Customer Reviews

The Fox (Inda, Book 2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After the high standards of Inda, the prequel to Sherwood Smith's The Fox, it was next to impossible to be better this time. But, still, Smith delivers a quality second book in the series.

After the drama of the first book, Inda was left at sea after being forced from his homeland. Smith had really run Inda through a ragged race of events while growing him slowly into the man he would become. That process continues in The Fox. Inda remains, as always, the leader without an ego. He follows the impossible standard of leading from the front. As a weapon against pirates, that had been effective.

At home, the politics of selfishness and hunger for power continue to spiral towards an inevitable conclusion. Inda's family continues to cope with the second and third order after-effects of unconscionable acts by members of the ruling family. This is not an instant process -- rather the villains continue to grow more and more isolated from reality as their actions lead further and further from the honor and loyalty that is expected.

The many supporting characters remain very interesting. Flaws, strengths, and change are all part of each character's story and Smith really keeps them moving. It's like a well choreographed ballet with many different dancers moving at the same time. However, I felt at times that the story seemed to drag. As a reader I would come to a point where the inevitable next step was obviously coming and I didn't want to slog through another 100 pages to get to it. The "filler" sections were not really boring, but they didn't seem as vital to the story as they did in most of the first book. That doesn't mean that The Fox was slow -- merely that Smith had a lot of story to tell and sometimes it felt like it took a long time to get where she wants to take us.

Again, Smith's ability to treat different moral perspectives as windows into a character's personality instead of a judgment made several divisive themes entirely appropriate. She effectively creates character faults and shows us how things taken too far can turn from bad to good.

On the whole, The Fox was a good book. Not as good as Inda, but still worth the effort to get through almost 800 pages of text. I look forward to further journeys in the world Sherwood Smith has created.

Like the previous book in this series, there is way too much action going on; it was as if the author was putting in everything just to up her word-count. I feel as though there were too many story lines going on in this book and way too much attention paid to characters who are not very important, which was the same thought I had when I read the previous book in the series. I got the impression when reading not only the title of the first book but the book summary as well that this book and this series was about Inda, not about everyone else as well. I feel that there was a better way of letting the reader know what was happening in Inda's home country without having to spend so much time there.

I also felt that the author spent too little time in other parts of the story that I felt had more value to the story itself. First, Inda is after the Brotherhood, but it felt as if she hastened through that just to focus on the next big thing: Inda dealing with the Venn. Both these story lines would have been great if the author had picked one and then made that the focus of the book. Then adding the subplot of there being troubles in Inda's home country.

To sum up, I felt as though the author was just upping her word count by focusing so heavily on everything. I felt as though the events outside of the parts about Inda were as important if not more important than Inda. I really wanted this series to be about Inda, and I just feel that it's not.

I realize this is a fantasy novel (in fact, the second book in a series), but I can't help but feel that anyone who loves pirate stories is missing out if they're missing it because of that assignation. Tell all your pirate fans to read the INDA series. If it makes them even half as happy is it makes me, they'll be pretty darn happy.

Others have summarized well, so I'll just add that I am immensely satisfied by this continuation of the series, and can't wait to read books 3 and 4. (I am a little sad, though, that I'm now already halfway through the whole.)

I have learned the hard way that sequels are not always up to the quality of the original. This book, however, carried forward the stories of the characters, and keeps the reader wanting to know what happens to them as they progress in their life's adventure. I am picky about fantasies --but this series has captured me. It's a good way to spend a rainy day, or a quiet evening.

"Fox" picks up at the end of "Inda", to chroniole Inda's campaign to end piracy in the strait. Inda's story is a wonderfully engaging tale, with a highly likeable central character who is forced into a violent life. After the ship on which Inda was indentured and wrongfully exiled is attacked by pirates, the survivors band together to fight piracy under Inda's inspired direction. Beyond the challenge of the pirates' Brotherhood of Blood looms the Venn, the seagoing country which has threatened Inda's childhood home all his life.

Again, the tale includes wonderful cameos of the excellently drawn peripheral characters as they begin to carve out their lives. The book handles the beginnings of adulthood and sexuality in the central characters with sensitivity and thoughtfulness.

Here again as in Inda, magic comes into the tale in only a minor way. Unlike many books that deal with sea battles and maneuvers, the intricate detail of large ship sailing never intrudes in the story, but is instead brushed on in the passing of the plot.

Another excellent book in this excellent series.

I've read a lot of fantasy and science fiction over the years and I may have reached my saturation point, where the Suck Fairy gets to most books before I even read them and all I can see are the bad points, but I found this book turgid and disappointing. Neither characters or plot or the worldbuilding engaged my interest. It was curiously unexciting, even in those action scenes that should have engaged me, and suffered from the common fantasy error of thinking complicated names will stand in for real detail and the detail seemed to be in the form of info dumps. I was never immersed enough to forget I was reading and, frankly, grateful for interruptions and reasons to put it down.