Review by Steve Hooley   —   June 20, 2001

He is a university student until his proud warrior upbringing brings him into conflict with the mighty Church. A hunted outlaw, he joins forces with his hereditary enemies the Lords of the Lauvectii, and escapes with one of them into what turns out to be slavery in a foreign land. A slave among slaves, he rises to the highest rank and finally into knowledge and freedom as a captain of a ship of free adventurers. A seeker after truth and a mighty warrior, he drives his doughty companions as far as he can, then goes alone into the forbidden land called Albion, and there at the end of his endurance he learns the dreadful secret which we as readers have known from the first pages: he is a pig, walking upright and speaking Latin. His blood brother of the Lauvectii is a wolf and his first mate a bear, and his lovely rescued princess a sow and so on. They are all uplifted beasts, inhabiting a vivid world without men, walking a comical path men set them on centuries ago; re-enacting the Roman Empire as the Rhemian and making slaves of uplifted sheep and cattle. It's a cruel joke, the more so because its victims don't know it's a joke, and those who learn are sworn to angry, humiliated silence. Aldair would like to get his hands on a Man and proceed to black his little round eyes. This is a corny book, full of wise-cracking wolves and bears, and its very lightness makes the ending even more chilling. And there's slavery and injustice and murder, but for all that, aren't these animal-people a bit better than humans in the end?