Wolf Code: A Sheltering Wilderness

Brett’s debut intersperses the human world of game design, postgraduate university relationships, and virtual reality with the much more fascinating lives of gray wolves. During Donovan Williams’s first semester as a teaching assistant, he is challenged by, and attracted to, student Tsula Watie, an activist who’s passionate about wolves. As Don and Tsula get closer, he finds it necessary to hide his passion: working on the virtual reality game Transylvania Nights, in which players kill werewolves to survive. Woven through the narrative of Don and Tsula’s relationship is the compelling journey of Kan and Lana, the new alpha pair of a wolf pack that’s being driven from its hunting grounds by tigers. The ethical questions that Don must deal with, including animal rights and the benefits of virtual and immersive reality, are important, but a fluid timeline confuses the reader and doesn’t allow Don and Tsula much depth. Brett’s writing is much more natural in the portrayal of the wolf pack, showing their social structures and environmental pressures without overly anthropomorphizing. Ideally in future volumes Brett will develop the humans as much as the wolves. (BookLife)