Published Paper Details:

This research seeks to examine the representation of non human animals in the works of Kiran Millwood Hargrave, critically acclaimed speculative fiction novel is the Geomancer Trilogy made up of In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen (2023), The Storm and the Sea Hawk (2024), and The Ship of Strays (2025). While going beyond the traditional confines of the biocentric 'zoo critic', where animals are caged and shown in individual instances of institutional captivity, attempts to see Hargrave's fictional world as a macrocosmic manifestation of human exceptionalism and ecological domination. By considering the commodification, imprisonment and enforced exhibition of animals like the noble sea wolves and free birds under the despotic control of the Wolf Queen, Hargrave disputes the Anthropocene era's quest to rob animals of their agency. With characters like Ysolda and her friend Nara the sea hawk and other animals onboard the Ship of Strays, the trilogy provides a redemptive eco-narrative that demonstrates an intrinsic ontological longing for freedom, bodily autonomy and ecological parity. Trilogy requires an end to the notion of animals being passive displays of power.