Fox Snare (Thousand Worlds #3), by Yoon Ha Lee

Another very busy week for me, with none of the reviews I wanted to write being written...so here once more is a quick one before I post today's round up.

Fox Snare (Thousand Worlds #3), by Yoon Ha Lee, is the third installment of great space adventure for upper middle grade readers on up (but do read the first two books in the series first).

Min, the fox spirt who was the central character of Dragon Pearl, is now the keeper of that titular pearl, which can magically terraform in hospitable planets.  Before this, terraforming relied on Dragon magic, and now the Dragons are unhappy that they now outclassed.  Haneuol, a young dragon, was once Min's friend, and when she arrives on the vessel where Min is currently in residence as part of the Dragon delegation to important diplomatic negations with the leader of the Sun Clan nations, Min hopes they can rekindle their relationship, but it doesn't go well. Sebin, the non-binary tiger spirit who was the central character of Tiger Honor, is a cadet on this same ship, and finds themselves drawn into the diplomatic tensions as well.

The leaders of the Thousand Worlds want to use Min and the pearl to terraform a planet that lies at a crucial junction between the two hostile factions...but it's not just location that makes this planet a prize both sides want--long ago an immensely powerful war ships crashed there, and whichever side can recover it will have a huge military advantage.

Then the space station where the negotiations are being held explodes.  Min, Haneuol, and Sabin crash land on the contested planet, along with a fox spirit woman who is clearly a suspicious character, and whose own agenda is occluded by her fox gift of charm.  Travelling across this alien world to the site of the crashed warship, Min is troubled by the conflict between her loyalty to the Thousand Worlds and her desire to trust another Fox, Sabin is torn between strict adherence to duty and critical examination of what is happening, and Haneul must wrestle with familial expectations and her own wishes.

And then they reach the ship, and things get enormously more tense as the threesome realizes the truth about why it was never recovered, and just what the Fox spirit woman has planned.

Told in alternating points of view by Min and Sebin, this is a gripping read in which the character's personal conflicts and the external dangers are beautifully balanced, and the magical abilities of the shape shifters, and some unexpected supernatural elements, make for lovely reading.  This installment is more direct than the previous book in identifying the Thousand Worlds as being of Korean descent, and the Sun Clans as being Japanese, making it an even more thought-provoking read. 

My only worry is that this seems to be the final book about these characters and their universe, and that thought makes me sad.  On the other hand, I can look forward to a nice re-read....