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Two Serpent Island Review
Dec. 19th, 2013 04:01 pmHey,
Finished up a couple more books. One of which is a sequel of sorts and the other is a bit more ephemeral.
First up is Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone. This is set in the same world as his previous book Three Parts Dead. It postulates a world where magic is a complex, contract-riddled exchange that has tossed out the gods and ushered in a fairly modern age where magic makes things go. The previous book looked at things from a Craftworker (Wizard) point-of-view and now we're treated to something a little less powered.
The book takes place in Dresediel Lex which is an obvious stand-in for Los Angeles with Aztec overtones. The old gods were kicked out and their killer, the Red King (a skeletal lich) is now responsible for supplying the city with water. One of his risk-assessment agents is Caleb Altemoc and he's investigating a minor demon infestation of one of the city reservoirs. Cleaning up the mess, he's called in to help manage the Red King's merger with Heartstone, a smaller company responsible for keeping two giant serpents asleep beneath the city.
I'm sure I'm not spoiling anything by saying there are plans afoot to wake them up.
The central mystery is a little weak, the ultimate bad guy gets telegraphed a little too soon, but the background is full of interesting ideas and the setting uses the friction between divine and celestial magic as a metaphor for our relationship with technology. There's also an interesting sub-plot involving Caleb's father, one of the last priests of the old gods who's waging a guerrilla campaign against the Red King. So lots of interesting father-son dynamics there.
I enjoy the way Gladstone sets out a very consistent world and lets those elements drive stories forward without forcing anything. A fun read.
Following that, I was able to peruse one of my impulse purchases from the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse sale. This was The Islanders by Christopher Priest. The conceit is that the book is a gazetteer of some of the islands in the Dream Archipelago. As the name implies the islands and their people are not quite fantastical, but certainly dream-like. Each island gets and entry of 2-20 pages in length and only a few have the clipped, factual content you would expect. Most of them have short stories illustrating the island by the people who live or visit the place. People and events spread out over several entries so that there's always something new being unpacked with each tale.
It's perfectly pleasant reading. Maybe not the most gripping thing in the world, but you can pick it up and put it down in pieces and imagine travelling to far off places that don't really exist.
later
Tom
Finished up a couple more books. One of which is a sequel of sorts and the other is a bit more ephemeral.
First up is Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone. This is set in the same world as his previous book Three Parts Dead. It postulates a world where magic is a complex, contract-riddled exchange that has tossed out the gods and ushered in a fairly modern age where magic makes things go. The previous book looked at things from a Craftworker (Wizard) point-of-view and now we're treated to something a little less powered.
The book takes place in Dresediel Lex which is an obvious stand-in for Los Angeles with Aztec overtones. The old gods were kicked out and their killer, the Red King (a skeletal lich) is now responsible for supplying the city with water. One of his risk-assessment agents is Caleb Altemoc and he's investigating a minor demon infestation of one of the city reservoirs. Cleaning up the mess, he's called in to help manage the Red King's merger with Heartstone, a smaller company responsible for keeping two giant serpents asleep beneath the city.
I'm sure I'm not spoiling anything by saying there are plans afoot to wake them up.
The central mystery is a little weak, the ultimate bad guy gets telegraphed a little too soon, but the background is full of interesting ideas and the setting uses the friction between divine and celestial magic as a metaphor for our relationship with technology. There's also an interesting sub-plot involving Caleb's father, one of the last priests of the old gods who's waging a guerrilla campaign against the Red King. So lots of interesting father-son dynamics there.
I enjoy the way Gladstone sets out a very consistent world and lets those elements drive stories forward without forcing anything. A fun read.
Following that, I was able to peruse one of my impulse purchases from the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse sale. This was The Islanders by Christopher Priest. The conceit is that the book is a gazetteer of some of the islands in the Dream Archipelago. As the name implies the islands and their people are not quite fantastical, but certainly dream-like. Each island gets and entry of 2-20 pages in length and only a few have the clipped, factual content you would expect. Most of them have short stories illustrating the island by the people who live or visit the place. People and events spread out over several entries so that there's always something new being unpacked with each tale.
It's perfectly pleasant reading. Maybe not the most gripping thing in the world, but you can pick it up and put it down in pieces and imagine travelling to far off places that don't really exist.
later
Tom
