The last book was good. Not my favorite xenofiction ever, but it was definitely good and had a ton of interesting potential. Book two takes that up a notch by introducing even more engaging concepts and situations.
First of all: the bouda. These aren't a race of humans per se, more so a type. There's (so far) been two types of humans introduced in Darkeye. The first is the "standard" type such as Lamya, Maha and Tareq. Humans who were born and raised the normal way. The bouda, however, are a type of human that went underground during the apocalypse and has become infertile. To prevent themselves from dying out, they genetically engineered themselves to be born as hyenas. They grow up and reproduce in hyena form (human forms are all sterile), being pretty much non-sapient as if they were the real animal, until they reach a certain age where they'll go through a one-year long transformation process where they turn into an adult human. From there on they'll live thirty or so years before simply dropping dead. As if this wasn't interesting and terrifying enough by itself, there's also the fact that the transformation often times goes wrong, resulting in human-hyena mixes such as the deformed hyenas we encountered last book.
There's also more depth given to the whole IntelliDog concept, how the wild dogs gained it, etc. And we learn more about Mhumhi's adopted mother. So it turns out the humans first genetically altered their dogs to talk, but later more changes were made to make them intelligent. A whole bunch of things went wrong from here, and it's implied some of the wild dogs gained this ability due to breeding with the domestics that had the talking and thinking abilities.
So, again, a ton of new concepts are brought up. The painted dog police are also fleshed out a ton more, and Mhumhi's loyalty to his family is tested sometimes. Heck, he even still messes up regarding the human kids like in the first book, which just feels realistic. He is and always will be a wild animal, not a domestic who has been bred to live with humans. He has instincts and those sometimes cause him to make the wrong decisions regarding Maha and Tareq, such as leaving them behind with the bouda.
The characters are still pretty great. Mhumhi develops more, and it's great to see his devotion to his family (humans included). Kutta is one of my favorites still, and this book also formally introduces me to another favorite: Vimbo.
Vimbo is interesting in that he is a sapient bouda stuck in his hyena form without the ability to talk. He does understand language, but only the human language, which presents an obvious obstacle for our main characters as only one of the major cast speaks this. He honestly goes through a bit of development despite being a mute character who we don't really understand a lot of the time. Even his body language is different from that of a canine, so without speaking Mhumhi and his crew still don't understand him from the most part. They're very negative towards him at first, but gradually they grow more tolerant of the hyena, which was nice to see. I always like it when hyenas aren't represented as downright monstrous or villainous in my xenofictions.
We're also introduced to Mini in this book, another one of my favorites. She's a very intelligent toy-type dog who helps our main cast. I really just really like her mannerisms and attitude throughout the book.
The characters in this book I really couldn't stand were Bii, Kebero, Hlolwa and Biscuit. Bii and Kebero are pretty obvious: they both end up betraying Kutta and Mhumhi (again). Kebero doesn't even seem all that reluctant, despite growing up with Mhumhi and Kutta. I guess he maybe doesn't remember them all that well since Bii took him in. Ah well. Hlolwa's mannerisms just annoyed me and Biscuit... Well he pretty much just goes on a rampage and kills Maha and almost kills Mini. What an asshole. He does pay for it but damn. I didn't like him in book one but he wasn't that major. In book two he also only appears briefly but by god does he leave an impact, killing Mhumhi's favorite of the two human siblings.
The book is still dark, however. It is revealed that the meat Mhumhi and the dogs of the city have been eating wasn't actually human like hinted at in the last book, but rather meat of the hyena-form bouda who never ended up transforming. Very dark, especially considering Vimbo later sees the slaughterhouse. Mhumhi also makes his first real kill (unless you count him contributing to the hulker hunt in the first book) of something sentient. So there's definitely some darker elements here.
But it's overall still a great book! I just love our most of our main cast, the concepts introduced here and how everything so far has been handled!
Rating: 4/5
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