When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift
I would like to thank Arcadia for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and valid review
Publisher – Arcadia
Published – Out Now
Price – £20 hardback £9.99 ebook
Decades from now, two women sit beside a campfire and reflect on their life stories.
Activist Lucy's earliest memories are of living with her grandparents during the 2020 pandemic and discovering her grandmother's love of birds. Filmmaker Hester was born on the day of the Chornobyl explosion and visits the site years later to film its feral dogs in the Exclusion Zone. Here she meets Lux, the wolf dog who will give her life meaning.
Over half a century, their journeys take them from London to the Highlands to Somerset, through protests, family rifts, and personal tragedy. Lucy joins the fight to restore Britain's depleted natural habitats and revive the species who once shared the island, whilst Hester strives to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.
Both dream of a time when there are wolves again.
I read a quote yesterday where someone discussing some predictions for the year ahead just said ‘Uncertainty is the new normal’ which certainly feels like what I sense whenever I read the news at the moment to which ‘unsettled’, ‘apprehension’ and ‘dread’ could also be added. Science Fiction is supposed to be the extrapolation of current scientific thinking to posit new futures and often one issue is that currently feels very hard to see where is that future coming from if we start where we are now. Even Star Trek says to get to its future we needed an apocalypse on earth first. The so called ‘hard science’ is often focused on physics, engineering and the way of spaceships, alien settlements and yet often forgets that there are other sciences that also create wonder and can explain what horrors could happen to us. In EJ Swift’s magnificent When There Are Wolves Again, we take a trip through a potential future of the 21st century, an exploration of biology and environmental science but above all that it will not be easy, not always certain but that a future is possible.
For a tale of the future lets return to a year we seem often to deliberately ignore. Our story starts in 2020. Lucy is a young girl in Covid lockdown and her two parents working from home for the first time are finding childcare difficult. The solution is to use their ‘bubble’ and get Lucy to stay with her grandparents. It’s a little unsettling but very soon Lucy discovers with them a love of nature, exploring wildlife, birdwatching and growing plants in the garden. Meanwhile in the Ukraine Hester is a filmmaker in her mid-thirties who has finally reached a place that has cast a huge shadow on her life. Chernobyl in the Ukraine where a nuclear disaster took place on the day she was born and she’s had a strange fascination with the idea of the place ever since; where nature has come back without us. Filming a documentary about the vets dealing with the rising dog population Hester is suddenly involved in the taking care of a wolf who is pregnant and becomes the unexpected owner of a young pup she names Lux. Hester feels for the first time she has a true purpose to be a witness and show the world what is possible.
When There are Wolves Again is not the story of two people who just by themselves change the world. It a much more interesting story that explores two women across the next fifty years of their lives and how they play a role in the huge changes that are about to come. As one character is told 2020 is very much a fracture point where all the inequalities of life were for a period very visible. We saw how fragile our support systems are and then some of us have tried to just ignore it and others saw a need to do better. Swift also points out that contrary to some politicians the broken climate and environmental damage on the world doesn’t really care if you want to cut funding or not it will just do what the science tells us if we do not change our ways. Skilfully as we jump the years in Lucy and Hester’s lives we see an escalation in the events that we are seeing now. The weather gets more extreme. We get longer, hotter and more frequent ‘heat domes’ where Swift makes us feel those days and nights where it hits over 40 degrees but now there are constant water shortages making towns feel constantly on edge. The idea of heat so hard it kills birds in trees and dries garden ponds but also wrecks farmlands, creates floods and is ever escalating. Ultimately change is needed as we do not have any real choice if we actually want to survive
Where Lucy and Hester play a role then explores how we can promote and encourage and indeed own a change. Hester is a fascinating figure very much a loner and perhaps therefore suitable she is accompanied by a wolf. She feels strangely detached from the world. Pre-2020 she described her existence as a half-life and yet now feels she is instead the cypher. She can make people see what is going on, why action is needed and show the world the people who are doing the hard work. Swift shows her camera-like sese of detachment as her scenes are narrated in second person and this effect works to make us see that Hester sees herself as the lens for the history happening around us. In Lucy’s story we explore her increasing interest in environmental science; fully supported by her grandmother who shines in all her scenes as someone Lucy finds she can talk to and be challenged by but also though her discovers activism. For Lucy though its not just about the marches its about having a clear goal and unusually this happens when a very elderly King Charles suddenly announces that on his death, he is bequeathing all land to the people for rewilding. This does not go down well on his death with the powers that be or his family! Lucy becomes involved in the legal fight and years long protest to keep this idea alive. While this goes on the idea of ‘recommoning’ becomes quite key to the story – that we need to return to the loss of private land transformed purely for business or development but to encourage land to address climate change and rewild our decimated wildlife populations. To return our balance as another just another species using the land not its pure owners to do as we want. Lucy holds a young group together when things are tough and gives them a base to work through. A symbol of the wider changes others need to make
On their own neither woman is going to change the world (a neat contrast to the science fiction of the Golden age which celebrates individuals) but their ability to show us what is possible by documentary or by organisational work is creating strands of changes that link together changing society’s need for a revolution of a different kind. Changes to pollutions, restrictions on air travel, better social support from universal income to better democracy. None of which happens overnight this is a story told over decades and Swift pushes us that nothing here is easy. We see the forces against them in several ways. There is a haunting concept of the Endling Markets where the rich just value taking the last of any species and trade in them for the desire to have the last ever creatures stuffed and in display in their vaults. They have no care for anyone else just their own pleasure. Another group is the new Albion Party a right-wing extremist group that uses the discontent of the country to feed its agendas and has taken an anti-environmental theme but purely as cover for its own agenda. Swift makes us capture the hate and pain of several confrontations with this group but the story highlights that they’ve no actual solutions for the escalating problems we face that will get worse if we just stick our fingers in the ears or paint a flag on a roundabout. They are dangerous, need to be confronted but they’re quite shallow which is a lesson we need to hear right now.
But I also loved how Swift points out such change is never going to be easy. Not just lucy battling legal systems and media but with Hester we find as we go along her backstory it links to the farms on Somerset that in many ways began her own environmental journey but as climate change attacks the land there are choices that actually bring her back to the family farm as people realise that to protect the wider countryside that farmland need to be returned to the marshes they were originally prior to agricultural business taking over. It would be very easy to ignore that this changes people’s own lives, but Swift makes us look hard at what that means for someone giving us a home for generations, having to suddenly find a new role and yet we see the beauty such change will also create. We need to support those adversely impacted by change is a key message in the book so they can change too.
Along the way we start to see the changes take fruit. Better public transport, the use of airships, children very interested in the world and their role in it and even a Mars mission to a new world. On that last one it noted this is the third attempt a reminder humans rarely give in and even when not easy we will try and get it right again next time which in many ways feels a metaphor for the book. Watching how our characters change and yet stay fundamental to who they are is fascinating and so I came away with a feeling that a future, that a balance we have lost with nature centuries ago is actually in sight of returning.
EJ Swift a few years ago with The Coral bones delivered one of my favourite ever science fiction novels. It is quite impressive to say When There Are Wolves Again is now yet another and this is a book I did not know I needed so much. The use of nature is lyrically described, the power of science to explain the danger and aid us to do better is carefully explained but the human element is where this story excels, to tell us that we as a collective group can do better and this is what it could potentially look like. Coming back to that feeling of uncertainty it’s a word that also doesn’t mean all is lost there is also a chance of a future for us and so this is excellent science fiction for the twenty first century because this gives us that feeling of possibility – hope. I think When There Are Wolves Again is going to be a book hard to beat for my favourite of the year. Incredibly strongly recommended!
