One of the more unusual and intriguing works I’ve read lately is The Navigating Fox, by Christopher Rowe (2023). Having heard nothing about it, I ran across it in the New Books shelves of my local library, and was interested enough to check it out. As novellas go, it’s a long one (155 pages in a trade paperback), but it feels short.
The titular protagonist and first-person narrator is Quintus Shu’al, who was the only one to return to the city of Aquacolonia from an expedition. A hearing for his expulsion from the Sodality of Explorers is derailed by Scipio Aemilanus, high priest of the God of the Hinge, who wants the navigating fox to guide his own planned expedition to find the gates of Hell so he can shut them.
One worldbuilding element in this novella is that Rome never fell, and has established a large colony in what we know as North America, by 1880 in our timeline. The other basic difference is that “knowledgeable” animals exist; these individual creatures have been given the capacity for reasoning and speech but otherwise are physically indistinguishable from their voiceless counterparts.
Most knowledgeable animals know who gave them their voice, and indeed usually owe heavy debts for this ability. However, Quintus Shu’al does not know who did this for him, or even where he came from, and the driving motivation of his life is to find out about his origin. This obsession has led him to make bargains with a corrupt conspirator, so his more recent journeys have included hidden agendas.
Quintus Shu’al has the rare ability to find the Silver Roads that make travel across the continent somewhat easier and safer, which is why Scipio Aemilanus demands his help. Accompanying the navigating fox and the high priest are an assortment of lower priests, a crow, a pair of mapmaking raccoons, a bison ambassador, and her attendants. Octavia Delphina is the expedition’s official recorder/historian, but really she’s along to keep an eye on the fox, and find out, if she can, what exactly happened to her sister, who had been in charge of the vanished expedition.
I really enjoyed this book. The style is fairly simple and direct, vivid and descriptive but not so much as to slow things down. Characters are distinctly drawn and interesting (although some definitely lack charm). Worldbuilding details are placed carefully throughout the book, not dropped in stumbling blocks of information. The pacing is somewhat complicated by flashback chapters, but the parallel structures of the current journey and the vanished expedition do make sense.
The novella’s meanderings include some musings on the importance and intangibility of identity; assessments of who’s an acquaintance, an ally, or a friend; promises, secrets, misdirections, lies, and betrayals; navigations of bureacracy and protocols; and arrogance and its consequences; however, despite these philosophical explorations, it’s a light and easy read.
I wouldn’t call this novella undemanding, because there are various questions for the reader to think about along the way, but it is a very pleasant journey. Not all the questions are resolved, but enough are addressed for the reader, if not necessarily the fox, to be well satisfied. There are some threads that aren’t exactly tied off, or are touched on only lightly, which leave room open for a sequel, but I rather like how things end here.
Content warnings: Physical violence, threats, coercion, dire consequences for arrogance.
Disclaimers: None.
