Review - Space Fox by L.M. Brown

Gargoyle Jude is preparing for his first mission as part of G-Force, Earth’s space fleet. He has been assigned to visit the planet Cairo, one of many that was colonized when it looked like the earth was on its last legs, yet not visited for many years. After encountering some hostile visitors shortly after his arrival, Jude crashes his ship. Faced with a long trek across a featureless desert, Jude has little choice but to accept the help of Kirby, a shifter whose Fennec Fox animal side is able to navigate the shifting sands and get Jude back to the abandoned human settlement where he hopes to find supplies to fix his ship. As the journey progresses, the two get closer, even though a relationship seems like a very bad idea, since Jude and Kirby come from completely different worlds.

“Space Fox” is a rather sweet little romance in a science fiction / fantasy setting. Within the framework of a distant future where humans have colonized several planets, and perhaps forgotten a few, the idea of a world where the only survivors of a terran settlement on a desert world would be the shifters who were best adapted to the climate makes sense. There isn’t a lot of time building the future universe of shifters, gargoyles and humans, but it’s easy enough to get into the story.

Kirby comes off as a very sweet young man, while Jude is a bit older and more worldly. In way, it’s a country boy meets city slicker type of story. Both characters are quite well drawn and quite believable. Much of the drama of the story comes from the two men trying to figure out how to have a life together, with their very different needs and desires for how they want to live.

This is a short book, although still in the novel length category, and with the nicely flowing writing style it’s a relatively quick read. At the end, it’s a nice little story without much meaning, which is not such a bad thing in the current situation.

“Space Fox” is available from Amazon.