This week the blog features a novella suggestion: The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson. I’m all about novellas right now as I prepare to present a FREE, ONLINE workshop on September 12, 2026. If you’d like to join me, navigate to the St. Louis Writers Guild website and follow the links labeled “Join the SLWG online event.”
For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing novella reviews, either previously reviewed here or on other websites, as well as some of the material from the workshop. A version of this blog was originally published at kathylbrown.com on January 28, 2019.
Join a young healer on a caravan journey traversing a mystical, magical, and hazardous terrain, replete with monsters and hazards to the heart.
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is a close third-person account of a trade caravan’s journey through an Africa-like fantasy world. Our point-of-view character is Demane, an outsider, who is the group’s healer. He’s also no slouch as a fighter and is even a diplomat at times, despite not speaking the native language of the region.
On the surface, this story is about the journey, particularly the miles that traverse the Wildeeps, a mysterious, magical (not in a good way) jungle. The caravan hears rumors early on about a dangerous beast roaming the Wildeeps to attack caravans.
Literary Language and Romance
The language of The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is amazing, the setting is wonderful, and the characterizations quite real. Interest in Demane’s voice and personal story keeps the reader on board through quite a lot of exposition. Of note, there are many named minor characters with lines. The book does a good job of differentiation by giving them unique voices.
My way into this story, however, was to recognize it is as a romance. Demane loves the group’s captain. The novella unfolds his feelings and the two men’s relationship gradually and skillfully. (Not a spoiler: the “beloved” relationship is in the book description.)
This romance prism was necessary for me because otherwise the tale makes little structural sense. The inciting incident of the story is a target practice drill scene between Demane and Captain. We go another 100 plus pages observing Demane’s reactions to the Captain’s various actions and decisions. In this period, we also learn something of Demane’s backstory, a bit of Captain’s background, and hear rumors about the creature of the Wildeeps. I appreciated the slow reveal and congratulated myself on figuring out stuff about Demane and this world. And then, a huge info dump occurs mid-book. Cool, unique world building, but still . . .
The Shape of Story in The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
The structural problem I had with the first part of the story: There isn’t an actual antagonist blocking the protagonist’s early plans and actions, neither looking at it as a romance nor as an adventure story. It’s the daily life of a caravan’s guard troop, basically. Demane gets mad at Captain at one point, briefly. They easily hug it out.
The last quarter or so of the book deals with the “adventure” and is structured more traditional. (Demane and Captain: “We’ll save the caravan.” Monster: “I’ll eat that caravan, thank you very much.”) this section is totally engrossing. It ties together all the apparently random threads of the first part—Demane and Captain’s relationship, their backgrounds, and the menace of the monster in Wildeeps.
I enjoyed this book and would recommend for people that like an up-market, even literary, take on their science fiction/fantasy. Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham comes to mind as a comparable in that regard. [Ed. note, 9/4/26: for those interested in novella, Specimen Days is three, interrelated novellas.] A few structural issues made The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps a less engaging reading experience than it could have been for me.
What do you look for in science fiction and fantasy? Comment on the blog.
If you are interested in The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, you might like to read my review of Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was.
And Now a Word from Our Sponsor
“The Talking Cure is a marvelous story—an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery infused with a strong sense of the Weird… and a hearty dose of magic on the side. It’s ideal for all fans of the sinister, the surprising, and the strange.”—Cherie Priest, award-winning author of Boneshaker
Find The Talking Cure at these fine locations:
Left Bank Books in St. Louis
Subscribe to the email list for exclusive content and announcements of new books and appearances. And, of course, I’m selling books. Check out all my stories at Amazon.com and my Shop.
Wolfhearted is also available as an Audible audiobook, here.
Last year, St. Louis Writers Guild published Weird STL, an anthology celebrating the strange, spooky, and just plain wonderful stories of our hometown. This volume of short stories, poems, a play, and essays includes a Sean Joye universe short story, “Big Magick.” Joseph Arwald, one of the baddies from The Big Cinch, tells us what really happened to the Ferris Wheel from the St. Louis 1904 World’s Fair.
Reviews, even a line or two, put the books you enjoyed in a more prominent position on Amazon and are vital for independent and small-press books to find their audience. Remember your most recent read? Leave a review for it on Audible, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Goodreads.
The direct links to post Amazon reviews are: Wolfhearted, here, The Resurrectionist, here, and Water of Life, here. The Big Cinch, here. The Talking Cure, here. Thanks in advance.