The Fox Inheritance (review)

In this sequel to The Adoration of Jenna Fox (BCCB 4/08), Jenna’s two best friends, whose memory banks have long been presumed destroyed, get their own chance to live 260 years later. Jenna, critically injured after a car accident, was given a new long-living body immediately, and she made the choice to erase her friends because she didn’t know when they could be revived, in what form, and if they would want to be. Unfortunately, the erased copies weren’t the only ones, and Locke and Kara spent more than two centuries aware of themselves and clinging to sanity. Now that the two are embodied again, Kara is obsessed with murdering Jenna for abandoning them, for living when Kara could not, and, in smaller part, for occupying so much of Locke’s memories and heart. The time between the two novels’ events is insignificant, as Jenna can live hundreds of years and the dramatic differences in the world with which Kara and Locke must contend are downplayed in favor of their emotional struggles. This is a desperately painful story of three people who are all cheated of their original lives, handed badly flawed new existences, and sent on their ways emotionally unprepared. Fans of the previous novel may be anxious to get to the part where Jenna turns up again to see how she has fared, but the slow path to her side of the story allows for compelling character development of Locke and Kara, who are both disturbing and intriguing in their own rights. The ethical debates around whether science should be limited by conscience and not just ability are well integrated into a story that is equally strong as an exploration of home, identity, and the meaning of survival.