A Sherwood Smith Inda series review with lots of spoilers
The author I've bought most books of this year - except for Elizabeth Bear - has been Sherwood Smith with the novels published in her own worlds (she's been a long-time collaborator of some great names in the scifi genre and has written media-tie-in novels, as well) - whether they have been YA or not.
I first came across her a few years back with an entry in Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction by the Firebird YA imprint and right away bought Crown Duel, as her story was a sequel of that. I then ordered the Wren trilogy published by Firebird and quite liked the first two volumes. I bounced off the third because it started with an irreparable tragedy for one of the major characters who already had to suffer from something similar for years and I couldn't handle reading about having to deal with this and the aftermath.
That's actually one of her strengths: her books may have focus protagonists but no matter what age those are, child or grown-up, there are no guarantees that they will survive to the end (with the exception - so far - that if she names the book after that protagonist they haven't died yet). Her young adult worlds are just as hazardous, although the characters there go at their troubles and triumphs with less gray-scale in feeling (sometimes: this is not the case if your parents have died and you are heir to a throne), and more positive energy.
However, even if a character whom the reader loves dies, there's a good chance that they still have other characters to root for without hurling the book at the wall. Smith's books are always ensemble pieces with some starring roles sticking out. She manages to make even the side-characters so interesting and relevant when she highlights their role in her world/plot that you don't mind spending the time with them - there are no fillers, at the end you realise every bit of focus was necessary for you to see and appreciate the whole.
So when Inda came out in paperback from DAW I was willing to try another one of her worlds, recommended through the taste of some LJ users whose reviews I trust and the fact that I have had lots of good experiences with DAW fantasy and science fiction in the 25 years since I began reading in the English original.
The nominal hero of the book starts as a young boy in his martial-horse warrior-society-upper echelon, hoping for nothing more than going to the military academy and learning enough to take over the duties he will inherit, as second-in-command to his older brother who is heir to their family (I'm no soldier, but I haven't read anything as believable as that training since Elizabeth Moon's The Deed of Paksenarrion).
The world and its society is introduced here, and, while you'd expect male macho behaviour with a background like that, Sherwood Smith also gives a lot of voice to the women of the society and shows their very tangible power, accepted by the men as natural. Inda has to go the way of Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces in this book only partially - you can see the catastrophe coming, he suffers through it, but instead of marking the start of his travails as the only way to save the kingdom/world, Sherwood Smith takes him out of the equation and the dangers facing his society for the next ten years or so.
The second book in the series, The Fox (Inda, Book 2), shows Inda growing up separated from his land of birth, his clan like society and his family, not even being able to use most of the things taught at his academy or at home, because he has to adapt to life as a pirate hunter on the ocean, instead of on horse. But the military schooling itself is adaptive enough to make him able to survive the dangers that face him here and to triumph. At the same time we are shown the permanent scars (on body and soul) that this turn of fate brings, as well as the new friends he makes - no longer limited to aristocratic clans. Parallel to that the dangers at home hit high gear with assassinations and threats of war, with the agitators who had Inda exiled removed from power and his academy colleagues inheriting highly responsible positions years ahead of their time. You get the viewpoint of his fiancée, of his friends and of people who don't even know Inda, because their story is part of the larger picture.
I've just finished the third book in the series (Sherwood has posted to her LJ that it will become four books, and she's already finished writing the fourth one which can be preordered), King's Shield, although I started it this summer when the hardback came out, mostly because the first major wave of war hit right at the moment of Inda's return to his homeland and after all the preparations all that was left was reading about the war itself - and Sherwood really gets me by the guts there, showing the people left behind, the defenders (men, women and children) successful and unsuccessful (yes, the children are included in that statement), the army on the move, the other side, the people on the sidelines who want to profit, and the pirate hunters left behind by Inda starting their own move.
It's particularly gripping because old childhood friends come face-to-face with the grown-up version of the person they remember and there's no time (and sometimes no inclination) for info-dumping while riding off to war, so misunderstandings abound and make a rough duty even harder. People you route for die, although the first wave of war is stopped - not by a decisive victory, but because of changed situations in the homeland of the invaders (Inda is in love with one of the females from that country and with his fiancée at the same time and this is handled believably!).
Taking it up I knew exactly where I had left off, knew the people again (be aware that Sherwood Smith does not do a lot of "as you know, Bob" so it may be best for some readers to wait until all the books are out, in case they can't remember the huge cast and world-building) and read headlong without stopping until the end (I wouldn't have picked it up if it hadn't been Saturday ^^) and was left in tears during the actual description of the war and its victims and with mostly satisfaction at the resolution (there is no true HEA, too many are dead, there have to be more compromises with nasty people on your own side - hey, it's actually not written down to the reader, but expects you to be able to handle greyscale) of this book, eagerly awaiting the fourth next year.
Two caveats:
I first came across her a few years back with an entry in Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction by the Firebird YA imprint and right away bought Crown Duel, as her story was a sequel of that. I then ordered the Wren trilogy published by Firebird and quite liked the first two volumes. I bounced off the third because it started with an irreparable tragedy for one of the major characters who already had to suffer from something similar for years and I couldn't handle reading about having to deal with this and the aftermath.
That's actually one of her strengths: her books may have focus protagonists but no matter what age those are, child or grown-up, there are no guarantees that they will survive to the end (with the exception - so far - that if she names the book after that protagonist they haven't died yet). Her young adult worlds are just as hazardous, although the characters there go at their troubles and triumphs with less gray-scale in feeling (sometimes: this is not the case if your parents have died and you are heir to a throne), and more positive energy.
However, even if a character whom the reader loves dies, there's a good chance that they still have other characters to root for without hurling the book at the wall. Smith's books are always ensemble pieces with some starring roles sticking out. She manages to make even the side-characters so interesting and relevant when she highlights their role in her world/plot that you don't mind spending the time with them - there are no fillers, at the end you realise every bit of focus was necessary for you to see and appreciate the whole.
So when Inda came out in paperback from DAW I was willing to try another one of her worlds, recommended through the taste of some LJ users whose reviews I trust and the fact that I have had lots of good experiences with DAW fantasy and science fiction in the 25 years since I began reading in the English original.
The nominal hero of the book starts as a young boy in his martial-horse warrior-society-upper echelon, hoping for nothing more than going to the military academy and learning enough to take over the duties he will inherit, as second-in-command to his older brother who is heir to their family (I'm no soldier, but I haven't read anything as believable as that training since Elizabeth Moon's The Deed of Paksenarrion).
The world and its society is introduced here, and, while you'd expect male macho behaviour with a background like that, Sherwood Smith also gives a lot of voice to the women of the society and shows their very tangible power, accepted by the men as natural. Inda has to go the way of Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces in this book only partially - you can see the catastrophe coming, he suffers through it, but instead of marking the start of his travails as the only way to save the kingdom/world, Sherwood Smith takes him out of the equation and the dangers facing his society for the next ten years or so.
The second book in the series, The Fox (Inda, Book 2), shows Inda growing up separated from his land of birth, his clan like society and his family, not even being able to use most of the things taught at his academy or at home, because he has to adapt to life as a pirate hunter on the ocean, instead of on horse. But the military schooling itself is adaptive enough to make him able to survive the dangers that face him here and to triumph. At the same time we are shown the permanent scars (on body and soul) that this turn of fate brings, as well as the new friends he makes - no longer limited to aristocratic clans. Parallel to that the dangers at home hit high gear with assassinations and threats of war, with the agitators who had Inda exiled removed from power and his academy colleagues inheriting highly responsible positions years ahead of their time. You get the viewpoint of his fiancée, of his friends and of people who don't even know Inda, because their story is part of the larger picture.
I've just finished the third book in the series (Sherwood has posted to her LJ that it will become four books, and she's already finished writing the fourth one which can be preordered), King's Shield, although I started it this summer when the hardback came out, mostly because the first major wave of war hit right at the moment of Inda's return to his homeland and after all the preparations all that was left was reading about the war itself - and Sherwood really gets me by the guts there, showing the people left behind, the defenders (men, women and children) successful and unsuccessful (yes, the children are included in that statement), the army on the move, the other side, the people on the sidelines who want to profit, and the pirate hunters left behind by Inda starting their own move.
It's particularly gripping because old childhood friends come face-to-face with the grown-up version of the person they remember and there's no time (and sometimes no inclination) for info-dumping while riding off to war, so misunderstandings abound and make a rough duty even harder. People you route for die, although the first wave of war is stopped - not by a decisive victory, but because of changed situations in the homeland of the invaders (Inda is in love with one of the females from that country and with his fiancée at the same time and this is handled believably!).
Taking it up I knew exactly where I had left off, knew the people again (be aware that Sherwood Smith does not do a lot of "as you know, Bob" so it may be best for some readers to wait until all the books are out, in case they can't remember the huge cast and world-building) and read headlong without stopping until the end (I wouldn't have picked it up if it hadn't been Saturday ^^) and was left in tears during the actual description of the war and its victims and with mostly satisfaction at the resolution (there is no true HEA, too many are dead, there have to be more compromises with nasty people on your own side - hey, it's actually not written down to the reader, but expects you to be able to handle greyscale) of this book, eagerly awaiting the fourth next year.
Two caveats:
- Sherwood Smith usually shows all the sides in a fight with their motivations and the burdens they labour under, so that it's clear there is no one villain who only wants to destroy: however, in all her books I've read so far, Norsunder - the mysterious dark magic land - has never had positive sides (the only explanation for the behaviour of their people I've read was that they get brain-washed until they are just as bad as the people who did it to them, in Senrid).
- re: Senrid - her YA series set in a similar world (but not exactly the same) has many of the same names for similar countries and people and THAT can get confusing if you read them in short sequence - the young adult version is mostly from Norilana books - don't get scared off by the Angst label :P - except for Crown Duel, of course, which is the sequel (so far) of Senrid and A Stranger to Command. ETA: When I posted this on the dawbooks lj, Sherwood pointed out that the Crown Duel and Senrid, etc. take place in the same world, but roughly 800 years later, so that's why the similarities.