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language: English
country: Canada
year: 2020
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
dates read: 6.11.22-8.11.22
D.G. Laderoute’s Trail of Shadows is yet another Legend of the Five Rings book, this time a short (115-page) novel following Hida Sukune, the sickly youngest son of the Crab Clan champion Hida Kisada, as he leads an expedition to recover a lost artifact from an evil swamp in the middle of a terrifyingly indifferent magical forest.
it was fun! it was not the highlight of the new canon books, but I like Sukune and this was a good character study of him. the plot was…fine. not inspired, and I think the monster reveal was kind of underwhelming, but fine. the real highlight, though, is the amount of truly excellent nezumi content. the first chapter from Rok’su/Tale-Chaser’s POV was VERY good and the nezumi’s presence throughout was great. I wish they’d been used slightly less as props for Sukune’s arc — that’s the one substantive failing of the book, I’d say, especially in the context of the new canon’s critical project. Sukune’s narration gestured at times towards recognizing that the Tattered Ear are a valuable community in their own right but the book ultimately kind of settled into making them just another engine to advance the Crab plot.
oh, I also thought the Kuni Yori epilogue, while mildly interesting in conjunction with some of the published short fiction, felt out of place here — I think it belonged as a standalone piece of its own.
moods: adventurous, mysterious, reflective