I would have likely rated this book higher (and enjoyed it more) if it wasn't so much military fiction, and more focused on the events leading up to Crown Duel. The pace dragged, the events were often repetitious, but still it had strong main characters. It was a decent book, but I guarantee it won't be in my cycle of books that I reread over and over again. ( )

This was the second Sherwood Smith book I read, after [b:A Posse of Princesses|2852832|A Posse of Princesses|Sherwood Smith|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1348816165s/2852832.jpg|2878966]. I'd been going to read [b:Crown Duel|21060|Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1-2)|Sherwood Smith|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309213505s/21060.jpg|4398231] next, but found this one described as its prequel, so I read it first, really enjoyed it, and was somewhat disappointed by Crown Duel in comparison.

In this book, I very much enjoyed the school setting, the Marloven culture, and Vidanric's introduction to, gradual understanding of, and transformation by that culture. This has turned out to be one of the familiar comfort reads to which I frequently return. ( )

A Stranger to Command by Sherwood Smith is a prequel to Crown Duel about Vindanric’s life as a teenager when he gets sent away to the military land of Marloven Hess when a lot of the heirs start having quite a few riding “accidents.”

My intrest in reading this book though wasn’t really to see Vindanric as a teen (though i would love to read Crown Duel entirely in his point of view!) but to see how much Marloven Hess changed from the Inda Series. And it was pretty cool, you get a more in depth view of the acadamy (Inda was only there for two years) and it’s really cool to see Fox’s family back on the throne.

Now back to the book, I will admit that this was slightly anti-climatic and maybe a little long winded, but as a study of character and place building it’s excellent! Sherwood Smith is so good at building lands and characters it’s hard to believe they don’t really exist!

So to all you die hard Crown Duel, Inda and general Sherwood Smith fans out there, i say go ahead and read it! To every one else, start off with Crown Duel or the Inda Series first.

Happy Readings!


The Book Worm ( )

A teenaged aristocrat is sent to a famed but distant military academy. The culture shock is terrible, but he quickly learns all manner of martial skills that will aid him in his family's planned coup against their despotic king. ( )

I really enjoyed reading about the early life of Vidranic, as he spent time in the academy in Marloven-Hess. I don't want to put in any spoilers, but I really liked the double entendre on the title: he's both a stranger in a foreign land in an academy where the customs and _everything_ are completely strange to him, and he's also completely foreign to the idea of command, which is gradually built up in him as he realizes what might be necessary from him in the future. I love the interactions between him and Senrid. The secondary characters are wonderful, and this book started me thinking about how fantastic Sherwood Smith is at world-building. I just accepted it without really thinking about it in her other books that I've read, because she does it so well that I've just accepted everything effortlessly. But as I've read more, all books set in different parts of the same continent, I've started thinking about it more, and having this book set in Marloven-Hess, for the most part, really made me realize what a master she is at it. It's made me start to re-evaluate the way I approach the concept of world-building in a way I never really have before, even after hearing and reading authors talk about it constantly. Here, just seeing the difference and reading how Vidranic and the Marlovens had so much to overcome and still quite didn't understand each other all the time was really skillfully done, and made me think back to the settings of the other books of hers I've read with a greater appreciated for the differences of the countries they're set in. They're all mentioned in passing, so familiar names come up, but it's taken me this long, and reading a bunch at once, for it to click that they're on the same map. I know that might sound silly, I feel silly it took me so long to notice. I think it's a better lesson than being told how to do something, though; actually reading it being used so proficiently is really helpful.

( )