Inda

I enjoyed Inda immensely, and will be buying the sequels (and perhaps sneaking them into the to-read heap at higher than the 'just arrived' slot).

Someone asked me what I was reading, and (part-way through) I replied 'it's a world with magic in it, and Our Hero is a schoolboy for whom it's not all running smoothly'. 'Like Harry Potter?' "Oh no,' I replied 'not Harry Potter. This is _seriously good_'.

Smith has created a coherent, chaotic (and thus lifelike) world, populated with diverse peoples. It is easier to provide a critism of what doesn't work so well .... there are many, many characters, and because they have many names each, and many important relationships (an individual is daughter, sister, betrothed, etc.), it is hard work show more keeping track of them all. Perhaps there are no family trees/trees of obligation and betrothal because it is too difficult to present them 2-dimensionally. There were a couple of words I needed to look up in the glossary, which weren't there. show less

(34) Well . . . I have a confession to make . . . I loved this. I groaned inwardly when the series was given to me as an unsolicited lend; I have trouble refusing to read something someone has picked out for me given my reverence for books and readers. And certainly I loved 'Game of Thrones,' and 'Harry Potter,' like the rest of the world. But I still thought I was above something like this - the cheesy cover alone and the author's flamboyant (must be) pen name is cringeworthy enough to have me avoid reading this in public. And yet. And yet, it was fabulous!

Inda is a small boy - second son of a prince in another world. A world with detailed geography, customs, language, governments and hierarchy which are richly imagined down to a show more detailed map. There are politics and age-old grudges that conspire to doom Inda and his friendship with Sponge, the king of the realm's bookish second son. I won't say more -- but the story is intricate, fairly well-paced, and engaging.

Perhaps, longer than it needed to be in parts and surely not literature but it was really entertaining and transporting. It looks like a bit of an undiscovered gem, at least here on LT. It would make a great Netflix series and the best part of all is that it was written by a woman. The female characters are as fierce and unyielding as the men with the same appetites - than in and of itself is a reason to celebrate. I will eagerly read on with the series. show less

This book will be difficult for some readers because of its large cast. To add to the confusion, the characters are called indistinctly by their names, family names, nicknames... There are also a lot of details about the different people, cultures, titles in different languages... I did not always know who somebody was or what a word meant. However, if you go with the flow, this book is great at convincingly creating a secondary world. It becomes easy to believe this is a real world, with depth.

The characters are charismatic and entertaining too, starting with the main character, Inda, who is a boy here, sent to a war academy in a warlike kingdom. He is bright, very competent in some ways and naive in others, and he has the ability to show more lead and inspire loyalty.

A rewarding read. show less

(First of 4: Inda series. Fantasy, epic fantasy)

Set on Smith's world of Sartoria-deles, this series follows a time period in the history of the country of Iasca Leror. The first book focuses on Inda, son of the Prince of Chorad Elgaer, from the age of ten upto about sixteen. He lives in a martial society, the Iascans having recently (though not in living memory) been conquered by the Marlovans. Though the two races are now integrated, the nobles are descended from the Marlovans, and Marlovan is only spoken as a battle language. Marlovans specialise in cavalry warfare and are constantly fending off attacks by pirates and the sea-faring Venn (similar to Vikings), with whom they share their ancestry.

Inda comes from a noble family and, as show more such, his life path is very structured, including being brought up with his future wife (from another noble family) who will help organise internal castle defences, should the need arise. As the second son of a noble, Inda expects to grow up to defend his brother's castle while his brother defends their lands. As such, his older brother goes to be trained at the Royal Academy to learn to defend the country with the other land heirs while Inda stays at home. Traditionally, of second sons, only the king's second son is trained at the Academy - but when he is due to start, the king makes a surprise announcement and orders a group formed of noble second sons of a similar age to join him at the Academy. So Inda makes friends with Sponge. He also gets to see more of his own sister, Hadand, who is betrothed to the king's heir (known by his title of the Sierlaef).

This book is well written. Though it focuses on Inda and his friends, the war games they learn at the Academy and the pranks they pull, it is told from many points of view and gives an all-round perspective of the kingdom. We get to see some of Hadand's life and her training in martial arts and politics in defense of the kingdom. We see the thinking of a person in a position of power who, while unquestionably loyal to king and country, has their own ambitions and ideas of the future direction of the country. Though other people realise this, they cannot overtly move to block them. This person holds a secret grudge against Inda's family and, along with their plans for the Sierlaef, makes life difficult for Inda and for Sponge, who is the Sierlaef's brother.

Engrossing, very well worth reading. Epic and well written. At one point I found myself chuckling at a funny incident, and I realised it was probably the description of the ten year boys' reaction rather than the incident itself that got me laughing. I have almost finished the second book and am thoroughly enjoying it.

5***** show less

Fairly standard pseudo-medieval-European fantasy story shape, sub-genre coming of age, but with enough point-of-difference in the thoughtful examination of gender roles to feel fairly fresh. I could do without the "Vikings slipped into another world through a crack in time" origin story (especially since some of the stuff around the maintenance of the Waste Spell etc makes me head-canon that they're all NPCs in a super-complex virtual reality...) but that's mostly ignorable.

The way the omniscient darts from person to person was a bit off-putting at first but I quickly got used to it and (aside from supporting the epic feel) it was fantastic at rounding out characters who'd otherwise get little air-time. Even the villains are... almost show more sympathetic; in several cases it feels like you could actually solve many problems if only it were possible to sit them down with a therapist to work through some of their issues/relationships. show less

It's hard for Sherwood Smith to miss with me. I like most everything she writes. The only complaint I have with this one (besides that Inda was just a wee bit too perfect at times) is that it ends sort of abruptly. A+ worldbuilding, though, and I like what she does with sexuality (most of the time).

I loved this book. It was immersive and detailed, had sympathetic characters, competent women (even if the main character is male) and intricate societies. I always love descriptions of loyalty, and this book delivered. Reading about the bonds Inda forms with those around him and his own loyalty to others was deeply satisfying to me.