hmmm…check ao3? sometimes people put fanart there or they link to it
I have now learned that there are nine (9) fanworks on AO3 for the Inda series. Sadly, this makes me feel a bit better – it just is that small of a fandom.
HEY, FOLLOWERS! Y’ALL SHOULD READ INDA AND BECOME INDA FANS AND DRAW STUFF FOR IT!
Why?
-It’s really well-written – not necessarily in a floral prose way, though there is some poetry included, as in a well-constructed way. This is an epic saga, and everything that’s introduced is going to be important later.
-The worldbuilding is quite literally the best I’ve ever seen. Maybe barring Tolkein. Maybe. Sherwood Smith has been working on this world for upwards of fifty years. She’s not as into conlang as Tolkein is, but she’s a lot better at dribbling hints of things into the story so you don’t have to read the gd Silmarillion to find out what was going on in the background. And while she’s not a linguist, she does include freaking linguistic drift in the books, both in the ones set centuries apart and as a minor plot point
-Did you like the more famous Wren series, or maybe Crown Duel, and wished there were more? There is.
-Do you like Victor Hugo and wish there were something like Les Mis but more recently written? There is. You can cry all you want – or if you don’t want to cry, you can try to remember that all of the characters got everything they ever dreamed of.
-Do you want queer representation? It’s all over these freaking books. It is just not necessarily important – after all, some people are plotting for the kingdom and others are plotting for the apocalypse. That being said, at least two sexualities become increasingly important over the course of the series. (If you include Banner of the Damned, then the asexuality becomes really important to the entire narrative and it’s the best representation I’ve ever seen.)
-Do you just want some freaking swordfights? Well have I got a story.
–What about magic both deeply woven into the fabric of society and displayed impressively across the field of the story? Sure! (Although the central country has had sanctions put in place that keep it from getting many trained magicians, so you’ll have to bear with the story for a while – unless you start with Banner of the Damned.)
-Do you really just want to fall in love with characters? WHY DO YOU THINK I LIKE THIS BOOK.
All that being said, Nimbler… Why not?
-The Inda series is something like 3000 pages. It’s not a small commitment. That being said, the slow reader I lent it to finished the first book in 6 months, the second in 4, the third in 3, the fourth in 2. It will pull you in.
AVAILABLE NOW IN LIBRARIES NEAR YOU
Victor Hugo and wish there were something like Les Mis but more recently written? There is.
…okay this is honestly like 90 percent of what I want always constantly from books, but I’m gonna need to know More. How is it like Les Mis? Lots of description? A focus on the non- standard-Hero classes and people living “ ordinary” lives? Surprising amounts of socialist theory for a fantasy series? I Want to Know More!:D (also is there a reading order you’d suggest?)
Hmmm, I’m not really sure how it’s like Les Mis really, but I can try and make a few guesses (possibly vaguely spoilery):
- Really long, intricate story with multiple strands, side plots and supporting protagonists, even though the backbone of the story is the life of one person
- It could maybe be seen as a sort of in-universe social history? There are lots of little societal details, and the narrator makes the odd throwaway comment about how this or that tradition changed or evolved before and after the events of the story
- I guess the omniscient narrator/narrative style is maybe kind of similar?
- There is no real Big Bad (there is sort of one in the overall arc of the whole story world, but not the Inda books so much), and plenty of characters (even on opposite sides of a conflict) who are trying to do the right thing most of the time. They may fuck up (a lot), and they may have very different ideas of what constitutes the right thing, but yeah
- I mean, there are some characters who are clear-cut villains, but they tend to drive subplots rather than the overall narrative?
- There are definitely elements of the “non-standard-Hero classes and people living ordinary lives” thing
Tagging @setnet, @silentstep, @captainhelion in case they have anything to add.
But basically these books deserve to have a bigger fandom than they currently have.
- honestly, as someone who’s hardcore a Tolkien fan and a Tolkien’s worldbuilding fan, I’m going to take a deep breath and look the world steadily in the eye and say Inda has the better worldbuilding. The Inda series has the best worldbuilding of anything I have ever read in my life. Inda’s worldbuilding is the standard by which all fantasy worldbuilding must be measured.
- I haven’t read Les Mis, so I can’t comment on that, but it has a seriously enormous ensemble cast and I care so much about absolutely all of them, the characters are to die for. by which I mean I would die on a battlefield for them.
- the character growth arcs are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen
- my otp ends up together! but like, in a natural and realistic way! having overcome obstacles (OH GOD SO MANY OBSTACLES)! it is all I wanted, it is all I dared ask and I received it
- Inda came out on 2006, the queer representation was happening at a time when I feel like there was relatively little, in fantasy writing; I remember running into my parents’ room and wailing at my mother about how much I loved these characters and she kept trying to get me to admit that they were only gay in my head BUT NO. THEY WERE GAY IN THE TEXT. ON-PAGE, IN THE TEXT.
- (yo I was still just a teenager it was a big deal. the various cultural attitudes and the characters’ personal attitudes about sex and love and all that was pretty deeply influential for me. different people were allowed to feel all sorts of different ways and it was revolutionary, man)
- individual characters’ actions having far-reaching consequences on the actual plot!
- sprawling
- fucking
- epic
- plot!!!
- C U L T U R A L W O R L D B U I L D I N G
- characters who are PEOPLE! PEOPLE JUST TRYING TO DO THEIR THING!! PEOPLE I LOVE WHO SHOULD GET TO BE HAPPY *hysterical fucking sobbing*
- politics! battles! characters! logistics! everything feels so goddamn real and immersive! the narrative tension is genuinely terrifying! the endings are so genuinely if bittersweetly satisfying!
- I will never be over anything about this series. anything. you never get over any of it. everything that happens in these books has just straight-up marked me for life.
- STUPID HORSE VIKINGS! STUPID! HORSE! VIKINGS!!!
- *hysterical fucking sobbing*
- reading order should go: Inda, The Fox, King’s Shield, Treason’s Shore. Then Banner of the Damned (I haven’t read that one myself yet, but it takes place at least a century later). (I have read Crown Duel/Court Duel and actually I didn’t like them. I reread them recently and still didn’t like them. so I can’t recommend them, really, but if you want them anyway read them after the Inda quartet & presumably after Banner as well, as they’re chronologically much much later)
…well this took off abruptly. Good! Go forth, my minions, enjoy!
@pilferingapples: It’s been a while since I made this post, but probably what I meant in comparing Inda to Les Mis is that there’s a broad cast, all of whom you wind up deeply invested in, and all of whom make you sad. Did you want to meet the Amis when they were 11? Except, like, actually get to know each of them instead of just a paragraph or two on each? Inda will show you how they meet each other.
(That being said, it doesn’t cover things like ‘sweeping social justice’ or ‘background from people from all walks of life (as long as they’re miserably poor)’ – but it will tell you things like ‘how do people handle having their marriages arranged at birth’ in many different ways, or ‘what sort of person becomes a pirate, and what exactly counts as piracy.’)
Otherwise, I’ll let Tansy’s comments answer you.
That being said, Silentstep, one comment on reading order, and then the fandom tears will be under the cut: There’s a quartet and then Banner, and while you’re absolutely right that Banner comes after Inda &c, I would argue that it doesn’t have to be read after. You will get some spoilers for Banner, but you might not… recognize them, honestly. Or maybe I’m just saying because I read Banner first, and it took me a year or two to get round to Inda.
major spoilers under the cut!
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just moving along like everyone else 