Book Reviews: Inda and The Fox
Jul. 14th, 2008 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerFor my birthday, I have received bookstore gift cards, which means I now get to waffle endlessly over which books to buy.
In particular, I’m waffling on King’s Shield, which is the sequel to Sherwood Smith’s Inda and The Fox. I’m writing this review of the first two as a sort of pros and cons list.
They’re chewy, they taste good, they fill you up, and they have a great big gigantic hole in the center whose name is Inda Harskialdna. He’s the main character, he is (at age fifteen) a commander on par with Napolean, Julius Caesar, and Robert E. Lee all rolled into one, and he doesn’t achieve any character depth until the last hundred pages or so of book two.
Fortunately, the other characters make up for it by being fascinating, layered, and multitudinous. Both the bad guys and the good (I’m using the terms loosely; many of the characters waffle between different shades of gray) have clear, if occasionally despicable, motivations. I am particularly partial to the king’s semi-evil younger brother, Inda’s sort-of friend the Fox, and Inda’s sister Hadand.
Hadand brings me to my next point of leeriness about King’s Shield which is that I’m afraid that it will devolve into an endless circle of unrequited love. Hadand will lust after her husband, Evred, who will lust after Inda (who he hasn’t seen since they both were eleven, so it’s really a bit odd), who will lust after his love interest Signi, who will…probably lust right back at Inda.
I wouldn’t want Signi adding to the circle of unrequited love, because there’s quite enough as it is, but at least if she became torn between Inda and his sister (or Inda and Evred; or fell for an hostler; I’m not picky) she would become an interesting character. As it is she’s taken from Inda the mantle of Important Character Who Is Very Boring because of Her Self-Evident Total Faultless Brilliance.
Signi aside—the circle of love is actually a blessing as well as a curse. It exists in part because the world-building in these books is so vastly, enormously impressive. It’s a bit like reading Jane Austen, not in any of the specifics but in the intensity with which society shapes everyone’s lives. In Marlovan Hesea, society beats its members into their particular place in the very strict pecking order, and keeps them in that place with intense social pressure.
Marlovans spend their entire lives surrounded by people who are, in essence, their high school peers. The kingdom is run based on Academy grudges that grew up around teenagers. No wonder everyone is miserable! Imagine never being allowed to outgrow your high school self. Or even your elementary school self; the Marlovans are betrothed at the age of two.
Despite the betrothals, the Marlovans allow considerable sexual freedom. It seems out of place—not that they ought to demand chastity; birth control isn’t a problem, so it’s not like anyone needs to be chaste in order to keep bloodlines pure—but given how strictly they regulate everything else, the sexual anarchy is odd. Surely they would have built up a strict etiquette about how to deal with lovers and prostitutes, given that they don’t seem to be able to operate without rules anywhere else?
The general strictness of the system clearly makes people miserable. The action of the story shows this well, and there is, thankfully, never a narrative pause to hammer in Social Commentary on how OMG!oppressive Marlovan society is. Nothing breaks the illusion of a secondary world faster than shoehorning in Social Commentary, and it would be tragic to break such a well-wrought illusion.
It’s very impressive world-building, but it’s also draggingly exhausting to read. The Marlovans make me claustrophobic.
Issues of quality aside. While the Inda books are not my favorite books ever, I really like Crown Duel and Senrid and Shevraeth in Marlovan Hess. If I do my part to make King’s Shield sell well, more Sherwood Smith books—books perhaps more to my taste—might be published.
So. It’s a quandary.
In particular, I’m waffling on King’s Shield, which is the sequel to Sherwood Smith’s Inda and The Fox. I’m writing this review of the first two as a sort of pros and cons list.
They’re chewy, they taste good, they fill you up, and they have a great big gigantic hole in the center whose name is Inda Harskialdna. He’s the main character, he is (at age fifteen) a commander on par with Napolean, Julius Caesar, and Robert E. Lee all rolled into one, and he doesn’t achieve any character depth until the last hundred pages or so of book two.
Fortunately, the other characters make up for it by being fascinating, layered, and multitudinous. Both the bad guys and the good (I’m using the terms loosely; many of the characters waffle between different shades of gray) have clear, if occasionally despicable, motivations. I am particularly partial to the king’s semi-evil younger brother, Inda’s sort-of friend the Fox, and Inda’s sister Hadand.
Hadand brings me to my next point of leeriness about King’s Shield which is that I’m afraid that it will devolve into an endless circle of unrequited love. Hadand will lust after her husband, Evred, who will lust after Inda (who he hasn’t seen since they both were eleven, so it’s really a bit odd), who will lust after his love interest Signi, who will…probably lust right back at Inda.
I wouldn’t want Signi adding to the circle of unrequited love, because there’s quite enough as it is, but at least if she became torn between Inda and his sister (or Inda and Evred; or fell for an hostler; I’m not picky) she would become an interesting character. As it is she’s taken from Inda the mantle of Important Character Who Is Very Boring because of Her Self-Evident Total Faultless Brilliance.
Signi aside—the circle of love is actually a blessing as well as a curse. It exists in part because the world-building in these books is so vastly, enormously impressive. It’s a bit like reading Jane Austen, not in any of the specifics but in the intensity with which society shapes everyone’s lives. In Marlovan Hesea, society beats its members into their particular place in the very strict pecking order, and keeps them in that place with intense social pressure.
Marlovans spend their entire lives surrounded by people who are, in essence, their high school peers. The kingdom is run based on Academy grudges that grew up around teenagers. No wonder everyone is miserable! Imagine never being allowed to outgrow your high school self. Or even your elementary school self; the Marlovans are betrothed at the age of two.
Despite the betrothals, the Marlovans allow considerable sexual freedom. It seems out of place—not that they ought to demand chastity; birth control isn’t a problem, so it’s not like anyone needs to be chaste in order to keep bloodlines pure—but given how strictly they regulate everything else, the sexual anarchy is odd. Surely they would have built up a strict etiquette about how to deal with lovers and prostitutes, given that they don’t seem to be able to operate without rules anywhere else?
The general strictness of the system clearly makes people miserable. The action of the story shows this well, and there is, thankfully, never a narrative pause to hammer in Social Commentary on how OMG!oppressive Marlovan society is. Nothing breaks the illusion of a secondary world faster than shoehorning in Social Commentary, and it would be tragic to break such a well-wrought illusion.
It’s very impressive world-building, but it’s also draggingly exhausting to read. The Marlovans make me claustrophobic.
Issues of quality aside. While the Inda books are not my favorite books ever, I really like Crown Duel and Senrid and Shevraeth in Marlovan Hess. If I do my part to make King’s Shield sell well, more Sherwood Smith books—books perhaps more to my taste—might be published.
So. It’s a quandary.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-14 08:31 pm (UTC)I don't know--while the interpersonal plots get action, and the Marlovan political situation gets action, the overall plot is kind of slow. It might be worth reading, though.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 04:54 am (UTC)It doesn't surprise me that it seems slow. It's not that the books are bloated, there isn't much there that could be cut, it's just that there are so many different plot threads that juggling it all mentally makes things...well, slow.
I may borrow it from the library, then.