Resurrected Review: King's Shield, by Sherwood Smith

Back in 2009 I wrote this shortish review of Sherwood Smith's novel King's Shield, the third in four novels from DAW about a man named Inda. These are part of a very extended series of series, if you will -- stories set in the same fantasy world, over millennia. Some of these are YA -- of which my favorite are a diptych called Crown Duel and Court Duel; and some are aimed at an adult audience, of which my favorite is the opening book in this series, called simply Inda. They are all enjoyable novels -- traditional secondary world fantasy, I suppose, but expertly done, and lots of fun.

King's Shield, the third novel in the Inda series, is essentially the story of the invasion of the seagoing Venn (they are Norselike, and indeed I believe explicitly descended from Norsemen who happened into the world of this book) into Iasca Leror, the home of Inda, and a generally warlike culture but not one much given to either magic use or sea travel. Inda has learned of the coming invasion and has returned home after years in exile during which he became known as a pirate though in fact he was instead a scourge of pirates. Inda's return is a gamble -- he could technically be imprisoned for breaking his exile -- but in fact his enemies have been ousted from the throne, and the new King is his childhood friend, Evred. Soon Evred makes Inda his warleader, and they plan resistance to the Venn invasion. And the story then tells how they fight off the Venn.

That doesn't in a sense seem like much story for a very long book (it's about 250,000 words). And indeed the book starts slowly -- but it gathers momentum and is very exciting and involving by the end. Part of this is simply that the action is shown in considerable detail, and from several points of view -- not just Inda's, but also Evred's, and a couple of Venn, and a couple of Inda's friends from his pirate days, and Evred's wife, and some other key women, and a band of children ... And besides that the action is complicated and involved. Indeed, though the battles are important, and the outcome of the war is important, the book is really most closely focussed on the characters. On Evred's hopeless attraction to the thoroughly heterosexual Inda. On Inda's friend Tau's search for a purpose in his life. On Inda's betrothed Tdor's reaction to Inda's Venn lover. And so on ... 

The book also examines the role of duty and loyalty in advancing a war good people know to be unjust. The use and misuse of magic in war is an issue. I've enjoyed this series immensely. That said, I think I would rank King's Shield only third of the three books to date -- partly this is due to its middle-bookness, and to the previous book featuring some really critical developments (such as Evred's ascent to the throne) that this book has little chance of topping. Also, as the series gets longer, there seems a temptation to linger on side issues -- to keep us up to date with characters we know -- so that for example this book features several essentially unnecessary chapters dealing with Inda's former shipmates, who are still sailing -- these are not uninteresting, and may prove important in the next book, but they have nothing to do with this book's plot. But for all that, the main point is that the Inda books continue to be some of the most fun fantasy reading I've had in years.