Customer Reviews

The Serpent Bride (DarkGlass Mountain, Book 1)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Seems like old times, eh? Axis and StarDrifter together again, the weird, somewhat icky SunSoar affinity for intrafamily sex, the overarching plots that no one seems to understand or be able to explain to those necessary to their success, but are somehow meant to save the world from complete annihilation... We're back!!! Notwithstanding that somewhat sarcastic introduction, I really enjoyed this book because, well, I really enjoyed The Wayfarer Redemption, despite its flaws. Fortunately, The Serpent Bride contains the same beautiful scenery, rich descriptions of magic and nature and great character development. Unfortunately, it also contains some of the same flaws that plagued the foundation stories.

First of all, there are some inconsistencies with the information about Tencendor and the Icarii presented in earlier books. For example (Spoiler alert!), Salome states here that women pregnant with Icarii babies die if the Icarii fathers aren't present at birth to sing the babies out. What??? If I remember correctly, all Icarii weren't enchanters, and I don't remember a huge problem with infant mortality among the Icarii. Babies were born to non-enchanter fathers who were NOT able to sing their babies out, as they weren't capable of manipulating the star dance. Also, I don't remember this caveat being true in Enchanter, when Azhure was pregnant with Caelum. EvenSong told Azhure not to worry, that Icarii babies were born all the time with their fathers not present. So why, all of a sudden, is Salome so worried? And if this is a needless worry, why doesn't StarDrifter put her fears at ease? In a related issue, how is StarDrifter able to sense that Salome's child is (a) a boy and (b) an enchanter? Is there any such thing anymore as an enchanter, anyway? Yes, I know, the star dance is still alive, and will become an issue in later books, but the Icarii haven't been able to sense it for 8 years, and StarDrifter shouldn't be able to sense the things he does about Salome's child.

Second problem: what's wrong with simply saying "Hey, guys, there's an ancient evil rising from the depths of the earth that's going to use skraelings to take over the world. What are we going to do about it?" instead of hatching improbable plots that sow discord and resentment and despair. Lister (the incarnation of Light, sometimes appearing as a snake (a snake?????) ) and Isaiah (the incarnation of Water, sometimes appearing as a frog) are a bit insufferable, as they are responsible for most of the cryptic silences and half-truths that weigh the story down. But, maybe we're not really supposed to like these characters for just this reason... maybe we're supposed to resent them a little and give our "loyalty" as readers to Axis and Maximilian and Ishbel. I can buy that.

Third: the ick factor. Douglass has a tendency to make her villains not only bad, but, well, gross, and write lots of disgusting vignettes into the stories. Ba'al'uz reminds me of the Trashcan Man from Stephen King's The Stand; I keep expecting him to shout "Cibola!!! My life for you!!!" to Kanubai as he struggles through the Isembaardian desert. Ugh. And what about the Coil? Reading fortunes through intestines, or, as Douglass describes, "steaming bowel" is a new level of nausea-inducement, as is the description of eight-year-old Ishbel licking from her fingers the blood and pus snatched from the plague-dead body of her mother. I've got to give her credit, no one does disgusting like Sara Douglass.

On the other hand, no one does beauty like Douglass, either. The bonds that her characters have with each other, good and bad, are amazing to behold. The imagination-defying descriptions of the glass pyramid, the stone fortresses, the beauty of the River Lhyl at sunset, the gratitude StarDrifter feels when his wings begin to regrow... these are the reasons why I read Sara Douglass and love everything she writes and, as a writer, strive to match her incredible descriptive powers. Read The Serpent Bride, if you like fantasy at its best, most dizzying heights, and its cheesiest, guffaw-inducing lows. You'll enjoy the wild ride and look forward to the rest of the saga with baited breath.

I'll state upfront that I am a huge fan of SD's work. But her writing has been at its strongest when she creates historical fiction/fantasy. Her earlier work (Wayfarer redemption, threshold, beyond the hanging wall) were all good fantasy work but not exceptional. Where readers may have hoped that SD had improved as a writer during the past decade or so since she last ventured into fantasy proper, it seems that she has reverted to a level of writing that barely sets her apart from the many other fantasy writers. The main strength of this opening volume of the DarkGlass Mountain trilogy is the incredible world SD has created and the facinating way that she blended three relatively disparate storylines (from her previous novels) into this grand adventure. I could almost overlook some of the flaws in writing style except for a couple of things that need to be rectified in future installments.
1. There are simply too many characters that seem to float around with little impact upon the main storyline. For example, Axis- a hero from the Wayfarer series- has been brought back from the dead but does little in this volume other than hang around and be a sounding board for other character's ideas. Fair enough, he may well play an important part in future installments, but his current status was incomensurate with his 'sceen time' in the Serpent Bride.
2. The book suffers badly from over-writing. The old writing adage of 'show, don't tell' is something that SD has neglected here. There are many, too many, pages where she simply describes how a character is feeling and over analyses each of their motivations. I would have appreciated a defter touch and some more subtety. Perhaps more suggestion and evocation of images would have been better than spelling everything out (Axis felt sad...)

Overall though, it is really enjoyable and had it been another writer I may have ranked it higher. But compared to her more recent work, the Serpent Bride reads more like a draft of a novel that could be truly great than as a finished piece of work.

I almost didn't pick this book up because the cover was so CHEEZY. That being said this book kept my interest for the most part. A few things that I would loved to have seen done differently:

Lose the "romance" element. Or at least lose the stupid and pointless rift between Maxel and Ishbel and vindictiveness of women like Ravenna and Starweb. Frankly, the couple's falling out and the trauma and drama of them sleeping with other people was a way too big part of the plot and detracted from the story considerably. I always find these types of tricks irritating in fantasy. They are not credible in the least and it sucks that the author relies on the romance so much for her story. It especially sucks that the cliffhanger at the end was mostly re. this element.

Stop portraying men as these god like heroes and the women as jealous, indecisive, and vindicative. It really is pretty trite and again detracts from a decent story.

Get the geography of the place right. The story line (especially Isiah's journey Northward) doesn't follow the map in the front of the book.

Axis again? Was that really necessary. People really should do us the decency of staying dead. There were enough "hero men" characters without his reintroduction.

Remarkably I agree with J. Sutherland. I say remarkably because I am an avid romance reader. I have even enjoyed a few romances that had BIG MISUNDERSTANDINGS as long as it was well done. This was not well done and the H/H made me want to throw the book against the wall. I ended up up skipping all the way to the end just to see how it would end. Mild Spoiler: I understood that it was a fantasy and not a romance so I did not expect a romantic ending but please. This is my first book by Ms. Douglass so I assume her others are better. She has gotten so many good reviews that she must be good. However this was not good and I did not like her gendered characterizations. The Heroine could not make up her mind about anything. I was not even mad at the Maxel for doing what he did at the end not after all she did. Spoiler:For a woman who cut out bowels ( I even got over my distaste for this and assumed it would make her a stronger character) Ishbel could have been more fearless when it came to her emotions. Either leave out the romance as I do not mind having fantasies that do not feature romance or write a decent one. When Ms. Douglass stuck to fantasy she was very good, hence the three stars instead of two.

Some reviewers are annoyed with her because she included background stuff from her previous books, however, it helps 1) folks that are not familiar with her work and 2) people that did read her earlier stuff and forgot a few details, which I did. Serpent Bride made my jaw drop a few times, she definitely knows how to shock. This is going to be an exciting new series, with a lot of old friends brought back. My recommendation, if you like Sara Douglass, get this book, it's worth it, I believe she is going to take us on a wild ride with book 2. The only disappointment is waiting for bk2....

Over all, I must say this book is first-rate. Although, it took me some time to get involved in the book, once there, I couldn't put it down.

While trying to decide which book to read next at my public library I found Serpent Bride in the [New Books - Fiction Section]. This is the first book I read by this author, thus I missed the previous Axis Trilogy or Wayfarer Redemption volumes. She goes into great detail of all characters and descriptions - some say too much, however I always say too much is better than not enough! By the end of the book I felt I knew each and every individual personally and experienced each act and achievement myself.

The tale is set in medieval times in the land of mythical creatures with myths and legends. The story is detailed as Sara Douglass goes to great lengths to ensure all origins are clarified so that the reader recognizes what is going on at any given point in time during the yearlong tale.

One thing I thoroughly enjoyed about this novel was the fact that Sara Douglass doesn't just convey the story as you think it should be, she twists and turns the plot in ways that is hard to guess ahead of time.

The thing that I disliked the most about this book is the fact that I must wait a year for the rest of the story... I should know better than to start a book that I know I'll have to wait for the conclusion!

If there's one thing you can be sure of when picking up one of Sara's books it this; you're in for a wild ride.

From the gory beginning, it's impossible to set down.

But the most interesting thing to me in Serpents Bride was the changes coming out in the characters. In Beyond the Hanging Wall, the stand alone ((not so much now)) in which Maxel's court gets it's beginning, all the of the motives seem pure. All of the characters, except the evil one, have the best of intentions. Not so in Serpents Bride. Everyone has a reason, everyone has a motive. Characters we thought noble and good suddenly spring out with their dark sides showing. And we find ourselves, ironically, rooting for the newcomer, rather than Maxel's old fling.

There are moments; our hearts in our throats that we can hardly breathe for the beauty of the novel, for the wonder in her characters and settings have always been Douglass's strong point. We welcome back old friends, we meet new ones. We cry for those lost to history's pages.

And then there are those moments we can feel our skin crawling with disgust or horror.

I for one cannot wait for the next of the Darkglass Mountain series. And if you're a fan of grand fantasy, Douglass is one of the best storytellers I have yet to encounter.

The plot, the universe, and the writing style were all decent enough. I was very intrigued by the Icarii race. Those things were not what made me almost throw this book out the window.

If you want strong and admirable female characters, look elsewhere. The title character, the Serpent Bride, Ishbel, seems to have potential as a character not to be trifled with, from her survival of a terrible childhood trauma to her cool and professional manner in performing gruesome priestly duties for the cult that saved her, and yet she spends most of the book being just that, trifled with, bullied and manipulated and little more than a vessel for the love/lust of various men - like all the other women, actually, who can be categorized as such: Jealous Lover, Shameless Jezebel, Slighted Lover, Passive Mystic. They have no redeeming qualities outside of their ability to survive the horrible, graphic abuse some of them endure, Ishbel included.

The men are just as selfish, destructive and difficult-to-sympathize with as the women, but at least they serve a purpose in the story other than to hop into someone's bed (seriously, the romantic drama became ridiculous), get knocked up, and be victims of chance. Furthermore, no matter what crimes and slights the male characters commit, they are always forgiven. But the women have to suffer for their wrongs. The Salome character - I cannot begin to express my deep disgust at her treatment.

I did like Ishbel and wanted to see her assert herself as the formidable person she seemed to be at the beginning, so I was pained to find that it just wasn't going to happen. Oh, no, being locked in a house to die with her dead and decaying family members didn't break her, disemboweling live men and reading their entrails didn't make her flicker an eyelash, but losing a man's love dropped her into a bottomless pit of despair. Good to know.

Maybe the series gets better, but I don't have the stomach to find out. This is the very first of author's works that I've read. I'd decided to take a chance on her since she's fairly well known. I am sorely discouraged from doing that again, for the sake of my blood pressure if nothing else.

For someone professing to be a fantasy author, Sara Douglass certainly seems to display an irritating disregard for certain of its conventions. I have never really liked Sara Douglass and an author, but decided to give her another try since I had only previously read two of her first books (Wayfarer Redemption and Enchanter) years ago when they first came out. Some of my objections are personal preference (things I like and dislike in books) but some of them I think are genuine failings that might put off many readers.

First and foremost: the fantasy genre is just that, fantasy. At least a part of it is about acheiving the sort of success that reality typically denies us. Because of this most fantasy books end in victory. This is not an accident. Sara Douglass knows this, and her books are no exception although she does like to temper her endings with partial or individual failure. The important part then is not really the ending of the book, which is almost garuaunteed to a certain extent, but rather how we get there. Sara Douglass apparently opts for the "dragging everyone over broken glass" method. The characters are traumatized so many times, and it seems so needlessly that I at least was almost glad that I had never formed any real attachment to them in the first place. As I've written before, readers associate themselves with characters and when faced with a string of unmitigated failure it can be a challenge for the reader to remain committed, especially in the absence of really spectacular characters. The only reason I finished this book is because I was determined to give Sara Douglass a fair chance. And I don't like not finishing books. Obviously there are going to be challenges, sorrows and defeats but they should be alleviated to some extent by success, growth and progress.

Spoilers Alert

In "The Serpent Bride", Sara Douglass had numerous couples, love triangles and one night stands make an appearance. Not a problem. Romance is an integral part of most fantasy. For whatever reason though, Sara Douglass decides that almost none of her relationships are going to go well. Almost to the point of absurdity. Prime example: Maxel and his bride, Ishbel. The relationship starts off somewhat rocky, with secrets on both sides. They slowly warm up to each other. Then, a lunatic on a mission while starting wars throughout the Cental Kingdoms decides to implicate Ishbel. And then kidnap her. Then Ishbel decides to sleep with Isaiah (I'm skipping lots of things here, it actually makes more sense than I'm making it sound), Maxel finds out, sleeps with Ravennah, who OF COURSE gets pregnant, a fact she reveals right after Ishbel professes her love to Maxel and asks for her forgiveness. So basically more drama than a daytime soap, and frankly less connection to the audience. I like Maxel for the most part, but other characters are difficult to connect to.

Second, Sara Dougless seems to rely a lot on unfortunate coincidences. Sure, all fantasy does to some extent since most fantasy isn't 'realistic' in a traditional sense, but it becomes irritating when it seems as though things like Ishbel's daughter bring born and then having her (the baby's) head cut off just happens to coincide with Lister's attempted assassination attempt on Isaiah.

Third is Sara Douglass prose. Typically I am not super judgemental with regards to a writer's style. Sparse, flowery, ornate, workmanship-like, whatever gets the job done. In this case, perhaps when taken in conjunction with the other problems listed above, it bothers me a little. This is a plot that I think would have been better attempted by G.R.R. Martin or Steven Erikson, who knows how to create tragedy that really wrenches. Not everyone can write like they can, fair enough. But her attempts to create, almost force tragedy more often than not seem to fall flat. The initial scene of horror (the first of many) was well-done: Ishbel locked in her families mansion, with the rotting corpses of all she had known and loved. Creepy and effective. But then we are treated to other scenes of supposed horror: the brutal slaughter of Ishbel's daughter, the rape and torture of Salome etc. but they all seem rather two dimensional, almost as though Sara Douglass knows that these things are distressing but either doesn't know how or can't be bothered to really delve into the misery that something like this would cause. For example, rape, especially gang rape, is incredibly debilitating. Not to mention having your son castrated and left to bleed to death on top of you. And yet Salome seems to get over it remarkably quickly. Maybe not in terms of time, but certainly in terms of print. We are told almost nothing about her recovery process and she doesn't seem at all distressed by it later. Not impossible, but I think it would have added a dimension to the story and certainly the tragedy if we were given some sense that this was a deeply scarring experience. A wound may look severe, but if it doesn't leave a scar then how bad could it have been? There are other examples (Maxel's 17 years in a gloam - whatever that is - mine, Ishbel's forced imprisionment with rotting cadavers) but they all share this flaw.

Fourth: get a new planet/cast of characters all ready. I don't know if it's because I haven't read all of her books through Starman and therefore aren't terribly attached to any of her character but dear lord, please let the dead lie! I vaguely remember Axis from her earlier books but wasn't particularly sorry to learn that he had died. I was only sorry to learn that he was, for some reason, making an appearance in this book. I know, I know, bringing in characters from earlier books in a time honored tradition in fantasy. But come one! There wasn't even any real reason - in my opinion - for him to be there. He seemed like Captain Kirk making a guest appearance in The Next Generation: an attempt to lend the viewers something familiar to hold on to. And the world she has created here seems, frankly, pretty generic. Corrupt and massively wealthy empire? Check. Enormous desert kingdom built on conquest and held together through fear and military strength? Check. Patchwork of smaller, feudal european-style kingdoms? Check. Northern wastes populated with scary monsters? Check. I think she could just create a new one without too much trouble.

Objection number five stems from a lack of background and world building. Not every story needs it, but I think this story would have been stronger and richer with it. Even though Sara Dougless is writing in the same world she had previously created, she can't assume that her readers know its history, and this is assuming that she had included a description in previous books. Her description of the court a Corulis for example could have been so much more, instead it felt like a artificial cliche almost rather than an actual place. She either needs to spend more time in laying out background, and/or just create a new world for this plot to take place on.

Six. I remember vaguely from her earlier books her main characters penchant for sleeping with random people seemingly for no reason other than to create plot conflict and this is a trait that is in full force here. And it gets old fast. While these liasons are never completely illogical, they at least seem to make sense given their number they mostly seem like a tired plot device.

There are more but I'm not going to go into them here. Bottom line, if you liked Sara Dougless before this, you'll probably like this book, although I hope this review gave you something to think about. If you didn't like her before, then the "Serpent Bride" isn't going to change your mind. It certainly failed to change mine. I'm not going to read the next two, or however many, books are left in the series but I predict even more misery, seeming certain destruction followed by a narrowly averted disaster and no doubt, personal failure and sacrifice.

I am about three-quarters of the way through with this book and so far I am really not impressed.

Okay, to be fair, I didn't realize, before looking at some of the other reviews on this site, that this book really draws heavily on Sarah Douglass's other works and introduces a lot of themes and backstory from them. Perhaps if I had read her other material, I'd have a fuller understanding of this book, but somehow I don't think that would fix the central problems I have with it.

One of the major problems I have with this book, as others have mentioned, is that there are just too many characters, so much so that most of them are undercharacterized, and her female characters in particular get the short end of the stick. My impression on reading this far is that the author is primarily interested in her heroic male characters (Axis, Maximilian, Isaiah, StarDrifter) and that her female characters are little more than a vehicle for her to interact with them. I bought this book on Kindle, primarily because after reading the free downloadable chapter I was intrigued by Ishbel's character: a member of the Coil, a secretive order that reads the future by disembowelling living victims, who has risen to be archpriestess of that order. Such a set-up, I thought, promised a fascinating character: strong, ruthless, calculating. Instead, Ishbel's largely a nonentity, spending most of the book so far simply being passed from heroic male to heroic male (sent into an arranged marriage to Maximilian; kidnapped by Ba'al'uz, then kidnapped again by Axis as a bride for Isaiah, etc) and at no point attempting to take control over her fate. We are told by other characters how strong Ishbel is, but this seems to be a prime example of an informed attribute, as we never actually see her demonstrating such strength. (Oh, she gets to be pregnant too. Whee.)

As if that weren't bad enough, I found the author's treatment of Salome *really* offputting. The author seems to have little idea of the potential psychological aftereffects of the sort of ordeal Salome went through, nor does she seem to be particularly interested in exploring them. Why do that when she can have Salome cuddle with the man who put her in that situation in the first place, and who has experienced a full two seconds of remorse before moving on to delight over the fact that she's pregnant with his child? (The line in which StarDrifter tells Salome of that, btw, almost took my breath away with how utterly and completely *wrong* it was for a supposedly somewhat-sympathetic character--and how wrong Salome's *reaction* was to such a line). Oh, and also Salome appears to be growing her wings back--which frankly, after what she had just experienced, should realistically add *seriously* to her trauma. Maybe I'm not giving Douglass enough credit and she will actually explore this later, but based on what I've read of this book so far, I'm not counting on it.

Perhaps the author is to be lauded for writing examples of pregnant heroines (which is certainly unusual), but taken with the lack of agency she accords such characters, there are definitely some unfortunate implications there that women are only worthwhile for their ability to give birth. I do get the feeling that as a side note, Douglass was interested in the power of maternity, but if you *really* want a powerful exploration of maternity and maternal love and protectiveness, Michelle West's Sun Sword series does this *much* better. Coupled with a clunky, unpolished prose style and some random asides that make no sense given how the real world works (one good example would be both Ishbel's and Lixel's pre-arranged-marriage incomprehension on StarWeb's insistence as to the importance of children from this union--a detail that shows a real lack of understanding as to the dynamics of royal marriages of this type), and this book is just not a winner for me.

Are there things she does *well?* Well...let's see. She does a good job differentiating her various locations from each other--Yoyette feels different from Isembaard, which feels different from Escator, and so on. Isembaard as a proto-Egyptian society in particular is interesting, as that's a rather uncommon base for a fantasy world. She has some very interesting and unusual artifacts in her book--DarkGlass Mountain, for example, feels like a real place with a real history; the Twisted Tower and the Frog Goblet are intriguing, and so on. She has done a good job giving a sense of backstory to her world, possibly aided by the fact that she has apparently written other books set in this multiverse. But the backstory isn't good enough to overcome the rest of the book's flaws for me. I'll finish this book out, but unless it *seriously* picks up in the remaining quarter, I won't be going on to the rest of the series.

Update: Okay, having finished the book I stand by everything I said earlier. This especially goes for what I said about Douglass being primarily interested in her heroic males with the female characters little more than vehicles for interaction with them. Her male characters lead armies, conquer kingdoms, scheme politically, and take action, while her female characters get pregnant, gossip, and angst over their love lives while waiting for the males to act. Salome's ordeal in particular seems to have been dismissed with a wave of the hand and "That life is so far behind me now" while she settles into happy domesticity with StarDrifter. No, sorry, that doesn't cut it for me. I will not be going on to the rest of the series and I doubt I'll check out anything else this author has in the future.