“What does it mean to “be-in-kind” with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera of a fresh kill. And, above all, to feel the belonging of the pack.

Sean’s tireless research gives her a chance to fulfill that dream, but pursuing it has a terrible cost. Her obsession with work endangers her fraying relationship with her wife. Her research methods threaten her mind and body. And the attention of her VC funders could destroy her subject, the beautiful wild wolf whose mental world she’s invading.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: I wanted to read “Summer Sons” when it came out in 2021 and so when I saw “Feed Them Silence” up for review I thought it would be a great opportunity to read a Mandelo book. I ended up being pretty disappointed in this book. It feels unfinished and gets us part of the way “there” but just doesn’t delve into this topic as deep as I hoped.

The story takes place in the near future, in Minnesota. The story follows Sean, who has finally gotten funding for her research project. Sean wants to know what drives one of the last wolf packs in America. She gets approval to put a neural network in her brain that links to one of the female wolves in the pack. Sean’s wife has an issue with the morality of linking a wolf’s brain to a human’s (and she’s not wrong here). However, Sean’s obsession with the wolf pack drives her beyond logic; she has determined that understanding this wolf pack will help them understand climate change and help the world as a whole.

I had a lot of issues with this book. I work in a science field and a lot of things in this book just didn’t ring true. There’s a lot of hand-waving around the science here and the way the research grant was dealt with was weird. If you want to read this you have to set aside logic and just to go with it. I expected more of a science fiction bent to this novel, however most of the time here is spent on Sean’s relationship issues with her wife. Sean is a person obsessed with her work and she really doesn’t think much about the other people in her life. Surprise, surprise this affects her relationship with her wife.

I expected things to get a bit crazy here and the character and the wolf to start affecting each other or something…but things remain pretty ho-hum throughout. There is the very typical plot-line of a university research getting their project taken away by a corporation (sigh, so overused). The ending was disappointing just like the rest of this for me. I was expecting something interesting, intriguing or exciting. This had an interesting premise but just didn’t do anything with it.

SPOILER START————————–
The research project is stopped because there have been some changes in Sean’s brain structure. Then the corporation funding the research destroys the wolf Sean was bonded to and she is surprised by this?? Anyone who’s ever been involved in medical device testing on animals knows this is what happens; Sean works in the field so she should know this. Then her solution to the whole issue is to write a book about the wolf’s feelings?? Is this supposed to be ironic because we just read a book about Sean and the wolf and their feelings? This just felt so shallow and incomplete to me. The repercussions of Sean’s change in brain structure are never really explored and everything ends up feeling very pointless. Is the point to this story that it’s pointless?
SPOILER END—————————-

My Summary (3/5): Overall I was pretty disappointed in this book, I went in expecting so much more. The premise sounds pretty cool but it just didn’t go anywhere. This ended up being more of a book about a professor and her failing marriage rather than being about than deep human interactions with the wild or anything cool and sci-fi-ish about mind melding with nature. It was just “blah”. The premise was initially intriguing and it was a quick read, but I learned that Mandelo is not the author for me.

Early Review – Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo (3/5 stars)

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