The Revolution and the Fox (The Calatians #4) by Tim Susman

Genre(s): Alternate History, Fantasy

Age Rating: PG-13 for violence

Available in Print and eBook

You might want to continue this series if you:

• Want to see what Kip and his friends are up to after the American Revolution

• Have been waiting for a showdown with Victor Adamson

• Want answers about the nature of some big worldbuilding elements

• Enjoy field trips (gone wrong!)

Full Review:

At last, we’ve come to the final book in the Calatians saga, and what a journey it’s been. We’ve seen Kip and his friends overcome immense challenges—systemic, personal and otherwise—to become great sorcerers. They’ve lost friends, made big sacrifices, and have fought a literal war to get to where they are now. One might think there’s not much else to explore. At the beginning of Revolution and the Fox, they’ve become master sorcerers, have carved out territory for the Calatians on multiple continents, and have even started their own sorcery school. But then you remember that one little hanging thread who’s been haunting the narrative this whole saga: Victor Adamson.

Adamson hates Calatians and is envious of Kip’s magical power. He’s got plans within plans that have been building in the background throughout the saga, and they’re about to come to fruition.

It starts with a school field trip going horribly wrong. Kip, Malcolm, Alice, and Emily have taken their students to the International Exposition on Sorcery, both as an educational opportunity for the students, and to acquire funding and teachers for their own school in Georgia. Predictably, Adamson shows up at the expo, but shocks everyone by displaying a magical feat thought to be impossible. Shortly afterward, Kip’s students disappear, and they need to do everything in their power to find them before Victor can carry out whatever he has planned.

After a trip to France, that is. They need that school funding after all.

Yeah, I had a bit of trouble with how the plot meanders in the middle of this one. After the sorcery exposition, Kip and Emily go off to France to solicit funding from a noble couple while Malcolm and Alice look for the lost students. The narrative only follows Kip and Emily, and since they’re trying to solve a problem not caused by the instigating event of the story, the plot feels a bit unfocused. When they fully return to the lost student problem, Kip and Emily’s sojourn to France feels inconsequential, so 1/3^rd of the book is kind of an awkward side quest.

More importantly, the French Revolution doesn’t have much bearing on the main story as one might expect. It’s happening in the background, and does directly affect the side quest, but Kip and his friends aren’t nearly as immersed in the history of it as they were in the American Revolution. So, if you’re going into this book excited about the prospect of seeing the French Revolution in this magical alternate history setting, you may want to temper those expectations. I think it will help you enjoy the book a lot more if you stay focused on the main story.

Luckily, that main story is quite good! The stakes have risen again. Victor Adamson’s scheme is of huge consequence and ultimately reveals much about the nature of certain aspects of the worldbuilding that we’ve been wondering about since the beginning. Kip and his friends encounter untold cruelty, betrayal, and a few twists as they attempt to rescue the students. Adamson gets the full villain treatment the saga has been building him up to. So, in that regard, this story is nearly everything I was hoping to see in a sequel. I enjoyed how everything came together in the end, and I especially enjoyed some of the new surprises in the worldbuilding. It even seems like future entries in the series could be possible, which is encouraging.

So, we still have a good story here, it’s just a bit awkward that it deviates so strongly in the middle and hardly involves the titular (French) Revolution. That was likely what most readers were expecting and hoping to see, after all. But even with its central flaw, the story serves as a fitting conclusion to the saga. I’ve really enjoyed my time with this series, and it’ll forever hold a special place in my heart.