My review on Call of the Wolf by JP Nelson

I’m a huge fan of epic fantasy novels, and recently I’ve been reading a ton of works by indie and self-published authors on using the Amazon Kindle system. One of the best recent works I’ve read is Call of the Wolf. Call of the Wolf is well-written and intelligent, coming of age, high fantasy novel. The story is told from a single POV, a young half-elf called Komain (and later Sedrick and then Timber Wolf). The novel is  around 700-800 pages, easily twice as long as other indie works. It’s quite detail-oriented, but the diction is never flowery and the details come through the storytelling. The story starts slowly, with the first 100 pages or so lagging a bit, but from there the story progresses smoothly. Komain is introduced as a slave tournament fighter. The story flashes back to when he was a young halfling, living alone with his elvin mother in enslavement to humans. Our hero Komain learns and grows and goes through a myriad of experiences and adventures. The world Nelson creates is vast and developed. The dialogue is natural and intelligent (nothing that makes you cringe, nothing awkward or stilted). Komain is flawed but likable. He has no qualms about killing his enemies, but he is a generally good guy. The characters around him aren’t necessarily groundbreaking, but each has his/her own personalities and faults and the relationships and interactions Komain has with them reveals his own personal growth. Great settings and descriptions, excellent action scenes (author is a martial arts instructor, a black belt, among other things, so he knows what he’s talking about), good storytelling, rich cultures behind the different races and peoples, elves and dwarves, kings, bandits, slaves, pit fighters, pirates, princes and princesses, different types of magic, a bit of romance…what more could you ask for?

Some negatives:
There were some grammar mistakes and typos, and the text read weirdly in some parts, but that’s what you expect from a self-published work, unfortunately. In one or two parts of the novel, the level of writing decreases enough to break the flow of the story. I also felt that the some of the humor and Komain’s narration were childish, anachronistic, or inconsistent with the context. These things detracted a bit from the overall enjoyment of the book, but should in no way prevent you from giving the book a shot.

Overall I would give the book a rating of 4.25/5 stars. The main character and the narrative reminded me a bit of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles. In some instances, Nelson’s level of writing was on par with Rothfuss’s, which was very impressive.


Laurence Zhang
TPP, Editor
Bellaire HS