For Stopmouth and the rest of his Tribe, to kill is to survive. On a world where all other sentient life is out to eat you, community and family spirit is a must. No communications between any of the other races of beasts is possible--the only man who succeeded in learning any of their speech was half mad already...

That is, until a beautiful woman fell out of the sky, a woman with knowledge of civilization and technology far superior to, as some of her people call the humans on the ground, the savages.

Chased out of his Tribe, they begin the long arduous journey to the Roof, the place where the woman, Indrani, is safe and can reveal all to Stopmouth. But it is, of course, a journey fraught with peril, for, above all things, some races of beasts have found a way to cooperate and fight together. And the civilised humans of the Roof aren't so keen on having her back...

This was a really interesting, and fun YA/SF novel. The characterisation was rich and well done, and the ending of The Inferior leaves me in no doubt that the next two volumes in this trilogy will be just as good.

With Stopmouth, it's nice to see a hero with, well, in the eyes of the people of his world, at least, a disability. His relationship with Indrani and his nervousness in approaching her, after years of scorn for his impediment, was quite touching and realistic.

The promise of the world of the Roof, civilised and safe, overlapping with the world of the savages is something that excites me greatly. It soon becomes clear, as with many of the times humans have tried to put themselves above everything else, that perhaps the "savages" aren't the savages at all...

A truly original story with characters that could be read all day. There are flaws of course--this book is not going to blow your mind full of ideas (and headaches), and I would not expect any one to buy it thinking it to be a hard gritty SF novel, but it is nevertheless, a riveting and engaging YA debut. A very worthy 8 out of 10. The Inferior is superior to any Young Adult book I've ever read.

This review first appeared on my blog: thebookswede.blogspot.com