Gripping plot, but writing style was disjointed and tended to pull me out of the flow of the story. ( )

I'll state right off the bat that some of my problems with this book are probably due to the fact that, while it starts a trilogy, it builds on earlier books set in the same world. As a result, some events felt like they should have more impact than they did.

However, my main problems were definitely due to specific elements of the book. For one thing, when we first see the female lead (who is supposed to be sympathetic) as an adult, she is sacrificing a conscious and apparently innocent man to communicate with her god (who is not supposed to be an evil god). Much later, it's revealed that the cult only uses murderers, rapists, and the like or (extremely rare) volunteers for these sacrifices, and the volunteers are sedated before the ritual, but there's too much of a gap involved for this revelation to really help the reader's image of the character.

Also, throughout the book, it seems like every character not allied with the evil forces manages to do the worst possible thing for their side. While this isn't quite so bad for characters who have no idea of what's really going on (even if the apparent consistency of the bad choices is a bit much), this extends to the avatars of the gods trying to stop the coming apocalypse and mitigate the damage caused by the lead-in not telling each other limits they're working under and doing things that they should know are bad ideas. Even with the characters who don't know what's at stake, some actions felt more like they were done for story reasons rather than because they made sense to the characters based on what they knew.

Finally, there is a problem with scale. Two separate armies are described using "millions" in relation to their numbers. One of these (the larger, and never given a more accurate count than "millions") is, admittedly, non-human and basically devouring everything in its path, but the other is human, and numbered at over a million including colonists who are to settle the lands as soon as they're conquered. There is a good story reason for this set-up, but the logistics of supplying and moving such a large group would be difficult at present, much less in the pseudo-medieval setting of the story. Similarly, one country (which is not a major setting for most of the story, admittedly) seems to have been unaffected by a nearby continent having been destroyed in the recent past, an event which should have caused severe earthquakes and tsunamis, at least. The continent's destruction was in a different book, though, so I could be mistaken about the effects it did or should have had. ( )

♦ The Story: The book starts out with a short creation legend followed by a very dark beginning to the story. Almost immediately you begin to sympathize in horror with a trapped 8 year old girl who is barricaded in a house with her dead relatives. The only survivor of a plague that killed not only parents and siblings but aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents; the town outside waiting for her to die so they can burn the house down. From the very first page, you are emotionally hooked into this tale.

♦ My Thoughts: I remember clearly the day Sara Douglass announced to her many fans that she had advanced ovarian cancer. I clung to hope for several years but sadly I ended up heartbroken when she lost that fight. But omg what a legacy! There are very few writers that can hook you this hard starting with the first paragraph. And you will stay hooked. Right up to the very last word.

I do want to note that having previous knowledge of this world does add flavor to the tale. I might have been able to get by without it, but I am glad I did not have to. Having a basic knowledge of past history definitely helps.

♦ What I Liked: The characters are vivid, varied, relatable and flawed. You love them or you hate them, then you turn the page and reverse your opinion. The detailed worldbuilding comes in as a close second with varied landscapes, multiple races and plenty of magic. But there is one thing that blew my mind. One thing that made me go WOW! when I closed the book and proceeded to sit here in stunned disbelief for about 30 minutes.

In 704 pages there is an unbelievable amount of story. So much that I have been lost for days trying to figure out how to accurately relate how massively epic this book is. There are stories, inside of larger stories, all wrapped up in mythology and loaded with superb character development. No character ends up unchanged. Very few turn out to be what or who you thought they were. And I swear I don't think there is a single storyline that went anywhere near where I thought it was going. Ultimately, there just aren't enough adjectives to express how impressed I am with this book.

♦ What I didn't like: There was only one person whose motivation bothered me. Not going to tell you who because that would be a major spoiler, but one character just felt off to me. This person gets dragged into the conflict, without any possibility of consent, and just accepts this with no fuss. Trust me when I say that the circumstances of this person's insertion were extreme and yet they just shrugged it off and decided to go with the flow. It nagged at me and still does but in light of how well all of the other characters are written, I am willing to let it slide, kinda like the character did.

♦ Conclusion: Romance, intrigue, betrayal, war, mystery, and more switchbacks than a steep mountainside. You will really need to be on your toes with this book because nothing is static, staid or dependable. Everything is subject to change (and does) at a moment's notice. This is not a light read. It is a true multifaceted, detailed, dark, complex story that exemplifies the very definition of Epic Fantasy.

Originally posted @ Dragons, Heroes and Wizards ( )

I've been a fan of Sara Douglass' spellbinding stories ever since I picked up The Wayfarer Redemption (or by its original name, Axis). Even though I was somewhat slow on getting into her DarkGlass Mountain trilogy, I figured now was as good a time as even to pick it up.

In The Serpent Bride, readers meet Ishbel, a woman who was rescued from death as a child by the high priest of a group called the Coil, a strange outland snake cult that tells the future by reading the intestines from living sacrifices. Doesn't exactly sound like a good thing to grow up around, but Ishbel didn't have much choice. Ishbel, a child of power to the Coil, grows up to become the cult's arch priestess. Ishbel is resolved to never marry or leave her home until she sees a vision from the Serpent god, telling her that she must marry the king of Esctar, a land far away from her home. She reluctantly agrees and marries the strange king known as Maxil. That small step flings Ishbel into a strange, unknown world where she gets tangled in webs of romance, politics and war.

While the setup seems like a great way to begin a new series, the most surprising thing about The Serpent Bride is the fact that well, it isn't very new. I hate to say it, but it reads much like Douglass' previous novels, easily paralleling the plot and characters. The aspect that upset me the most about this series was the fact that Douglass pulled Axis and StarDrifter back into the story. While I do think it's pretty cool that she's trying to connect all of her stories into one giant megaverse, I think that pulling this two characters and the Icarii into The Serpent Bride, and giving them all important roles in the story completely detracted the story from new characters -which I were far more interested in getting to know. For crying out loud -I've read about Axis for six books, I think it's time to just let him go, but honestly I think Douglass is having trouble letting her beloved first character go.

Douglass' writing is as fluid and lush as always, in fact, that's one of the few things that got me through this book. I was fascinated by the new elements that she wove together, but I couldn't quite get into them due to the stale nature of previous characters being recycled.

I wouldn't say The Serpent Bride is a complete failure, it's still entertaining and lush, but it reads more like Axis book seven than something new... ( )

The story opens with Ishbel losing her family at a young age and being rescued by the Coil, where she is brought up and becomes the arch priestess of that order. Then she's ordered to go to Maximilian in Escator and become his wife.

Maximilian is torn, the coil have a terrible reputation but he needs them for his kingdom to continue.

And that's just the beginning of the story, it includes kidnapping, great evil trying to get free of it's prison and overarching plotting that both complicates and helps our heroes. I enjoyed the story and found that it moved quite quickly. ( )