The Power Of The Serpent

The Seedbearers Trilogy #2

by Peter Valentine Timlett, Ken Barr

Fantasy . Number # 02370-5. Original price $1.50. The saga of brave swords and demon lusts in a hell-war for human souls.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Language, Magic

246 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second volume of a trilogy, preceded by The Seedbearers and followed by Twilight of the Serpent. The Conan-esque cover by Ken Barr makes it look like a straight swords & sorcery adventure, but it's a very mystical New Agey fantasy about the survivors of the destruction of Atlantis with Illuminati-influenced overtones. It's a magic story about Druids versus demons, with a lot of light and dark opposing imagery. The first book indulged in some graphically detailed violent sexual assault, which is toned down in the subsequent two books, which are also much better written, though the character development and usage is still a little off kilter. The trilogy was published in the mid-1970s in England, followed by Bantam editions in the U.S., and Timlett seems to have published little else until a couple of unrelated novels appeared after the turn of the century. I enjoyed it, for the odd outlook and viewpoint, well enough to read the concluding book when it came out.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's very involved with the technical details of the described spirituality and cosmology. The author's obvious interest in the New Age-y occult lends verisimilitude to the trappings and rituals as practiced by the cults of the novel, but it also forms a weird drag on the story. There were points where he took time out from this sword-and-sorcery to describe the metaphysics and underpinnings of the Druid belief system through character exposition, and using diagrams and charts splayed into the text. It's as though we wouldn't appreciate the conflict between the Wessex and Druid cults without an understanding of the geometric basis of the Great Pyramid, or the numerological basis of Stonehenge, via the combination of magic squares and gematria and alchemy: "the basic spiritual equation is 1080 + 666 = 1746"...where sulphur (the positive dynamic principle) is 1080, mercury (the negative receptive principle) is 666, and gold (the highest whatever) is 1746.

It's a book, in fact, which uses language like "activate that choice by direct physical-plane action" and "joint psychic inner-plane vortex" and is of the sort to use the word "actualize" non-ironically. "Actualize", used ironically or not, does not belong in a book about warrior priests fighting atop Stonehenge to prevent the birth of the Dark One.

The second influence may well be "pulp Atlantis", which is always welcome. Much of the structure of the book is very entertaining, and I'm curious to see how this works in a trilogy.

[Robert Jr. · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I picked this one from the shelf I was hoping for some decent sword & sorcery action or, at the least, cheesy S&S with a few high points like Kothar the Barbarian or even something laughably bad like Brak the Barbarian. Fortunately, I did not get my hopes high enough to expect even Karl Edward Wagner quality. This book is a very poor example of Sword & Sorcery.

The characters are indistinguishable from each other, and the plot is way too thin. The only character I could follow was the high priestess Asher who is taken out of action in the first third of the book after her father the High Priest of Wessex knocks her up with a demon child. His secret weapon against the Druids and the visiting Egyptian Priests. It backfires causing the climax, one of two battles that frame this thing, to be anticlimactic. That’s pretty much it for the plot. The battle scenes are lackluster and there are a couple of action scenes in the middle that are average but still too few and far between.

A large portion of the central part of the book is dedicated to the overly detailed and minute explanation of the druids’ beliefs with diagrams included as figured by a visiting young Egyptian priest. This stopped the narrative dead in its tracks and as it hadn’t yet built up enough momentum before this, it kills the story dead especially since it occurs after the one interesting character, Asher (granted she’s proud of the fact that she sleeps with her brother and father), is already out of action as a screaming sweating suffering pregnant body at this point.

The author seemed to care more about world-building rather than the plot of the story and didn’t give a flying f**k about his own characters, so I didn’t either. The worldbuilding was done so clumsily and killed the story so thoroughly that I have to say avoid this book at all costs, it sucks. I also realized after I started reading it, that it’s number two in a trilogy, if I had known this fact I would have this one on the shelf.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book in the very excellent Seedbearers trilogy. See my review of the series under the book The Seedbearers.

[Mark Mitchell]

The first book of this series is a great story let down by gratuitous amounts of violence and sex. The second book avoids this pitfall and the writing style is much improved. Sadly however while this flaw is removed the story of this work is nothing special, just as straightforward struggle between good and evil. The story this time is well done, its just sadly quite average to start with.