Tuesday, May 14, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa




Shadow of the Fox is the first in a new YA Fantasy trilogy by Julie Kagawa, one centered around a fantasy world based upon Japanese mythology.  This is not the first book I've read with this base, although Shadow of the Fox takes it a bit further by not just including creatures (Yokai, Oni, etc.) and magic from Japanese myth, but having the characters use bits of pieces of Japanese here and there (and including a glossary for those who can't figure out what's being said from context).

And the result is a pretty enjoyable story, if one that is sometimes predictable and never truly breaks out of the ordinary.  The two main characters are very well done, as are the side characters met along the way, and the story does take a few surprising turns here and there, using the Japanese background rather effectively.  It's not a stand-alone story to be sure, but the story's ending is satisfying in how it resolves the first arc of this story and leaves you hanging for the future.  In short, I will probably be reading the sequel when it comes out next year, and hopefully this trilogy will take a leap in quality with book 2.

Note: I read this as an audiobook.  I do NOT recommend this format if you're interested in the book - the audiobook uses 3 readers - one for interlude chapters and then two others who take turns depending upon which character is narrating a given chapter.  The problem is that the two main readers have such differing voices for the same characters - and the male reader's voices are incredibly shrill for women - that it becomes awfully distracting.  Imagine a movie where every 5 minutes a main character's voice changes completely - it'd be awful and it's not good here.  The book itself is solid, so I recommend reading it in print/ebook format instead of in audiobook format.  
----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
Now 16 years old, Yumeko has spent her entire life at the Silent Winds temple, being raised by the monks there after someone left her there as a baby.  But Yumeko is no ordinary human girl, to some of the monks' dismay, she is half-kitsune (a fox girl), with the ability to transform, cast illusions, and use foxfire.  Yumeko has long yearned to see the rest of the world of Iwagoto, but has always been afraid of leaving all she has ever known.

But when an Oni and a horde of demons attack the temple and destroy her family, Yumeko is forced to flee with a piece of a magical scroll that the monks had been guarding - a scroll that could be used to grant the wish of any human who possesses it.  Tasked with bringing the piece of the scroll to a hidden temple, Yumeko isn't sure how she is going to survive all of the deadly forces - the demons, yokai, and magic-wielding humans - who are searching for it, to say nothing of the ordinary dangers of travelling incognito as a peasant girl on the road.

But then she meets Kage Tatsumi, a warrior of the Kage (Shadow clan) who is also seeking the scroll.  Convincing him that she doesn't have the scroll and that the temple she seeks is who really has it, he agrees to protect her as she seeks the temple.  But Yumeko knows this is a dangerous game, for if Tatsumi was ever to discover she already held the scroll, or even that she was not fully human, it's clear Tatsumi will kill her.  And she soon discovers that Tatsumi is no ordinary warrior, but the Kage Demon-Slayer, wielder of a magical sword possessed by a demon that's capable of killing even the gods....but requires its wielder to constantly repress his emotions, lest the demon possess him instead.

To get to the temple, Yumeko and Tatsumi will have to brave spirits, humans, yokai, and the evil blood mage behind the demons that killed Yumeko's family.  But perhaps the greatest danger is that Tatsumi and Yumeko might begin to have feelings towards one another - feelings that could lead to a greater evil escaping its prison and killing everyone....
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Shadow of the Fox is basically the story of its two main characters: Yumeko and Tatsumi, with the two of them being joined by more allies along the way.  To that end, the book flips the first person point of view the story is being told from nearly every chapter, going back and forth from Yumeko to Tatsumi's points of view.  Occasionally, in interlude chapters (a prologue, epilogue, and two chapters to start new parts of the book) we see the story from a different third person perspective, but the story generally sticks to Yumeko and Tatsumi's perspectives, and it works well at showing us who these characters are.

And they're pretty solid characters.  Both are a little bit cliche - Yumeko's naivete at things (and cmon, her ignorance of sarcasm, really?) and Tatsumi's duty-bound warrior who tries to reign in his emotions - but even the cliches are executed well, and both are very likable and easy to root for.  Yumeko is occasionally very clever with how she tries to get out of situations, and her earnestness is refreshing, especially when put besides Tatsumi's cynical views on the world and devotion to the mission above everything else.  Tatsumi's horrible upbringing that resulted in him being an emotionless weapon make him rather sympathetic and the book does a great job showcasing how strong he is as a fighter with some solid action scenes.  And of course, there's the relationship between them.  Again, it's a bit cliche and predictable for the two to begin to fall for each other, but the book does it rather well.

The minor characters are all especially done well, though the main villain of this book is of the "mustache-twirling" evil variety and isn't anything special.  But the side characters the main duo pick up are varied and amusing - particularly one of them who provides an excellent contrast to Tatsumi - resulting in some very solid dialogue and interactions.

As for the plot, it's rather formulaic, with the duo blundering into dangerous situations for most of the book either caused by the main villain or just due to the local dangers of yokai/humans/whatever in each place along their journey, but the situations are always interesting and dealt with in different ways.  And the resolution is done in a very satisfying way, resolving matters into a satisfying ending that still poses a major cliffhanger.

Still, the book, while done well, never really rises above the level of "good" into truly great, with again so much of the characters and the plot being a bit predictable and cliche, even if it's done well.  I'm never quite a fan of knowing a shoe is going to drop early on and waiting for much of the book for it to finally do so and that's definitely the case in this book; although oddly this book has so many shoes it threatens to drop that it maybe overwhelms the predictability a little bit.

I'll be back for book 2 in a few months, though and hope it'll take the leap this book didn't now that we've gotten the basics of this world into play.  Again, this is a promising start, but it hasn't yet taken the leap into truly being great, so if the second book doesn't either, well, we'll see if I'm interested in the finale.
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