot picks up and takes off and the book gets way better. Basically, methinks the lady doth protest too much (especially since the blurb already let us know she ends up racing...) This would have been a better book overall if the opening third didn't have so much complaining about the planet and the racing culture and how much Sena hates everyone and everything.

Once she actually starts working with the fighting wolf, Iska (another thing that bugged me about the blurb, it's not really accurate to say "her" fighting wolf...) and with the science team, the pace picked up somewhat and it became a lot harder to put the book down. There's a plot-twist/reveal I saw coming from 100 miles away, but it was still a really enjoyable read (after getting past the initial slog). I love the world building, and I hope there's another book about the continued adventures of... well, read the book and then you'll know who, I don't want to spoil anything! I was originally going to give this book 3 stars but I liked the ending enough that I bumped it up to a solid 4 stars.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book!

This was one of my MOST anticipated releases of 2022! I absolutely loved the concept of an Iditarod-type sled dog race on an alien planet with sci-fi elements, and this did not disappoint. I adored the world building; it felt so cold and gritty while I was reading, like I was really on the planet with them! And of course, I loved the wolves. The stakes were definitely high and I felt on the edge of my seat the entire time.
However, the main character was a bit unlikable, and the relationships felt a bit shallow, making it less impactful when certain events happened in the book. I wish it had focused on the main characters relationship with her wolf more, and actually showed her taming and training her instead of feeling like the wolf just "chose her".

4 stars.