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Craft Sequence #2
Two Serpents Rise
In Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone, shadow demons plague the city reservoir, and Red King Consolidated has sent in Caleb Altemoc—casual gambler and professional risk manager—to cleanse the water for the sixteen million people of Dresediel Lex. At the scene of the crime, Caleb finds an alluring and clever cliff runner, Crazy Mal, who easily outpaces him.
But Caleb has more than the demon infestation, Mal, or job security to worry about when he discovers that his father—the last priest of the old gods and leader of the True Quechal terrorists—has broken into his home and is wanted in connection to the attacks on the water supply.
From the beginning, Caleb and Mal are bound by lust, Craft, and chance, as both play a dangerous game where gods and people are pawns. They sleep on water, they dance in fire...and all the while the Twin Serpents slumbering beneath the earth are stirring, and they are hungry.
But Caleb has more than the demon infestation, Mal, or job security to worry about when he discovers that his father—the last priest of the old gods and leader of the True Quechal terrorists—has broken into his home and is wanted in connection to the attacks on the water supply.
From the beginning, Caleb and Mal are bound by lust, Craft, and chance, as both play a dangerous game where gods and people are pawns. They sleep on water, they dance in fire...and all the while the Twin Serpents slumbering beneath the earth are stirring, and they are hungry.
347 pages, Paperback
First published October 29, 2013
282 people are currently reading
4330 people want to read
About the author
Max Gladstone
120 books2,527 followersMax Gladstone is the author of the Craft Sequence: THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO SERPENTS RISE, FULL FATHOM FIVE, and most recently, LAST FIRST SNOW. He's been twice nominated for the John W Campbell Best New Writer award, and nominated for the XYZZY and Lambda Awards.
Max has taught in southern Anhui, wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia. Max graduated from Yale University, where he studied Chinese.
Max has taught in southern Anhui, wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia. Max graduated from Yale University, where he studied Chinese.
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January 24, 2023
1.5/5 stars
Two Serpents Rise was a huge downgrade from Three Parts Dead.
Two Serpents Rise is the second book in Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence series but chronologically, this takes place before the event of the first book; look at the number in the title of each book, that’s the chronological order of the story line. Because Craft Sequence is a standalone series, almost every book featured different main characters and story in a different locale.
Unfortunately, the changes in characters, story, and settings were also where the book fell short for me because almost everything in the book—with the exception of the world-building and the prose—just didn’t work for me. The story wasn’t interesting, the characters were infuriating and felt unoriginal compared to Tara and the other characters from the first book. The fun magic system was also lacking in appearance here. However, what infuriates me the most was the non-chemistry romance between Caleb and Mal. The romance sparked out of nowhere, it was an insta-love with absolutely no chemistry. Seems like the narrative tried to implied that Caleb and Mal have a strong chemistry but just saying don’t make it true. I found Caleb’s action and obsession with Mal to be boring, unreasonable, and incredibly hard to care about. Finishing the book, I realized that the only pivotal event that stood out to me was their romance, and it’s not a good one to remember. The world-building was still great and imaginative, the writing has improved, but overall I simply didn’t enjoy reading this book.
I mentioned in my Three Parts Dead review that I’m content with just reading that one book as a standalone and it seems like this sequel didn’t spark my interest in continuing with the series, at least not anytime soon. That said, I may be on the minority with this book so if you loved and feels like continuing, you definitely should. I may not be continuing with this series but I still highly look forward to Gladstone’s upcoming book, Empress of Forever next year.
You can buy the book with free shipping by clicking this link!
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
Two Serpents Rise was a huge downgrade from Three Parts Dead.
Two Serpents Rise is the second book in Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence series but chronologically, this takes place before the event of the first book; look at the number in the title of each book, that’s the chronological order of the story line. Because Craft Sequence is a standalone series, almost every book featured different main characters and story in a different locale.
Unfortunately, the changes in characters, story, and settings were also where the book fell short for me because almost everything in the book—with the exception of the world-building and the prose—just didn’t work for me. The story wasn’t interesting, the characters were infuriating and felt unoriginal compared to Tara and the other characters from the first book. The fun magic system was also lacking in appearance here. However, what infuriates me the most was the non-chemistry romance between Caleb and Mal. The romance sparked out of nowhere, it was an insta-love with absolutely no chemistry. Seems like the narrative tried to implied that Caleb and Mal have a strong chemistry but just saying don’t make it true. I found Caleb’s action and obsession with Mal to be boring, unreasonable, and incredibly hard to care about. Finishing the book, I realized that the only pivotal event that stood out to me was their romance, and it’s not a good one to remember. The world-building was still great and imaginative, the writing has improved, but overall I simply didn’t enjoy reading this book.
I mentioned in my Three Parts Dead review that I’m content with just reading that one book as a standalone and it seems like this sequel didn’t spark my interest in continuing with the series, at least not anytime soon. That said, I may be on the minority with this book so if you loved and feels like continuing, you definitely should. I may not be continuing with this series but I still highly look forward to Gladstone’s upcoming book, Empress of Forever next year.
You can buy the book with free shipping by clicking this link!
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
October 26, 2019
Sometimes there are books that I want to re-read, almost from the first minute after turning the last page. Gladstone’s first novel Three Parts Dead was one of those select few. One of the more original fantasies I had read last year, it easily made my “Top Reads” list. So it was with some surprise that I finished Two Serpents and found myself avoiding it, unwilling to write a review and unwilling to read again. At the end of the book, my reaction was a solid “meh,” and yet there were intriguing parts and interesting characters, so I had a very hard time identifying why it didn’t work as well as Three Parts did. As I (finally) re-read, I think the answer lies in both world-building and narrative.
Gladstone has stated that he admires Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, which allows readers to enjoy stand-alone stories set in the same world, while sometimes building on prior characters, and he has similar sorts of goals for his world. While I applaud both his sensibility and his effort to sidestep the expectations of epic and urban fantasy readers who clamor for multi-volume story lines, this world feels surprisingly different to the earlier one, and unfortunately similar to modern city, modern era. World-building issues can be tricky in fantasy, especially fantasy set in not-Earth. Clearly, authors draw a number of concepts and logistics from worlds we already know, if only to shorthand the world-building. Most commonly, authors seem to borrow European medieval trappings: agrarian lifestyles, Christian religious structures, limited technology. I’m always intrigued when authors go outside the fantasy ‘norms,’ and Gladstone’s details on a Mayan/Aztec-like culture seemed promising.
However, it isn’t long before it appears the kitchen-sink is the main resource. Although the variety perhaps reflects a significantly evolved world, it ultimately leaves the reader groundless in a strange hybrid of modern and fantastical. How confused? Well, the casual mention of eating ‘polenta’ for breakfast, Caleb taking the ‘bus’ and an ‘optician’ advertising on a billboard felt more than a bit 20th-century, along with the ‘denim pants’ Caleb wears, the four-piece band that includes drums and cymbals, and the pretentious abstract art show opening. But then there were the dirigibles, and the ‘driverless carriages’ which echo the steam-punk tradition. Poker and bridge transcend both time periods, but again echo the real world. In the middle of towering buildings and slaughterhouses that feed the city (reminding me of the 19th century urban jungle), there are “80-story pyramids” and sacrificial alters from the Meso-American background. The there’s the author-imagination fantastical: mention of someone playing “ullamal” (which, as far as I can tell, doesn’t exist), the flying opteran (dragonfly-like personal flier), the Tzimet water demons, the connection of soul-stuff with cash. Finally, the mundane fantastical–the couatl, a flying serpent; the mythological Twin Goddesses that save the world, zombies (at the company announcement) and living skeletons.
In retrospect, what struck me most is that Three Parts showed the reader a number of small, unique magics in action: a gargoyle transforming, stealing a face, a mystical ceremony for doing an autopsy on a god. Two Serpents has very little of the mundane magical, relying on scattershot world-building and larger instances of gods’ magic. Gladstone states he wanted to have a non-magical protagonist, which is certainly fine, but then surrounding the reader with magic that he takes for granted amounts to unsatisfying world-building. It also means that if that is part of your criteria for enjoyable fantasy, this may not be as successful.
Characterization is one of the strong points of the book. Although Caleb is not always sympathetic, he is relatively complicated, albeit young. The characters around him are interesting. Teo and her rejection of wealthy family financial shackles sounded familiar, but I liked her faithfulness to Caleb and her willingness to call him out. I enjoyed the multiplicity of ethnicities and sexualities mentioned without the characters being defined by that one trait. Caleb’s problematic relationship with his father, Temoc, a renegade priest, was fascinating, and I found myself more interested in Caleb’s back story and the interplay between the two as much as current events. There’s an interesting parallel in Caleb’s relationship with The Red King, a virtually mythological character mentioned in Three Parts. I found myself wanting to know more about the Red King, a positive sign of how well Gladstone creates secondary characters, and a negative one of my ambivalent interest in Caleb.
Pacing and plotting was a struggle for me. Ostensibly beginning with an act of sabotage directed at his employer, it soon becomes a story about Caleb’s obsession with a ‘cliff-runner’ woman named Mal (!!!) who he met at the water reservoir at the same time the Tzimet appear in the water supply. The story becomes a very thin romance, predicated on nothing but obsession, as Caleb struggles with first the ethics of being a loyal employee by turning Mal in contrasting with his desire to track her down. Failing to find Mal quickly and a side-journey into the art of cliff-running in the city means attraction between the two was slow to develop and consisted more of “meet you later” than actual encounters. Unfortunately, during this time, there was also little focus on the issue of the water demons or political developments at Red King Limited, and Caleb appears content to have managed the crisis and is ready to move on. Apparently Gladstone was intentionally portraying Caleb’s projections of what he wanted Mal to be onto Mal, but it really didn’t gel for me in context of the larger story, particularly when her perspective was included.
So why the three stars? I appreciated the overall sense of the story; the rather mundane idea of water resource affecting a fantasy city and how to cope with growing demand (apparently somewhat modeled on Los Angeles). I do enjoy Gladstone’s writing complexity. There’s a nice balance between descriptive prose and action, and the writing is satisfactorily sophisticated, a breath of fresh air in the fantasy field. His imagery surrounding the gods was vivid and concepts of using them even after death were disturbing and powerful. However, despite enjoying the writing, I’m not sure who I would recommend it to–my ultimate feeling is that this was a bit too big of a bite for one book or for Gladstone’s current level of writing, and could have been significantly stronger by limiting its scope. Still, I enjoy his writing enough that I’ll check out the next book.
Gladstone has stated that he admires Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, which allows readers to enjoy stand-alone stories set in the same world, while sometimes building on prior characters, and he has similar sorts of goals for his world. While I applaud both his sensibility and his effort to sidestep the expectations of epic and urban fantasy readers who clamor for multi-volume story lines, this world feels surprisingly different to the earlier one, and unfortunately similar to modern city, modern era. World-building issues can be tricky in fantasy, especially fantasy set in not-Earth. Clearly, authors draw a number of concepts and logistics from worlds we already know, if only to shorthand the world-building. Most commonly, authors seem to borrow European medieval trappings: agrarian lifestyles, Christian religious structures, limited technology. I’m always intrigued when authors go outside the fantasy ‘norms,’ and Gladstone’s details on a Mayan/Aztec-like culture seemed promising.
However, it isn’t long before it appears the kitchen-sink is the main resource. Although the variety perhaps reflects a significantly evolved world, it ultimately leaves the reader groundless in a strange hybrid of modern and fantastical. How confused? Well, the casual mention of eating ‘polenta’ for breakfast, Caleb taking the ‘bus’ and an ‘optician’ advertising on a billboard felt more than a bit 20th-century, along with the ‘denim pants’ Caleb wears, the four-piece band that includes drums and cymbals, and the pretentious abstract art show opening. But then there were the dirigibles, and the ‘driverless carriages’ which echo the steam-punk tradition. Poker and bridge transcend both time periods, but again echo the real world. In the middle of towering buildings and slaughterhouses that feed the city (reminding me of the 19th century urban jungle), there are “80-story pyramids” and sacrificial alters from the Meso-American background. The there’s the author-imagination fantastical: mention of someone playing “ullamal” (which, as far as I can tell, doesn’t exist), the flying opteran (dragonfly-like personal flier), the Tzimet water demons, the connection of soul-stuff with cash. Finally, the mundane fantastical–the couatl, a flying serpent; the mythological Twin Goddesses that save the world, zombies (at the company announcement) and living skeletons.
In retrospect, what struck me most is that Three Parts showed the reader a number of small, unique magics in action: a gargoyle transforming, stealing a face, a mystical ceremony for doing an autopsy on a god. Two Serpents has very little of the mundane magical, relying on scattershot world-building and larger instances of gods’ magic. Gladstone states he wanted to have a non-magical protagonist, which is certainly fine, but then surrounding the reader with magic that he takes for granted amounts to unsatisfying world-building. It also means that if that is part of your criteria for enjoyable fantasy, this may not be as successful.
Characterization is one of the strong points of the book. Although Caleb is not always sympathetic, he is relatively complicated, albeit young. The characters around him are interesting. Teo and her rejection of wealthy family financial shackles sounded familiar, but I liked her faithfulness to Caleb and her willingness to call him out. I enjoyed the multiplicity of ethnicities and sexualities mentioned without the characters being defined by that one trait. Caleb’s problematic relationship with his father, Temoc, a renegade priest, was fascinating, and I found myself more interested in Caleb’s back story and the interplay between the two as much as current events. There’s an interesting parallel in Caleb’s relationship with The Red King, a virtually mythological character mentioned in Three Parts. I found myself wanting to know more about the Red King, a positive sign of how well Gladstone creates secondary characters, and a negative one of my ambivalent interest in Caleb.
Pacing and plotting was a struggle for me. Ostensibly beginning with an act of sabotage directed at his employer, it soon becomes a story about Caleb’s obsession with a ‘cliff-runner’ woman named Mal (!!!) who he met at the water reservoir at the same time the Tzimet appear in the water supply. The story becomes a very thin romance, predicated on nothing but obsession, as Caleb struggles with first the ethics of being a loyal employee by turning Mal in contrasting with his desire to track her down. Failing to find Mal quickly and a side-journey into the art of cliff-running in the city means attraction between the two was slow to develop and consisted more of “meet you later” than actual encounters. Unfortunately, during this time, there was also little focus on the issue of the water demons or political developments at Red King Limited, and Caleb appears content to have managed the crisis and is ready to move on. Apparently Gladstone was intentionally portraying Caleb’s projections of what he wanted Mal to be onto Mal, but it really didn’t gel for me in context of the larger story, particularly when her perspective was included.
So why the three stars? I appreciated the overall sense of the story; the rather mundane idea of water resource affecting a fantasy city and how to cope with growing demand (apparently somewhat modeled on Los Angeles). I do enjoy Gladstone’s writing complexity. There’s a nice balance between descriptive prose and action, and the writing is satisfactorily sophisticated, a breath of fresh air in the fantasy field. His imagery surrounding the gods was vivid and concepts of using them even after death were disturbing and powerful. However, despite enjoying the writing, I’m not sure who I would recommend it to–my ultimate feeling is that this was a bit too big of a bite for one book or for Gladstone’s current level of writing, and could have been significantly stronger by limiting its scope. Still, I enjoy his writing enough that I’ll check out the next book.
August 7, 2014
You know what it's like. You read the first book by a new author and you fall in love with the series. You know you shouldn't. You've been hurt before.
Then the second book shows up and it's just... meh.
It's called the sophomore slump. And all of us who have been burned by it learn to dread it. Especially when we *really* enjoyed the first book of the series.
Good news. You don't have to worry about that here. If anything, I enjoyed this book more than the first one in the series. And that's really saying something. (You can read that review if you like, to see how gushy I got.)
This book continues in the same world. It follows the familiar themes established in the first book, but it doesn't just re-hash the previous story. Instead Max opens up a new part of the world. We see new gods and religions. New cultures and new complications. The new story grows very naturally out of these things.
Perhaps best of all, this is what I think of as a hopeful book. That's rare these days, especially when the author is writing a world that is dystopian or post-apocalyptic. (These books kinda are.) So while this book does has dark elements, we aren't left with something so grim as to be oppressive or nihilistic. Instead we have characters that fight against the fact that the world kinda sucks, hoping to make things better.
Yeah. I like books where people try to make the world a better place. Sue me.
So... yeah. If you liked the first one, there's more goodness waiting here for you. And even if you haven't read that one, you still might dig on this. Not that I would ever condone the horrible practice of non-sequential reading, mind you....
Then the second book shows up and it's just... meh.
It's called the sophomore slump. And all of us who have been burned by it learn to dread it. Especially when we *really* enjoyed the first book of the series.
Good news. You don't have to worry about that here. If anything, I enjoyed this book more than the first one in the series. And that's really saying something. (You can read that review if you like, to see how gushy I got.)
This book continues in the same world. It follows the familiar themes established in the first book, but it doesn't just re-hash the previous story. Instead Max opens up a new part of the world. We see new gods and religions. New cultures and new complications. The new story grows very naturally out of these things.
Perhaps best of all, this is what I think of as a hopeful book. That's rare these days, especially when the author is writing a world that is dystopian or post-apocalyptic. (These books kinda are.) So while this book does has dark elements, we aren't left with something so grim as to be oppressive or nihilistic. Instead we have characters that fight against the fact that the world kinda sucks, hoping to make things better.
Yeah. I like books where people try to make the world a better place. Sue me.
So... yeah. If you liked the first one, there's more goodness waiting here for you. And even if you haven't read that one, you still might dig on this. Not that I would ever condone the horrible practice of non-sequential reading, mind you....
February 9, 2017
Sometimes I wind up blown away. It seems to happen more and more often with UF than I thought it would, but so be it. It happened again.
Max Gladstone is awesome.
We move to new characters in the Craft Sequence, but not a new world. The God Wars haven't really gone away and certain quasi-avatars are still a going concern. But wait... is this really a novel about Risk Management and preventing the world's power or waterworks from drying up because the great systems that plug themselves into sleeping gods is malfunctioning?
Yes, in part, and the big action goes much deeper and much stranger than even that. But the real action and the part that really blows me away is the ROMANCE.
Yeah. You heard me. We've got two people who seem to be as different as night and day, a risk taker and a risk manager, and yet both seem to be coming toward the center in their own ways. They're drawn to each other despite career choices, logic, or common sense.
And yet they're both rather devoted to the idea of loving each other. There's not even sex happening. They're just smitten and trying to squeeze the very most out of each moment with each other that they possibly can before many millions in the city start going really thirsty.
It's sweet. It's tragic. You can smell it coming.
And then all kinds of hell breaks loose. And I cried.
I mentioned that I don't expect to get affected like this out of UF. I've read so many and they're generally fun as hell, but I don't expect *this* kind of reaction. And on a second book, either. WTF? I'm amazed.
Someone has just been tipped into deep fanboy status.
Max Gladstone is awesome.
We move to new characters in the Craft Sequence, but not a new world. The God Wars haven't really gone away and certain quasi-avatars are still a going concern. But wait... is this really a novel about Risk Management and preventing the world's power or waterworks from drying up because the great systems that plug themselves into sleeping gods is malfunctioning?
Yes, in part, and the big action goes much deeper and much stranger than even that. But the real action and the part that really blows me away is the ROMANCE.
Yeah. You heard me. We've got two people who seem to be as different as night and day, a risk taker and a risk manager, and yet both seem to be coming toward the center in their own ways. They're drawn to each other despite career choices, logic, or common sense.
And yet they're both rather devoted to the idea of loving each other. There's not even sex happening. They're just smitten and trying to squeeze the very most out of each moment with each other that they possibly can before many millions in the city start going really thirsty.
It's sweet. It's tragic. You can smell it coming.
And then all kinds of hell breaks loose. And I cried.
I mentioned that I don't expect to get affected like this out of UF. I've read so many and they're generally fun as hell, but I don't expect *this* kind of reaction. And on a second book, either. WTF? I'm amazed.
Someone has just been tipped into deep fanboy status.
February 14, 2017
I believe most people read this book (TSR) after they had read Three Parts Dead (TPD), as myself. I could not help myself comparing both books, and harshly judge TSR is a lesser book than TPD. But after finished the book, I am not so sure. Some points that I want to share comparing these two books:
1. TPD has faster pace, the entire novel is telling stories in time length of days (without the background stories, of course). TSR story takes months, maybe a year. Maybe some readers who like the fast pace in TPD, found TSR as a boring slow read.
2. The characters of TSR are more generics than TPD. I think this is the biggest weakness of TSR. Based on characters, I felt like TSR is the debut, not TPD.
I believe the author is a smart person, so with slower pace, I expect something good for the trade. I found some aspects where TSR is superior than TPD:
3. The conflicts of using The Craft versus Power of gods are discussed deeper on TSR than on TPD. Not only discussed on dialogues, but affecting the plots also.
4. More ambitious plots and setting. .
If TPD had surprised me with fresh fantasy universe and exciting mystery plot, TSR gives deeper in understanding of the universe but with slower pace and shallower mystery.
For conclusions, I give 4 star rating. Less one star than TPD due to characterization and plot factors. But for fans of fantasy-rules, TSR is better than TPD.
Some fun notes (spoiler alert) of this novel:
1. TPD has faster pace, the entire novel is telling stories in time length of days (without the background stories, of course). TSR story takes months, maybe a year. Maybe some readers who like the fast pace in TPD, found TSR as a boring slow read.
2. The characters of TSR are more generics than TPD. I think this is the biggest weakness of TSR. Based on characters, I felt like TSR is the debut, not TPD.
I believe the author is a smart person, so with slower pace, I expect something good for the trade. I found some aspects where TSR is superior than TPD:
3. The conflicts of using The Craft versus Power of gods are discussed deeper on TSR than on TPD. Not only discussed on dialogues, but affecting the plots also.
4. More ambitious plots and setting. .
If TPD had surprised me with fresh fantasy universe and exciting mystery plot, TSR gives deeper in understanding of the universe but with slower pace and shallower mystery.
For conclusions, I give 4 star rating. Less one star than TPD due to characterization and plot factors. But for fans of fantasy-rules, TSR is better than TPD.
Some fun notes (spoiler alert) of this novel:
July 30, 2018
I really wanted to like this book. I loved Three Parts Dead and I knew that Two Serpents Rise changed locations and had a new cast of characters but it just didn't work for me.
Two Serpents Rise introduces us to Caleb, a risk manager in the city of Dresediel Lex. He's enjoys gambling and... that's about it. I found him to be incredibly dull and he bored me to tears. He's your average white guy. He "falls in love" with Mal, a cliff runner (parkour, basically). He has daddy issues. Yeah, that's about it.
His relationship with Mal felt forced. She's a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. They have no chemistry and have no reason to be together other than the author says so. From chapter 31 (about 50% in) – "How much did he know about her, really? A few chance encounters. Chemistry. They had saved each other's lives. They were both wounded." You can keep saying they have chemistry but it doesn't make it true. There's no connection between these two characters except what Max Gladstone keeps insisting on. It just doesn't work.
The main plot was kind of interesting. The water reservoirs have been poisoned with a demon (I kept saying it like Woody from Toy Story - "Somebody's poisoned the waterhole!"). There's a lot of magic in this world but I don't know how it works. The Craft isn't really explained - there's no definable system like Sanderson's works. Usually I don't mind that but the rest of the book left me scrambling to find something to make sense because nothing else did. There was too much going on with the worldbuilding this time around. Ritual human sacrifice, zombies, giant serpents, fallen gods, ghosts, spirits... it felt like Gladstone was throwing whatever he could at the wall to see what stuck.
Gladstone's writing has improved on Three Parts Dead. Sentences like "Sickly blue-green luminescence shone from everywhere and nowhere at once, casting no shadows – undigested remnants of light, vomited up by their adversary." are one of the few things I enjoyed in this book. I also liked the side characters. I wish the story had been about The King in Red and his adversary, Alaxic. They had more depth than Caleb and Mal put together.
I ended up speed reading the last 40% or so just to be done with the book. I know this review isn't a ringing endorsement but I encourage anyone who liked Three Parts Dead to read Two Serpents Rise. This is a case of a book not working for me but that doesn't mean it won't for you.
D+
Two Serpents Rise introduces us to Caleb, a risk manager in the city of Dresediel Lex. He's enjoys gambling and... that's about it. I found him to be incredibly dull and he bored me to tears. He's your average white guy. He "falls in love" with Mal, a cliff runner (parkour, basically). He has daddy issues. Yeah, that's about it.
His relationship with Mal felt forced. She's a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. They have no chemistry and have no reason to be together other than the author says so. From chapter 31 (about 50% in) – "How much did he know about her, really? A few chance encounters. Chemistry. They had saved each other's lives. They were both wounded." You can keep saying they have chemistry but it doesn't make it true. There's no connection between these two characters except what Max Gladstone keeps insisting on. It just doesn't work.
The main plot was kind of interesting. The water reservoirs have been poisoned with a demon (I kept saying it like Woody from Toy Story - "Somebody's poisoned the waterhole!"). There's a lot of magic in this world but I don't know how it works. The Craft isn't really explained - there's no definable system like Sanderson's works. Usually I don't mind that but the rest of the book left me scrambling to find something to make sense because nothing else did. There was too much going on with the worldbuilding this time around. Ritual human sacrifice, zombies, giant serpents, fallen gods, ghosts, spirits... it felt like Gladstone was throwing whatever he could at the wall to see what stuck.
Gladstone's writing has improved on Three Parts Dead. Sentences like "Sickly blue-green luminescence shone from everywhere and nowhere at once, casting no shadows – undigested remnants of light, vomited up by their adversary." are one of the few things I enjoyed in this book. I also liked the side characters. I wish the story had been about The King in Red and his adversary, Alaxic. They had more depth than Caleb and Mal put together.
I ended up speed reading the last 40% or so just to be done with the book. I know this review isn't a ringing endorsement but I encourage anyone who liked Three Parts Dead to read Two Serpents Rise. This is a case of a book not working for me but that doesn't mean it won't for you.
D+
November 13, 2025
Edit - on reread, I was completely right, and it's a lot easier to "wholeheartedly love" this book coming into it straight after the first chronological book; all that context made a massive difference, and I had the best time.
Modern Aztecs, corporate takeovers, family dynamics and love; Two Serpents Rise has a lot going on, and a lot to tell the reader.
I'm reading these in release order after buying the omnibus, but I'll be extremely interested in doing a reread following the title cues for order. Straight after the relatively straightforward Three Parts Dead, it's easy to get overwhelmed by this one at first; carol calls the kitchen sink the main resource for this book, and she's right. The characters are still amazing; the humour is spot on; the Weird edges of the last book are still present here, and yet it's hard to wholeheartedly love this book, at least on the first read.
I did, however, enjoy it a lot, whirlwind of ideas and plot points or not. Teo and Caleb's friendship is a wonderful centerpiece, especially surrounded by dysfunction in varying degrees. There's some gorgeous imagery, too, even when it's horrific , and I got a particular kick out of some of those corporate scenes. Love interests are not usually interesting enough to really hook me, either, but there was something about the way Max Gladstone wrote Mal and Caleb that I thought really worked..
So yes - I can see why this book has the lowest rating of the series, but I can also see why that's still a high average. I'll absolutely be continuing this sequence.
Modern Aztecs, corporate takeovers, family dynamics and love; Two Serpents Rise has a lot going on, and a lot to tell the reader.
I'm reading these in release order after buying the omnibus, but I'll be extremely interested in doing a reread following the title cues for order. Straight after the relatively straightforward Three Parts Dead, it's easy to get overwhelmed by this one at first; carol calls the kitchen sink the main resource for this book, and she's right. The characters are still amazing; the humour is spot on; the Weird edges of the last book are still present here, and yet it's hard to wholeheartedly love this book, at least on the first read.
I did, however, enjoy it a lot, whirlwind of ideas and plot points or not. Teo and Caleb's friendship is a wonderful centerpiece, especially surrounded by dysfunction in varying degrees. There's some gorgeous imagery, too, even when it's horrific , and I got a particular kick out of some of those corporate scenes. Love interests are not usually interesting enough to really hook me, either, but there was something about the way Max Gladstone wrote Mal and Caleb that I thought really worked..
So yes - I can see why this book has the lowest rating of the series, but I can also see why that's still a high average. I'll absolutely be continuing this sequence.
January 30, 2016
~4.5
My GR friends' ratings of Two Serpents Rise are all over the place, and I can see why. For me, the worldbuilding, the ideas, the questions, the pure conceptual brilliance not only saved the book but made it memorable. However, while the setup was promising, the first half of the plot was in desperate need of resuscitation. Caleb Altemoc, risk analyst, is called out to a gruesome death by one of the reservoirs he had assessed. ("The Wardens thought this was a homicide until the reservoir tried to eat them.") Caleb, on the hook for the investigation, becomes distracted by a beautiful, mysterious, sharp-edged cliff runner he discovers at the scene of the crime. Plot-driving actions often depend on flimsy or nonsensical reasoning, and the protagonist is the worst of the bunch. Put it this way: Caleb's only explanation for a series of idiotic actions is a nearly-fatal case of Instalove. As his friend puts it:
While motivations for plot-driving actions were questionable, the ideas were practically effervescent. Caleb's city is a vibrant, clashing, kitchen-sink conglomeration of modern, Mayan, and magic, with pyramids and floating towers jostling for space with coffee houses and poker bars. The world is heavily influenced by Aztec and Mayan mythology and culture, but with a modern twist. Like the ancient Aztecs, Quechaltans are passionately engaged in ullamaliztli (called "ullamal" in the book), and while the religious backstories of the games are different, in both cases, the game transformed into a spectator pastime that is nearly a religion in its own right. The Wardens, who act as the city's police, supervise the streets from the backs of Couatl, and there are health and safety regulations for monster invasions. It's a crazy, quixotic mismatch of pragmatic and folkloric, with gods and magic and visibly effective religions, with nightmare telegraphs, zombie cleaning staffs, and god-driven desalination plants, and with most people just getting on with their lives.
One of the things I adore about these books is that the gods of Gladstone's world become the analogues of our massive institutions. Craft, the magic of the world, is fueled by agreements and contracts, and its dependence on soulstuff in turn fuels the economy. Two Serpents Rise tackles the aftermath of revolution:
The story revolves around the still-reverberating repercussions of the God Wars. The world has lost the blood, the spectacle, the viscerality of the sacrifice, but is it really any less cruel?
And in the midst of all of these big questions, we have the characters' relationships. Caleb's personality is revealed through his interactions with his best friend, with the King in Red, and, in particular, his father. (I purposefully excluded Mal because she's a basically just a combination of plotfuel and MPDG.) To put it mildly, Caleb has daddy issues, which isn't particularly surprising given that Caleb works for the man who declaims Temoc as a terrorist. Temoc has his own spin on fathering; he worries about his child's career:
You know what? I don't care that the plot was a bit of a mess. I care about the Mayan/Aztec-influenced worldbuilding, and the conversations between Caleb and the King and Red and Caleb and Temoc, and, most of all, the ways the story's issues reflect those in our own world. The characters, worldbuilding, and questions of Two Serpents Rise are stellar enough to make up the difference.
~~Cross-posted on BookLikes.~~
My GR friends' ratings of Two Serpents Rise are all over the place, and I can see why. For me, the worldbuilding, the ideas, the questions, the pure conceptual brilliance not only saved the book but made it memorable. However, while the setup was promising, the first half of the plot was in desperate need of resuscitation. Caleb Altemoc, risk analyst, is called out to a gruesome death by one of the reservoirs he had assessed. ("The Wardens thought this was a homicide until the reservoir tried to eat them.") Caleb, on the hook for the investigation, becomes distracted by a beautiful, mysterious, sharp-edged cliff runner he discovers at the scene of the crime. Plot-driving actions often depend on flimsy or nonsensical reasoning, and the protagonist is the worst of the bunch. Put it this way: Caleb's only explanation for a series of idiotic actions is a nearly-fatal case of Instalove. As his friend puts it:
"You're infatuated."
"I'm not. I want to help her."
"Because she's pretty."
"Because it's the right thing to do," he said. "And pretty is not even the right word. She burns. She's a verb."
While motivations for plot-driving actions were questionable, the ideas were practically effervescent. Caleb's city is a vibrant, clashing, kitchen-sink conglomeration of modern, Mayan, and magic, with pyramids and floating towers jostling for space with coffee houses and poker bars. The world is heavily influenced by Aztec and Mayan mythology and culture, but with a modern twist. Like the ancient Aztecs, Quechaltans are passionately engaged in ullamaliztli (called "ullamal" in the book), and while the religious backstories of the games are different, in both cases, the game transformed into a spectator pastime that is nearly a religion in its own right. The Wardens, who act as the city's police, supervise the streets from the backs of Couatl, and there are health and safety regulations for monster invasions. It's a crazy, quixotic mismatch of pragmatic and folkloric, with gods and magic and visibly effective religions, with nightmare telegraphs, zombie cleaning staffs, and god-driven desalination plants, and with most people just getting on with their lives.
One of the things I adore about these books is that the gods of Gladstone's world become the analogues of our massive institutions. Craft, the magic of the world, is fueled by agreements and contracts, and its dependence on soulstuff in turn fuels the economy. Two Serpents Rise tackles the aftermath of revolution:
"There is one thing you must understand about destroying gods, boy."While Three Parts Dead took place in the still-god-blessed city of Alt Coulumb, in Two Serpents Rise, we get to see the true impact of the God Wars. The real problem with revolutions, as visionaries have discovered over and over, is what to do once the revolution is complete: once the world has started turning, how can one bring it back to rest, to stability?
"Only one?"
"You must be ready to take their place."
"Sixty years ago, these men and women broke the heavens, and made the gods weep. They had spent the time since learning how hard it was to run a world."In the case of Dresediel Lex, the King in Red stepped in and effectively assume godhood, maintaining the city's delicate equilibrium through a complex web of contracts in place of "divine grace". But while it's tempting to "put a fence around history and hang a plaque and assume it's over," not everyone is willing to forget. Civil unrest focuses on restoring the eminence of the gods, with the last of the priests--Caleb's father-- at the epicenter of the chaos.
The story revolves around the still-reverberating repercussions of the God Wars. The world has lost the blood, the spectacle, the viscerality of the sacrifice, but is it really any less cruel?
"Once we sacrificed men and women of Quechaltan to beg rain from the gods. We do the same today, only we spread the one death out over millions. We no longer empathize with the victim, lie with him on the slab. We forget, and believe forgetfulness is humane."
"Your system kills, too. You've not eliminated sacrifices, you've democratized them--everyone dies a little every day, and the poor and desperate are the worst injured [...] Your bosses grind them to nothing, until they have no choice but to mortgage their souls and sell their bodies as cheap labor."The religious zealots argue that modern times have lost the meaning of sacrifice. As one character puts it,
"My problem isn't that we no longer sacrifice, it's that we're no longer conscious of the sacrifices we make. That's what gods are for."Actually, it felt to me that everyone had lost the meaning of sacrifice, since in both cases, the sacrifice was required from other people. Caleb's definition of sacrifice--that discovering the ugly underside and then accepting it is necessary-- is an insult to the very meaning of the word.
"We come out here, learn the price of our world [...] You wander through this city, and wonder if anything you do will make up for the horror that keeps the world turning. To live, you rip your own heart from your chest and hide it in a box somewhere, along with everything you ever learned about justice, compassion, mercy. [...] And if you yearn for something different: what would you change? Would you bring back the blood, the dying cries, the sucking chest wounds? The constant war? So we're caught between two poles of hypocrisy. We sacrifice our right to think of ourselves as good people, our right to think our life is good, our city is just. And so we and our city both survive."That's not a sacrifice; it's an ugly form of pragmatism. It's entitlement. It's exploitation. And we all do it all the time. But we do it because it's the easy thing to do. It's the polar opposite of sacrifice, and this becomes a central theme of the book.
And in the midst of all of these big questions, we have the characters' relationships. Caleb's personality is revealed through his interactions with his best friend, with the King in Red, and, in particular, his father. (I purposefully excluded Mal because she's a basically just a combination of plotfuel and MPDG.) To put it mildly, Caleb has daddy issues, which isn't particularly surprising given that Caleb works for the man who declaims Temoc as a terrorist. Temoc has his own spin on fathering; he worries about his child's career:
"There's no more priesthood, and what are kids to do these days when there are no more reliable careers involving knives, altars, and bleeding victims?"He may disapprove of his son's lifestyle, but he tries to be supportive in his own special way:
"You're my son. I love you. You work for godless sorcerers who I'd happily gut on the altar of that pyramid"--he pointed to 667 Sansilva-- and you are part of a system that will one day destroy our city and our planet, but I still love you."(Aww. Thanks, Dad.)
You know what? I don't care that the plot was a bit of a mess. I care about the Mayan/Aztec-influenced worldbuilding, and the conversations between Caleb and the King and Red and Caleb and Temoc, and, most of all, the ways the story's issues reflect those in our own world. The characters, worldbuilding, and questions of Two Serpents Rise are stellar enough to make up the difference.
~~Cross-posted on BookLikes.~~
January 9, 2022
I tried reading this book twice before with no luck, only getting as far as 10% before setting it aside. This time would have been my final attempt if I couldn’t get any further than that. Good thing I was in the right mood and frame of mind to appreciate it for what it is: a composite of magical legalities involving water distribution and municipality, and a short meditation on sustainable living and reconciling tradition and modernity in an uneasy post-revolutionary world where the gods are dead (because they’ve been killed off).
Whew. When spelled out like that, the reason I couldn’t get into this book in the past is crystal clear. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to enjoy the satire or the weirdness.
But since the story is told from the perspective of a young professional, the sights and scenes and thoughts permeating the prose are rather prosaic and pedestrian, which takes the joy and wonder out of the conglomerate, magical, world-building efforts on display.
Then the backup water source located outside the city is also sabotaged. The plot gets a lot more complicated, layered, and circular from here with the introduction of Caleb’s estranged father, a former priest of the old world who led multiple insurrections since the God Wars to overthrow the King in Red, and his role in this whole business. The King in Red is in the middle of acquiring a new water-related asset, Heartstone, and the deal is settled but still shaky. Curiously, Heartstone is run by another former priest of the old world order, not unlike Caleb’s father, and the old man just wants to watch the world burn. The titular two serpents do rise at the end of the book before being put back to rest. Then, in the middle of it all, there’s Mal the cliff runner who is also an associate at Heartstone.
Everything is tied up in a tangled web. By the time Caleb unravels this mystery piece by piece, it’s almost too late to save the city from itself.
For Caleb, it was Mal. For me, it was an elusive foreign account that was flirting with a possible merger. No one in my department could land it, but I thought I could because I’d needed it more than everyone else. And it was during this chase that I realized I hated the job. Hated the office culture, hated the environment that bred that kind of culture, hated the people I saw every day, hated the people I had to answer to. And I hated helping a Big 5 corp become even bigger. So I left and found a home-grown, grass-root startup that was just starting out. (Later on, it got too big too fast and had to sell out to a Big 5, but that’s another story for another day.)
Anyhow. I’d like to take a moment here to thank Max Gladstone for not killing off Teo, Caleb’s queer best friend who stuck with him through thick and thin, even when she was tied on the sacrificial alter moments before almost having her heart cut out. It’s the “little things” like this that make me have faith in an author, their writing, and where they’re taking their series. It’s what makes me want to stick around for another book, even though this one wasn’t quite an enjoyable read. I appreciate the work and creativity that went into making it entertaining though.
Cross-posted at https://covers2covers.wordpress.com/2...
Whew. When spelled out like that, the reason I couldn’t get into this book in the past is crystal clear. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to enjoy the satire or the weirdness.
Dresediel Lex sprawled below: fifteen thousand miles of roads gleaming with ghostlight and gas lamps. Between boulevards crouched the houses and shops and apartment buildings, bars and banks, theaters and factories and restaurants, where seventeen million people drank and loved and danced and worked and died.The interesting thing about the world of the Craft Sequence is that it’s very much like our own reality, except almost everything about it, from laws to institutions to money to mundane everyday things like public transportation, has a weird magical bent. People there live like we do. The over-populated, desert city of Dresediel Lex is also run by corporations; it used to be run by gods, priests, and ceremonial human sacrifices. The legal system is a tangled mess. The water system is like that as well. There’s nightlife, there’s an art scene, and soul-sucking corporate jobs. Their police force is made up of cloaked, ghoul-like figures that ride barely-tamed flying serpentine creatures.
But since the story is told from the perspective of a young professional, the sights and scenes and thoughts permeating the prose are rather prosaic and pedestrian, which takes the joy and wonder out of the conglomerate, magical, world-building efforts on display.
We put a fence around history and hang a plaque and assume it’s over. Try to forget.The post-revolution atmosphere in this Aztec-inspired city, on the other hand, is well portrayed in the book. I particularly like how everyday life is shown as normal and mundane with the general masses going about their daily business, and no one seems to be aware of the undercurrents of the side that lost the God Wars simmering beneath the surface. Just because the fight part of the revolution is over doesn't mean the revolution is actually over.
Sixty years ago, the King in Red had shattered the sky over Dresediel Lex, and impaled gods on thorns of starlight. The last of his flesh had melted away decades past, leaving smooth bone and a constant grin. He was a good boss. But who could forget what he had been, and what remained?[...]
“You live in a grim universe.”The book opens up with the main character, Caleb, a risk management manager for the King in Red who currently runs the city, at a poker game. Then he is called to investigate a death at a water reserve, which kicks off the central mystery. For about 40% of the book, we follow him around the city while not much is happening. We do get to see the city up close and hear about all the things that make it tick though.
“That’s risk management for you. Anything that can go wrong, will—with a set probability given certain assumptions. We tell you how to fix it, and what you should have done to keep it from happening in the first place. At times like these, I become a hindsight professional.”
“Should I be worried that it takes demons to break you out of your funk?”It seems someone has poisoned the city’s water with demons, and Caleb is tasked with fixing this problem before the city runs out of water, the demons escape, and people take to the streets. During the investigation, Caleb runs into an attractive but elusive cliff runner, Mal. His instinct tells him she is somehow tied up in this thing, but his hormones persuade him to look the other way and not to dwell on the details.
“Everyone likes to be needed,” he said.
Then the backup water source located outside the city is also sabotaged. The plot gets a lot more complicated, layered, and circular from here with the introduction of Caleb’s estranged father, a former priest of the old world who led multiple insurrections since the God Wars to overthrow the King in Red, and his role in this whole business. The King in Red is in the middle of acquiring a new water-related asset, Heartstone, and the deal is settled but still shaky. Curiously, Heartstone is run by another former priest of the old world order, not unlike Caleb’s father, and the old man just wants to watch the world burn. The titular two serpents do rise at the end of the book before being put back to rest. Then, in the middle of it all, there’s Mal the cliff runner who is also an associate at Heartstone.
Everything is tied up in a tangled web. By the time Caleb unravels this mystery piece by piece, it’s almost too late to save the city from itself.
Caleb almost refused on principle, but principle had no place on company time.I realize now the reason I couldn’t get into this book in the past was because Caleb reminded me too much of myself back when I used to work for a similar soul-sucking corp. Didn’t know the meaning of “soul-sucking” until I left that job. So Caleb’s narration, the monotony of the work, the gradual grinding down of one’s self, sounds awfully familiar. The moment he chased after Mal, I got it and the book started making sense for me. He wasn’t chasing after her per se, but after a spark that made him feel something again.
For Caleb, it was Mal. For me, it was an elusive foreign account that was flirting with a possible merger. No one in my department could land it, but I thought I could because I’d needed it more than everyone else. And it was during this chase that I realized I hated the job. Hated the office culture, hated the environment that bred that kind of culture, hated the people I saw every day, hated the people I had to answer to. And I hated helping a Big 5 corp become even bigger. So I left and found a home-grown, grass-root startup that was just starting out. (Later on, it got too big too fast and had to sell out to a Big 5, but that’s another story for another day.)
Anyhow. I’d like to take a moment here to thank Max Gladstone for not killing off Teo, Caleb’s queer best friend who stuck with him through thick and thin, even when she was tied on the sacrificial alter moments before almost having her heart cut out. It’s the “little things” like this that make me have faith in an author, their writing, and where they’re taking their series. It’s what makes me want to stick around for another book, even though this one wasn’t quite an enjoyable read. I appreciate the work and creativity that went into making it entertaining though.
Cross-posted at https://covers2covers.wordpress.com/2...
October 31, 2013
**This review is of an Advance Uncorrected Proof provided by Tor in exchange for an honest and fair review**
A burgeoning desert city, Dresediel Lex depends upon Craft and the power of fallen gods to quench its ever growing thirst. When demons are planted in the city's water supply, Red King Consolidated, the utility that provides water to the city, suspects religious fanatics eager for the return of the gods or good old-fashioned corporate competition. Caleb Altemoc, a risk manager for the omnipresent Red King Consolidated and son of Temoc, a wanted religious terrorist, is sent to investigate. He soon finds himself falling for a potentially dangerous woman, questioning his loyalties to his employer and to his father, and learning that the deified twin serpents of Dresediel Lex survived the God Wars and slumber as they await an eclipse that will awaken a hunger that can only be sated with blood sacrifice.
Two Serpents Rise returns us to the world--if not the characters and city of Alt Coulumb--presented in Three Parts Dead, and this is a brilliant move on the part of author Max Gladstone. Neatly side-stepping the tendency of many authors to get locked into one character and a formulaic plot structure for a never-ending series, Gladstone continues to create this unnamed world of magic and technology that is at once primitive and futuristic, where humans and gods coexist. This world provides Gladstone with a broad canvas for his impressive, imaginative world-building, and he is at his best when writing of the terrible majesty of the gods, as fantastically varied as the cultures that spawn them. However, these gods, brought into existence by man's faith, have been destroyed or harnessed after the God Wars, when mankind realized they could kill what they had created or restructure the power of the gods to serve the needs of modern man.
The mythologies created by Gladstone capture the primal need for the divine and the rational, "civilized" mind's rejection of religious fanaticism--a dichotomy represented in the character of Caleb. The son of a once powerful Eagle Knight priest desperate to cling to the old ways of blood sacrifice, Caleb rejects the brutal and barbaric religion of his father, but is uncomfortable with the manner in which defeated gods have been utilized by concerns like Red King Consolidated to meet the needs of the people. As Caleb seeks the source of the water contamination, he must come to moral terms with Dresediel Lex's problematic history and the cultural divide created in the wake of the God Wars. Caleb's contentious relationship with his father provides the novel with more depth than one might expect of a standard fantasy novel, and I found myself wishing that Gladstone had jettisoned Caleb's strained, awkward, and perplexing romantic relationship with Mal in favor of more interaction between father and son.
The mystery at the core of Two Serpents Rise, when stripped of its magical accouterments, is fairly standard, but serviceable to moving the plot forward. There are few surprises and maybe a few too many red herrings and segues into nonessential plot elements, but these quibbles are fairly minor when stacked against the entertainment to be found in exploring Gladstone's complex, layered world.
Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder and at Shelf Inflicted
A burgeoning desert city, Dresediel Lex depends upon Craft and the power of fallen gods to quench its ever growing thirst. When demons are planted in the city's water supply, Red King Consolidated, the utility that provides water to the city, suspects religious fanatics eager for the return of the gods or good old-fashioned corporate competition. Caleb Altemoc, a risk manager for the omnipresent Red King Consolidated and son of Temoc, a wanted religious terrorist, is sent to investigate. He soon finds himself falling for a potentially dangerous woman, questioning his loyalties to his employer and to his father, and learning that the deified twin serpents of Dresediel Lex survived the God Wars and slumber as they await an eclipse that will awaken a hunger that can only be sated with blood sacrifice.
Two Serpents Rise returns us to the world--if not the characters and city of Alt Coulumb--presented in Three Parts Dead, and this is a brilliant move on the part of author Max Gladstone. Neatly side-stepping the tendency of many authors to get locked into one character and a formulaic plot structure for a never-ending series, Gladstone continues to create this unnamed world of magic and technology that is at once primitive and futuristic, where humans and gods coexist. This world provides Gladstone with a broad canvas for his impressive, imaginative world-building, and he is at his best when writing of the terrible majesty of the gods, as fantastically varied as the cultures that spawn them. However, these gods, brought into existence by man's faith, have been destroyed or harnessed after the God Wars, when mankind realized they could kill what they had created or restructure the power of the gods to serve the needs of modern man.
The mythologies created by Gladstone capture the primal need for the divine and the rational, "civilized" mind's rejection of religious fanaticism--a dichotomy represented in the character of Caleb. The son of a once powerful Eagle Knight priest desperate to cling to the old ways of blood sacrifice, Caleb rejects the brutal and barbaric religion of his father, but is uncomfortable with the manner in which defeated gods have been utilized by concerns like Red King Consolidated to meet the needs of the people. As Caleb seeks the source of the water contamination, he must come to moral terms with Dresediel Lex's problematic history and the cultural divide created in the wake of the God Wars. Caleb's contentious relationship with his father provides the novel with more depth than one might expect of a standard fantasy novel, and I found myself wishing that Gladstone had jettisoned Caleb's strained, awkward, and perplexing romantic relationship with Mal in favor of more interaction between father and son.
The mystery at the core of Two Serpents Rise, when stripped of its magical accouterments, is fairly standard, but serviceable to moving the plot forward. There are few surprises and maybe a few too many red herrings and segues into nonessential plot elements, but these quibbles are fairly minor when stacked against the entertainment to be found in exploring Gladstone's complex, layered world.
Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder and at Shelf Inflicted
November 6, 2025
Two Serpents Rise is the 2nd book in Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone, co-author of This Is How You Lose the Time War. We meet brand new characters and dive right into new mysteries. The world is still post-industrial and god-corporate, meaning gods are involved in politics, and it gets fascinating, complex without being convoluted, and overall a blast to read! The writing is crisp and intelligent, never talking down to the audience.
I was disappointed at first that this story was not about Tara from book 1 Three Parts Dead however, the next book will be about her and I am starting it already because I must know everything about this detailed urban fantasy world and intriguing characters. I love it all.
I was disappointed at first that this story was not about Tara from book 1 Three Parts Dead however, the next book will be about her and I am starting it already because I must know everything about this detailed urban fantasy world and intriguing characters. I love it all.
abandoned-reads
March 27, 2017This is the second book in Gladstone's Craft Sequence series which I finally gave up on as it was just annoying. Everything I loved from the first book (Three Parts Dead) was here, but overdone, almost as though the author was trying so hard to create a modernized mashup Aztec/Maya Strange Civilization that he didn't have much left over for his disenchanted, and frankly boring, main character. He was too busy packing in oddness to pay much attention to either characters or plot.
It all feels far too forced, as though Gladstone was determined to create a non-Eurocentric culture for his book and by golly he was gonna see it through, even though the resulting culture he created doesn't really stand up to scrutiny (a little bit of Aztec over here, a little bit of Maya over there, a little bit of WTF over behind the sofa - sometimes you just need to Put Down the Research Materials, boy!) Too many throw-away references to things offstage, such as giant lizards hauling freight loads because he's determined to avoid the wheel, and too much trivial staged weirdness - it all dams up the flow of the story.
Gladstone is a good enough writer to not need all this convoluted stuff littering his landscape. His editors bear some of the blame: they needed more ruthlessness with their red pencils and less naive fascination with the 'exotic' Native American roots of the cultural setting. I blame the East Coast bias of most editing; Two Serpents really needed an editor from the Southwest who would've been less easily taken in by the terrible coolness of it all. I will go on to the third book in the series at some point, but that's based on the power of Gladstone's first book and in spite of this one.
It all feels far too forced, as though Gladstone was determined to create a non-Eurocentric culture for his book and by golly he was gonna see it through, even though the resulting culture he created doesn't really stand up to scrutiny (a little bit of Aztec over here, a little bit of Maya over there, a little bit of WTF over behind the sofa - sometimes you just need to Put Down the Research Materials, boy!) Too many throw-away references to things offstage, such as giant lizards hauling freight loads because he's determined to avoid the wheel, and too much trivial staged weirdness - it all dams up the flow of the story.
Gladstone is a good enough writer to not need all this convoluted stuff littering his landscape. His editors bear some of the blame: they needed more ruthlessness with their red pencils and less naive fascination with the 'exotic' Native American roots of the cultural setting. I blame the East Coast bias of most editing; Two Serpents really needed an editor from the Southwest who would've been less easily taken in by the terrible coolness of it all. I will go on to the third book in the series at some point, but that's based on the power of Gladstone's first book and in spite of this one.
December 31, 2022
Zeitlich vor Band 1 angesiedelt ist dieser zweite Band völlig unabhängig lesbar. Die Welt ist allerdings vertrauter, die Kunstwirker, die Götter und auch Gladstones Schreibstil, wobei mir dieser eingängiger als in 'Drei Viertel Tot' vorkam.
Das Steampunk-Setting war wieder super, jedoch war der Schauplatz eine andere Stadt. Das hat für Abwechslung gesorgt, für neue Figuren und Wesen. Die Geschichte selbst hat mir gut gefallen, wieder sehr außergewöhnlich und ideenreich.Freu mich auf Teil 3! 4,5 Sterne.
Das Steampunk-Setting war wieder super, jedoch war der Schauplatz eine andere Stadt. Das hat für Abwechslung gesorgt, für neue Figuren und Wesen. Die Geschichte selbst hat mir gut gefallen, wieder sehr außergewöhnlich und ideenreich.Freu mich auf Teil 3! 4,5 Sterne.
January 14, 2019
I love the Craft Sequence, but this particular book frustrates me. The world is as interesting as ever, and there are some potentially great concepts underlying the story, but ultimately I get stuck on Caleb and his storyline with Mal. Partly it's just that I don't like him as a character, but I actually think I could get over that if it wasn't for the fact that his obnoxious, inexplicable pursuit of Mal is basically the centerpiece of the whole book. I hate pretty much everything about this part of the story - I find obsessive pursuit of a person you don't know creepy, and I don't think Max Gladstone's writing style lends itself to expressing the type of emotional and chemistry that would be needed to make this at all compelling or believable. Mal herself is pretentious and annoying for a significant chunk of the book, which makes it hard to understand Caleb's fixation.
The book dabbles in some interesting themes (fanaticism, tradition versus modernity, adapting to change) and introduces some intriguing secondary characters (I particularly like Kopil, Teo, and Temoc), but because so much of the book is taken up with Caleb + Mal, I don't feel that any of these gets the attention they deserve. And I find the end a little too... tidy, maybe? Abrupt? I guess it's partly just that I don't feel like Caleb's underlying motivations for doing anything (and personality, period) are very well established, so his decision doesn't feel as... significant? meaningful?... as I think it should.
The book dabbles in some interesting themes (fanaticism, tradition versus modernity, adapting to change) and introduces some intriguing secondary characters (I particularly like Kopil, Teo, and Temoc), but because so much of the book is taken up with Caleb + Mal, I don't feel that any of these gets the attention they deserve. And I find the end a little too... tidy, maybe? Abrupt? I guess it's partly just that I don't feel like Caleb's underlying motivations for doing anything (and personality, period) are very well established, so his decision doesn't feel as... significant? meaningful?... as I think it should.
October 29, 2018
Tentative three stars. Rating may be lowered later idk. Also this review is a mess, I'm gonna come back and fix it up later, so just ignore how messy it is lmao
This was... a disappointing read, to be completely honest. I really enjoyed Three Parts Dead because it was refreshing and different, filled with characters I grew to love and had an intriguing plot that drew me in. This novel had the world-building elements that I adored from the first novel, but the main character and his love interest, the plot? felt so incredibly lackluster in comparison.
I still don't understand why the hell Caleb did 90% of what he did for Mal. He finds her at the scene of a crime, one that cost the life of a man and put many others at risk, and from that moment onwards the novel is him running after her and trying to justify every poor decision made in an attempt to catch her. In all honesty, Mal felt like a manic pixie dream girl. I found it difficult to care about her even slightly, and though I wanted to like Caleb - he is the main protagonist, afterall - I found myself rolling my eyes at him with every shitty choice he made. Yes, Mal is gorgeous and dangerous, I get it, but I don't think I've ever considered risking my career, let alone my life or the lives of others, just to pursue a pretty guy/girl.
"How much did he know about her, really? A few chance encounters. Chemistry."
He ended up knowing nothing about her and the chemistry? Nonexistent. The plot itself could have been incredibly interesting, but it was so bogged down by the forced relationship that it ended up being a pain to get through. Also it was fairly obvious that
Luckily, the secondary characters were far more interesting. I adore Teo and her girlfriend Sam, Kopil is a fascinating character (probably the most interesting of the entire cast) and I'm eager to learn more about him.
I do still adore the world and I'm eager to see more of it and get back to Tara, my fave, so I'll definitely be reading on, but... Yeah, this one was a wee bit disappointing.
This was... a disappointing read, to be completely honest. I really enjoyed Three Parts Dead because it was refreshing and different, filled with characters I grew to love and had an intriguing plot that drew me in. This novel had the world-building elements that I adored from the first novel, but the main character and his love interest, the plot? felt so incredibly lackluster in comparison.
I still don't understand why the hell Caleb did 90% of what he did for Mal. He finds her at the scene of a crime, one that cost the life of a man and put many others at risk, and from that moment onwards the novel is him running after her and trying to justify every poor decision made in an attempt to catch her. In all honesty, Mal felt like a manic pixie dream girl. I found it difficult to care about her even slightly, and though I wanted to like Caleb - he is the main protagonist, afterall - I found myself rolling my eyes at him with every shitty choice he made. Yes, Mal is gorgeous and dangerous, I get it, but I don't think I've ever considered risking my career, let alone my life or the lives of others, just to pursue a pretty guy/girl.
"How much did he know about her, really? A few chance encounters. Chemistry."
He ended up knowing nothing about her and the chemistry? Nonexistent. The plot itself could have been incredibly interesting, but it was so bogged down by the forced relationship that it ended up being a pain to get through. Also it was fairly obvious that
Luckily, the secondary characters were far more interesting. I adore Teo and her girlfriend Sam, Kopil is a fascinating character (probably the most interesting of the entire cast) and I'm eager to learn more about him.
I do still adore the world and I'm eager to see more of it and get back to Tara, my fave, so I'll definitely be reading on, but... Yeah, this one was a wee bit disappointing.
April 20, 2019
oh my god this was SO BORING. i will continue with this series because thank goodness each book is a self-contained story, and i really love this mithology. but i hated this one. i hated caleb, i hated mal, i hated their stupid instalove and i hated that i already knew the ending at the 20% mark but kept reading anyway. ugh.
October 20, 2017
Ahoy there me mateys! So earlier in the year, wendy @ the biliosanctum set me on a series of adventures that led to me reading the first book in The Craft Sequence, three parts dead. I absolutely loved it. So when I saw the second book, I picked it up without even reading the blurb. I didn’t want to spoil any fun.
So I was completely not prepared for what I found. Ye see, the first book centers around a first year associate named Tara whose firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao is hired to go to a city called Alt Coulumb to discover who killed the God, Kos, and bring him back to life if they can. It was full of action and super clever.
Surprisingly, the second book had nothing to do with the first, even if it is set in the same world. I love companion novels, so there was no problem with that. The book follows a middling risk assessment manager named Caleb Altemoc in the city of Dresediel Lex. His firm, Red King Consolidated, manages the water of the city, among other things. When the water is tainted, Caleb is sent to help clean up the mess and while there meets a cliff-runner named Mal. All hell starts to break loose in both his professional and personal lives. Can Caleb discover who is behind the water crisis and help fix it before the city consumes itself?
I really wanted to like this book but it ended up being only an okay read. Unlike Tara in the first book, Caleb is kinda lame. He is smart, dedicated, and a good friend. But sadly he seems to lack the fire and grit of Tara. His relationship/lust of and with Mal was the focus of the character relationships and I sadly found it uninspiring and rather insipid. I wanted way more of the fascinating side characters like Caleb’s dad or his best friend or his boss. The first book had a lot more well-drawn characters overall.
Also there wasn’t a lot of mystery or suspense in this one in terms of who-dun-it. That I figured out early on. However, I was never in any danger of not finishing this book because I needed to know how the author was going to resolve the problems. The ending was certainly fun and thoughtful. So while I didn’t love this installment, I certainly still love the both the world and the author’s writing style. I will be reading the third book at some point and, no, I won’t be reading the blurb for that one either. Wish me luck. Arrrr!!!
Check out me other reviews at https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordp...
So I was completely not prepared for what I found. Ye see, the first book centers around a first year associate named Tara whose firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao is hired to go to a city called Alt Coulumb to discover who killed the God, Kos, and bring him back to life if they can. It was full of action and super clever.
Surprisingly, the second book had nothing to do with the first, even if it is set in the same world. I love companion novels, so there was no problem with that. The book follows a middling risk assessment manager named Caleb Altemoc in the city of Dresediel Lex. His firm, Red King Consolidated, manages the water of the city, among other things. When the water is tainted, Caleb is sent to help clean up the mess and while there meets a cliff-runner named Mal. All hell starts to break loose in both his professional and personal lives. Can Caleb discover who is behind the water crisis and help fix it before the city consumes itself?
I really wanted to like this book but it ended up being only an okay read. Unlike Tara in the first book, Caleb is kinda lame. He is smart, dedicated, and a good friend. But sadly he seems to lack the fire and grit of Tara. His relationship/lust of and with Mal was the focus of the character relationships and I sadly found it uninspiring and rather insipid. I wanted way more of the fascinating side characters like Caleb’s dad or his best friend or his boss. The first book had a lot more well-drawn characters overall.
Also there wasn’t a lot of mystery or suspense in this one in terms of who-dun-it. That I figured out early on. However, I was never in any danger of not finishing this book because I needed to know how the author was going to resolve the problems. The ending was certainly fun and thoughtful. So while I didn’t love this installment, I certainly still love the both the world and the author’s writing style. I will be reading the third book at some point and, no, I won’t be reading the blurb for that one either. Wish me luck. Arrrr!!!
Check out me other reviews at https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordp...
March 25, 2018
Executive Summary: This book is more of the so-so Urban Fantasy that has turned me off of the subgenre. It's not bad, but there are a lot of better books out there.
Full Review
I generally don't like much Urban Fantasy, but there are some exceptions. I'm a sucker for book deals though, and I'd heard good things about this one so I picked up the entire series on the cheap.
I was happy to find that I rather enjoyed Three Parts Dead and was eager to jump into this one. Unfortunately I never really got into this book until right near the end.
I thought Caleb was a far less interesting protagonist. It could be that it's because he's not a craft user. Then again I did like the world building his character brought to the magic system. It'd probably be boring if everyone was a craft user. I'd probably say the additions to the magic system were the main highlight of this book for me.
The supporting characters were much better than Caleb. In particular found Caleb's father a great addition. The relationship between him and his son helped carry much of the middle part of the book. The other supporting character I liked was Mal. I was a lot more interested in learning about her than Caleb.
Overall I found this book a bit on the slow side until the final part. It wasn't nearly as good as the first book in the series. I hear good things about Full Fathom Five, and I already own it, so I'm sure I'll end up reading it up before too long.
Full Review
I generally don't like much Urban Fantasy, but there are some exceptions. I'm a sucker for book deals though, and I'd heard good things about this one so I picked up the entire series on the cheap.
I was happy to find that I rather enjoyed Three Parts Dead and was eager to jump into this one. Unfortunately I never really got into this book until right near the end.
I thought Caleb was a far less interesting protagonist. It could be that it's because he's not a craft user. Then again I did like the world building his character brought to the magic system. It'd probably be boring if everyone was a craft user. I'd probably say the additions to the magic system were the main highlight of this book for me.
The supporting characters were much better than Caleb. In particular found Caleb's father a great addition. The relationship between him and his son helped carry much of the middle part of the book. The other supporting character I liked was Mal. I was a lot more interested in learning about her than Caleb.
Overall I found this book a bit on the slow side until the final part. It wasn't nearly as good as the first book in the series. I hear good things about Full Fathom Five, and I already own it, so I'm sure I'll end up reading it up before too long.
November 24, 2022
Good, but not great. Nowhere near as fantastical as the debut book of the Craft Sequence, "Three Parts Dead." I love the world building of this series, the whole Gods vs Craft element. But in this book, I found myself more in love with the side characters, the couple Teo and Sam, the runner Balam, the crazy warrior priest dad Temoc.
But Caleb and Mal - not so much. I kept picturing Caleb as a wimp, not a card shark crisis manager who works for an immortal skeleton in a red cloak, the King In Red. And his crazy girlfriend, Mal? Yea, she was just crazy. I never warmed up to her, and I could tell she was cray-cray from the beginning. So their whole romance was pretty flat to me. Although, . . . although . . . the whole sex on the ocean waves and almost getting eaten by a shark was pretty hot.
Reminds me of this water bed I used to know. . . .
I digress. I'm still loving the series, and I will be reading ever onward!
But Caleb and Mal - not so much. I kept picturing Caleb as a wimp, not a card shark crisis manager who works for an immortal skeleton in a red cloak, the King In Red. And his crazy girlfriend, Mal? Yea, she was just crazy. I never warmed up to her, and I could tell she was cray-cray from the beginning. So their whole romance was pretty flat to me. Although, . . . although . . . the whole sex on the ocean waves and almost getting eaten by a shark was pretty hot.
Reminds me of this water bed I used to know. . . .
I digress. I'm still loving the series, and I will be reading ever onward!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 13, 2014
Fantasy Review Barn
There has been a twitter hashtag game going strong for the last few days where people have been describing movies badly. No doubt it has originated from an old Wizard of Oz description that ‘a young girl kills the first person she meets, then teams with three strangers to kill again.’ And after finishing Max Gladstone’s Two Serpents Rise I realized how much fun I could have with this game in literature. Because on the surface this has the ability to be the most boring book of all time. Let’s play!
Disillusioned office worker disillusioned by his father’s religion is called in to pin point the source of a water contamination. Upon satisfactory completion of the task his boss calls him in to help access the risk of the company’s latest acquisition. After the acquisition is complete the company starts to learn, too late, the consequences of the many leftover entanglements their new branch has.
Can’t you feel the excitement? But by adding a few words…
Disillusioned office worker disillusioned by his father’s religion (of live human sacrifice to the gods) is called in to pin point source of a water contamination (i.e. nasty monsters that can come right through the tap). Upon satisfactory completion of the task his boss (immortal skeleton who took down the gods) calls him in to help access the risk of the company’s latest acquisition (a company that harnesses the power of two giant snake like deities’). After the acquisition is complete the company starts to learn, too late, the consequences of the many leftover entanglements their new branch has (i.e. major destruction and possibly the breaking of the world).
That feels a bit more like it.
My love of this series is growing by the book. A world where gods are real is always a plus, and their contractual way of using and trading power is completely unique. These gods are powerful yet so vulnerable as man has in many ways caught up to them. We first saw their power at work in Three Parts Dead as a god of fire puts his force behind running a city; in Three Serpents Rise we see the other side of things as the gods in question are harnessed against their will.
The Craft is shown again; a mixture of heavy contract law and necromancy that only makes sense if the books are read. But the way it can weave between mundane and extraordinary at a moment’s notice is a true testament to the strength of the author’s grand idea.
Truth be told I didn’t enjoy this outing quite as much as the debut but that should not suggest I didn’t love the book. I appreciate that the author isn’t just recycling ideas, I do. But with everyone in this outing actually working toward a purpose that I could possibly get behind I found myself missing a nice evil villain. Maybe I was just spoiled buy the amazingly creepy lawyer from Three Parts Dead. Fortunately the other characters of the story held up strong. The main duo had actual chemistry and I felt for them when the world acted to keep them apart. But the background cast threatened to steal the show in this one. A living skelton, the last priest of the gods who fell, even coworkers and friends lived their own lives within the larger story.
A strong second outing that has me pining for the next book already. This ‘living gods’ sub-genre is currently my favorite in fantasy; get on it before the substandard clones start showing up in mass.
4 Stars
There has been a twitter hashtag game going strong for the last few days where people have been describing movies badly. No doubt it has originated from an old Wizard of Oz description that ‘a young girl kills the first person she meets, then teams with three strangers to kill again.’ And after finishing Max Gladstone’s Two Serpents Rise I realized how much fun I could have with this game in literature. Because on the surface this has the ability to be the most boring book of all time. Let’s play!
Disillusioned office worker disillusioned by his father’s religion is called in to pin point the source of a water contamination. Upon satisfactory completion of the task his boss calls him in to help access the risk of the company’s latest acquisition. After the acquisition is complete the company starts to learn, too late, the consequences of the many leftover entanglements their new branch has.
Can’t you feel the excitement? But by adding a few words…
Disillusioned office worker disillusioned by his father’s religion (of live human sacrifice to the gods) is called in to pin point source of a water contamination (i.e. nasty monsters that can come right through the tap). Upon satisfactory completion of the task his boss (immortal skeleton who took down the gods) calls him in to help access the risk of the company’s latest acquisition (a company that harnesses the power of two giant snake like deities’). After the acquisition is complete the company starts to learn, too late, the consequences of the many leftover entanglements their new branch has (i.e. major destruction and possibly the breaking of the world).
That feels a bit more like it.
My love of this series is growing by the book. A world where gods are real is always a plus, and their contractual way of using and trading power is completely unique. These gods are powerful yet so vulnerable as man has in many ways caught up to them. We first saw their power at work in Three Parts Dead as a god of fire puts his force behind running a city; in Three Serpents Rise we see the other side of things as the gods in question are harnessed against their will.
The Craft is shown again; a mixture of heavy contract law and necromancy that only makes sense if the books are read. But the way it can weave between mundane and extraordinary at a moment’s notice is a true testament to the strength of the author’s grand idea.
Truth be told I didn’t enjoy this outing quite as much as the debut but that should not suggest I didn’t love the book. I appreciate that the author isn’t just recycling ideas, I do. But with everyone in this outing actually working toward a purpose that I could possibly get behind I found myself missing a nice evil villain. Maybe I was just spoiled buy the amazingly creepy lawyer from Three Parts Dead. Fortunately the other characters of the story held up strong. The main duo had actual chemistry and I felt for them when the world acted to keep them apart. But the background cast threatened to steal the show in this one. A living skelton, the last priest of the gods who fell, even coworkers and friends lived their own lives within the larger story.
A strong second outing that has me pining for the next book already. This ‘living gods’ sub-genre is currently my favorite in fantasy; get on it before the substandard clones start showing up in mass.
4 Stars
November 17, 2013
The god wars affected Max Gladstone's incredibly rich world in many ways. In the first book in The Craft Sequence, Three Parts Dead, we learned about the death of a warrior goddess and what the hollow form that remained after her resurrection meant to those who loved and worshiped her in Alt Coloumb. Two Serpents Rise takes us over to the desert city of Dresediel Lex, where the storm god was defeated, and water is now supplied by Red King Consolidated.
Caleb Altemoc works for RKC. His first task in the book is to investigate the poisoning of that water supply. And by poisoning, I mean someone infested it with sharp, pointy demons. Aside from that inconvenience, he has to deal with the fact that the number one suspect is his own father, a former high priest of the deposed gods, now a terrorist. And Mal, an enigmatic and beautiful cliff runner who is almost impossible for Caleb to catch. Oh and the giant hungry serpent gods who are threatening to wake up.
You don't necessarily have to read 3PD, but it does help establish the world and the way gods and worship work, which is what I fell in love with about this series. Gladstone's gods serve an actual purpose, as in, a storm god keeps the reservoirs filled, while a god of fire heats a city and a goddess of war defends it. Their power is not limitless, though. They require worship and faith, and in the case of the old gods of DL, they required sacrifice. RKC brought an end to this, but if you're going to depose a god that waters the desert, then you better know how to bring the rain.
I never thought I'd love books where lawyers and big corporations are the (sort of) good guys. 3PD followed a lawyer's investigations into the death of a god, while Cayleb is a risk assessment manager with a penchant for gambling. I love the way Gladstone works in the intricate details of business plans, mergers and contracts literally signed in blood, combining it all with his unique form of magic, the Craft. The use of Craft takes an interesting twist through Caleb, who is no Craftsman, but thanks to his dear old dad, is not without ways to defend himself.
I love the world of the Craft Sequence. It is so thrilling and unique that I simply refuse to try to categorize it into the many fantasy sub-genres others try to poke it into. I love that, thus far, the stories are separate enough from each other than I can hope for many more adventures from different aspects of this world, including points of view from the gods themselves.
On the downside, I listened to this as a very disappointing audiobook. The narrator was not particularly good with pacing and inflection at the right times. He often sounded like he was whining when the character just wanted to make a point. And worst of all, many of the characters, particularly the females with whom Caleb often had lengthy conversations, sounded much like Caleb, making things very confusing. For this reason, the characters weren't as compelling as they could have been.
See more reviews at The BiblioSanctum
Caleb Altemoc works for RKC. His first task in the book is to investigate the poisoning of that water supply. And by poisoning, I mean someone infested it with sharp, pointy demons. Aside from that inconvenience, he has to deal with the fact that the number one suspect is his own father, a former high priest of the deposed gods, now a terrorist. And Mal, an enigmatic and beautiful cliff runner who is almost impossible for Caleb to catch. Oh and the giant hungry serpent gods who are threatening to wake up.
You don't necessarily have to read 3PD, but it does help establish the world and the way gods and worship work, which is what I fell in love with about this series. Gladstone's gods serve an actual purpose, as in, a storm god keeps the reservoirs filled, while a god of fire heats a city and a goddess of war defends it. Their power is not limitless, though. They require worship and faith, and in the case of the old gods of DL, they required sacrifice. RKC brought an end to this, but if you're going to depose a god that waters the desert, then you better know how to bring the rain.
I never thought I'd love books where lawyers and big corporations are the (sort of) good guys. 3PD followed a lawyer's investigations into the death of a god, while Cayleb is a risk assessment manager with a penchant for gambling. I love the way Gladstone works in the intricate details of business plans, mergers and contracts literally signed in blood, combining it all with his unique form of magic, the Craft. The use of Craft takes an interesting twist through Caleb, who is no Craftsman, but thanks to his dear old dad, is not without ways to defend himself.
I love the world of the Craft Sequence. It is so thrilling and unique that I simply refuse to try to categorize it into the many fantasy sub-genres others try to poke it into. I love that, thus far, the stories are separate enough from each other than I can hope for many more adventures from different aspects of this world, including points of view from the gods themselves.
On the downside, I listened to this as a very disappointing audiobook. The narrator was not particularly good with pacing and inflection at the right times. He often sounded like he was whining when the character just wanted to make a point. And worst of all, many of the characters, particularly the females with whom Caleb often had lengthy conversations, sounded much like Caleb, making things very confusing. For this reason, the characters weren't as compelling as they could have been.
See more reviews at The BiblioSanctum
November 12, 2013
Max Gladstone has done something I haven't seen in a long time... well, two somethings. First, he's managed to make an excellent urban fantasy on a completely unique world. It's very much a modern-day universe, with tequila, poker, burlesque shows, pretentious performance art... but it's not Earth by any stretch of the imagination.
The setting of Two Serpents (and it's prequel Three Parts Dead is a world where, sixty years ago, people rose up and literally killed their gods. Not metaphorically. Literally. In some lands, the gods and men came to an accommodation. In others, like Quechal - the setting of Two Serpents Rise, they killed them and used their bodies to power the new status-quo.
And that's the second thing he's done: he's made finance and contract law *interesting*. Magic in this universe isn't about spells and incantations, it's about binding contracts powered by and paid for in souls. The dictator of Quechal, the King In Red, powers most of the country via his soul. Well, his and other people's. Souls, you see, are now the currency of the land. Buying your morning coffee? Part of your soul. Paying your rent? Ditto. Stakes in a poker game? Same thing. Soul as arbitrage, complex financial systems that establish who owes whom how much and what they can do with those souls.
And they power EVERYTHING. So now you may take a driverless carriage. Or you may get across town by flying insects that act as personal jetpacks. And they're all powered by the network of souls that flow through the King in Red.
So needless to say, when demons crop up in the city water supply, causing the water to become sentient and attack people... well, the King in Red isn't going to be happy. Because it's his job to make sure that everything works the way it's supposed to. And he's in the middle of trying to finish up an important merger with another organization to bring another reservoir online. So Caleb, his chief risk assessment officer, is supposed to figure out what's going on and make sure that it doesn't happen again.
Of course it might be easier if he wasn't distracted by the mysterious woman he met the night of the first attack.
Or that his father wasn't the head of a terrorist organization dedicated to the old, dead gods.
This is good stuff. And relentlessly unique. Check it out.
The setting of Two Serpents (and it's prequel Three Parts Dead is a world where, sixty years ago, people rose up and literally killed their gods. Not metaphorically. Literally. In some lands, the gods and men came to an accommodation. In others, like Quechal - the setting of Two Serpents Rise, they killed them and used their bodies to power the new status-quo.
And that's the second thing he's done: he's made finance and contract law *interesting*. Magic in this universe isn't about spells and incantations, it's about binding contracts powered by and paid for in souls. The dictator of Quechal, the King In Red, powers most of the country via his soul. Well, his and other people's. Souls, you see, are now the currency of the land. Buying your morning coffee? Part of your soul. Paying your rent? Ditto. Stakes in a poker game? Same thing. Soul as arbitrage, complex financial systems that establish who owes whom how much and what they can do with those souls.
And they power EVERYTHING. So now you may take a driverless carriage. Or you may get across town by flying insects that act as personal jetpacks. And they're all powered by the network of souls that flow through the King in Red.
So needless to say, when demons crop up in the city water supply, causing the water to become sentient and attack people... well, the King in Red isn't going to be happy. Because it's his job to make sure that everything works the way it's supposed to. And he's in the middle of trying to finish up an important merger with another organization to bring another reservoir online. So Caleb, his chief risk assessment officer, is supposed to figure out what's going on and make sure that it doesn't happen again.
Of course it might be easier if he wasn't distracted by the mysterious woman he met the night of the first attack.
Or that his father wasn't the head of a terrorist organization dedicated to the old, dead gods.
This is good stuff. And relentlessly unique. Check it out.
January 21, 2015
5 Stars
Two Serpents Rise, book two in the Craft Sequence is one of those rare novelties where the sequel is far superior to the fantastic original. Max Gladstone has created a world to be remembered. In this the second book, we are moved to a completely different part of the world than in Three Parts Dead. We also have a completely new cast of characters and God's as well. The imagination and writing of Gladstone set's this series apart from the crowd.
Gladstone has taken genres and smashed them into something incredible. This book has a bit of Steampunk crossed with both traditional and urban fantasy. What a treat it is. Caleb our hero of the story is one brave independent individual. We are treated to his and his father's backstory as well as given more insight into the God Wars. Cal falls for a daredevil woman named Mal who seems to be a creator of what we call Parkour.
This is a book that uses the end of the world scenario as the driving plot line to everything else. Two slumbering giant Serpents that should never be awoken are stirring. Someone is bringing them awake with the fate of the world in balance. Two Serpents Rise is a story of a struggle for real power. The battling of God's and demons. The machinations of man trying to usurp his master. This is also the clashing of Craftsmen (magic wielders) and the pious God fearing.
There is so much to love in this book. Gladstone has crafted a world where Man does not necessarily worship the Gods. This is a world where Man walks among the Gods and Demons. Yet the struggles and the problems are the same as would be for you and me. Gladstone adds a layer to this book through romance...and it works. The novel is fast paced and action packed and there are several cool twists and turns.
This is easily one of my favorite recent reads and I give it my highest recommendations..
Two Serpents Rise, book two in the Craft Sequence is one of those rare novelties where the sequel is far superior to the fantastic original. Max Gladstone has created a world to be remembered. In this the second book, we are moved to a completely different part of the world than in Three Parts Dead. We also have a completely new cast of characters and God's as well. The imagination and writing of Gladstone set's this series apart from the crowd.
Gladstone has taken genres and smashed them into something incredible. This book has a bit of Steampunk crossed with both traditional and urban fantasy. What a treat it is. Caleb our hero of the story is one brave independent individual. We are treated to his and his father's backstory as well as given more insight into the God Wars. Cal falls for a daredevil woman named Mal who seems to be a creator of what we call Parkour.
This is a book that uses the end of the world scenario as the driving plot line to everything else. Two slumbering giant Serpents that should never be awoken are stirring. Someone is bringing them awake with the fate of the world in balance. Two Serpents Rise is a story of a struggle for real power. The battling of God's and demons. The machinations of man trying to usurp his master. This is also the clashing of Craftsmen (magic wielders) and the pious God fearing.
There is so much to love in this book. Gladstone has crafted a world where Man does not necessarily worship the Gods. This is a world where Man walks among the Gods and Demons. Yet the struggles and the problems are the same as would be for you and me. Gladstone adds a layer to this book through romance...and it works. The novel is fast paced and action packed and there are several cool twists and turns.
This is easily one of my favorite recent reads and I give it my highest recommendations..
October 31, 2018
My feelings about this one haven't changed much since my last read.
Amazing worldbuilding, an interesting plot and some really solid characters (I love Teo, a sapphic queen, and Kopil is my second favourite magic-wielding skeleton), but the Mal/Caleb romance is, to me at least, unbearable. With that in mind, it's a 3-3.5* read for me.
Can't wait to continue on with Full Fathom Five!
Amazing worldbuilding, an interesting plot and some really solid characters (I love Teo, a sapphic queen, and Kopil is my second favourite magic-wielding skeleton), but the Mal/Caleb romance is, to me at least, unbearable. With that in mind, it's a 3-3.5* read for me.
Can't wait to continue on with Full Fathom Five!
June 6, 2017
Almost good. Scattered plot which made it not only hard to follow but hard to care. The romance helped keep me going a bit. Although I was interested in the religious issues they, again, were explained here and there that made it difficult for me to follow.
I'm glad the Craft books can be read separately as I'd like to read at least one more as I enjoyed the first book.
I'm glad the Craft books can be read separately as I'd like to read at least one more as I enjoyed the first book.
October 31, 2024
Rep: lesbian character, gay side character
January 13, 2023
Sixty years ago, these men and women broke the heavens, and made the gods weep. They had spent the time since learning how hard it was to run a world.
I have such a confusing relationship with this series... I actually liked the first part of the book... definitely more than Last First Snow and... I was probably more engaged with it than with Three Parts Dead. Our lead character Caleb is far from a perfect hero. He's faulty, he makes dumb decisions, but he's very much human while doing all of this. I also love Gladstone's feminist use of language, we already seen it in Three Parts Dead and it makes another appearance here (using androcentrism/male universalism to purposefully create a misunderstanding) and I really love that. The fact that a guy is writing it is still a little mind-blowing to me. The worldbuilding is mostly amazing, though some of my reading buddies pointed out some of the problematic parts and... I have to agree.
You are comfortable when violence is done by others on your behalf—when gods are imprisoned, when men are slain or reduced to slavery, you do not blink. But faced with the need to dirty your own hands, you shudder.
The reason why this got just three stars from me though is the ending, like... that ending is messy. I honestly got a little lost in it and when I found myself I was shocked how much it lacked nuance. I really wish the second half of the story was completely different...
We also need to talk about Chapter 35 (not a "real"/plot spoiler)
Also, the narration was grating on my nerves, I didn't like it at all...
“The trouble with atheism," Temoc said, "is that it offers a limited range of curses.”
BRed at WBtM: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
July 29, 2020
I think this might be a better book than the first one, but I didn’t enjoy it as much.
The prose in this series is incredible. The feeling of it is different every time, but no less moving. This time around the whole book moves like water. Dream water, even, difficult to hold on to, difficult to get a good look at. The whole thing ebbs and flows and there are many moments I found myself asking what was dream and what was reality.
And what an ending. I said about the last one that it was an insanely satisfying ending, and that’s true for this one as well, though to a lesser extent, I think. But human. So human. And somehow so hopeful. It was bittersweet that way; it was so hopeful and made me wish for such an ending, or if not an ending at least such a possibility.
The prose in this series is incredible. The feeling of it is different every time, but no less moving. This time around the whole book moves like water. Dream water, even, difficult to hold on to, difficult to get a good look at. The whole thing ebbs and flows and there are many moments I found myself asking what was dream and what was reality.
And what an ending. I said about the last one that it was an insanely satisfying ending, and that’s true for this one as well, though to a lesser extent, I think. But human. So human. And somehow so hopeful. It was bittersweet that way; it was so hopeful and made me wish for such an ending, or if not an ending at least such a possibility.
June 17, 2023
Gladstone's Craft world is a bit hard to get your head wrapped around. Wars on gods, insignificant parts of daily life that nibble at your soul for payment and all kinds of inexplicable magic. If you just come for the story, he is two for two.
The conflict build up and eventual resolution had me reading frantically towards the end. The characters all true to themselves and decidedly not cookie cutter or cliche.
I think I already own book 3 so will probably continue
The conflict build up and eventual resolution had me reading frantically towards the end. The characters all true to themselves and decidedly not cookie cutter or cliche.
I think I already own book 3 so will probably continue
March 21, 2022
Solid 3.5 stars. I was a little lost for a while but once the book hit its stride, I enjoyed it. Caleb was a great character, but it took me a little bit to feel him because I loved Tara from the first book so much. The plot was chaotic (to me) in the first 1/3-1/2 of the book but then it came together. I do like Gladstone’s writing style, he writes solid, strong, characters and takes ethical and moral dilemmas and incorporates them into his writing in a wonderful way.
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