Preliminary Scan:

Once there were three. Three friends who loved each other—Jenna, Locke, and Kara. And after a terrible accident destroyed their bodies, their three minds were kept alive, spinning in a digital netherworld. Even in that disembodied nightmare, they were still together. At least at first. When Jenna disappeared, Locke and Kara had to go on without her. Decades passed, and then centuries.

Two-hundred-and-sixty years later, they have been released at last. Given new, perfect bodies, Locke and Kara awaken to a world they know nothing about, where everyone they once knew and loved is long dead.

Everyone except Jenna Fox.

Atmospheric Analysis: Hello and welcome to Generica! Our laws dictate that all book covers must feature at least 1 (one) Dawson Casting teenager and that said ‘teenager’ must be attractive in a bland, Hollywood sort of way. SF-ish motifs are acceptable so long as they don’t get in the way of the gratuitous face shot.

Planetary Class: Somewhat-literary science fiction with subtle overtones of Dystopia. This is much more ‘traditional’ a SF story than its predecessor, featuring as it does a lot more action and adventure, although that doesn’t mean it suddenly turns into a Michael Bay movie. (Thankfully.) A more apt cinematic analogy might be Stephen Spielberg’s A.I.: The Adoration of Jenna Fox is the lo-fi social-SF first act of the film, while The Fox Inheritance is the ‘weird robots and crazy futuristic society’ second half. The tonal shift is, I’ll admit, a little jarring.

Mohs Rating: Like Adoration, this comes in at a 4 on the Mohs Scale. While there’s a lot more Phlebotinum this time around, none of it is any less plausible than what was featured in the first book – in fact, a lot of it is far more down-to-Earth than the whole BioGel thing. Remember, kids: when it comes to Phlebotinum, you’re looking at quality rather than quantity.

Viability Rating: Again, we’re dealing with a situation that’s about as viable as what was in the first book…which means that I was once again left wondering how the ‘uploaded consciousness in a computer’ aspect of the story was supposed to work. The book features centuries-old organic robots, and I got stuck on the mind/brain chestnut. I do believe we may be dealing with a Pet Peeve here. (And more on that later!)

Xenolinguistical Assessment: The Fox Inheritance is written using the same literary, slightly ‘floaty’ first-person narration as its predecessor, only with Locke taking over viewpoint duties from Jenna. (‘Floaty’ of course being the highly technical literary critic word for ‘Uses lots of flashbacks and asides and, like, narrative devices, dude.) Pearson seems to have toned down the literariness this time, though, which was probably a wise move given that the plot often lends itself to a faster, more descriptive style.

Expanded Report: Some books get off to a good start merely by being sequels to other books; the prestige or quality of their pedigree is enough to predispose a reader towards liking them. The Fox Inheritance is in the awkward position of having the opposite problem: it’s a sequel to a book that really didn’t need one, and thus must justify its existence from the first page. I’ll admit that I was sceptical. The ending of The Adoration of Jenna Fox was both poignant and seemingly final, and I couldn’t help but feel that a sequel would rob it of much of its impact. While I’m still not entirely convinced it ever needed to be written, I’m happy to admit that I liked The Fox Inheritance a good deal more than I thought I would.

Part of the reason for this is that Pearson has wisely decided to avoid retreading familiar ground. The Fox Inheritance is set entirely in the future world we were offered a glimpse into at the end of Adoration, lending the book its own flavour and identity. It tells the story of Locke and Kara, who were with Jenna on the day of the accident that nearly cost them all their lives. While she was reborn into a new body after eighteen months, Locke and Kara were left as disembodied minds in a computer for well ove two centuries before an unscrupulous scientist decided to resurrect them. Spoiler alert: his intentions aren’t entirely noble.

I’ll lay all my cards on the table here and say that my biggest problem with The Fox Inheritance is its focus on the ‘uploaded mind in a computer’ conceit, something that makes progressively less sense the more you think about it. Were the computers running simulations of a human brain? Is that how Locke and Kara were ‘conscious’ for all that time? And why doesn’t anybody point out that these clearly aren’t the same Locke and Kara whose brains were scanned after the crash, since there couldn’t possibly be any continuity of consciousness between their old bodies, the computers and their new bodies? It was enough to activate my hair-trigger inner pedant.

But then I realised that it doesn’t particularly matter, because the computer thing is there both as a plot point and to provide a basis for Locke and Kara’s deliciously codependent relationship. They were essentially locked in a room together for over 250 years – is it any wonder they’re a little bit screwed up when they emerge back into the real world? The tense, uncomfortable bond they share is easily the book’s greatest strength.

Unfortunately, it’s got its fair share of weaknesses to balance things out. The worldbuilding here is perfectly serviceable, but it’s a case of more being less. What we saw in Adoration was a tiny sliver of a world very much like our own but different in subtle ways. It was one of the most grounded depictions of the future I’ve come across in a long time. The world of The Fox Inheritance feels almost cartoonish by comparison, relying as it does on tropes that seem to have been lifted from modern YA dystopia novels: you’ve got ‘futuristic’ slang, a heavy-handed government, slightly implausible robots and a whole class of disenfranchised people who go unrecognised by the centralised bureaucracy. They’re never enough to drag the book down, and many readers won’t bat an eyelid at them, but I found myself longing for the effortless sense of reality that Pearson managed to establish in Adoration.

In the end, I’m still left asking myself whether The Fox Inheritance ever needed to be written. Was anybody out there clamouring to learn what happened to Locke and Kara? Did we really need to see Jenna’s future self in such detail? (Yes, she shows up, but she isn’t nearly as interesting as she was in the first book.) I feel like this would be a perfectly fine book if it could only be taken on its own merits, but its entire premise means that it can only ever be compared with what came before it. In that case, it was always going to be found lacking.

The Fox Inheritance is available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and your local indie bookstore.

Also, on Tuesday we announced that we’d be giving away one copy of the audio book of The Fox Inheritance! That copy will be going to . . .

Julia!

Congratulations, Julia! We’ll be in touch shortly for your shipping address.