Be the Serpent, by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
I’ve loved Seanan McGuire’s “October Daye” urban fantasy
since the very first volume and looked forward to each new installment. Be
the Serpent is every bit a treat for long-time fans of the series. It is
not, alas, an entry point for the new reader. Long-running series are often
burdened by sheer weight of backstory. McGuire is skillful enough to weave in bare-minimum
necessary details, but after 15 previous volumes, that amounts to a lot.
Even though I had read all the previous volumes, some more than once, I found
myself wondering who is this person and when did that
happen? I wished for a “refresh my memory” synopsis from time to time,
especially when supporting characters had similar names (like Simon and
Sylvester, although there aren’t enough letters in the alphabet to give
everyone in Toby Daye’s world a name starting with a different letter). I have
the greatest sympathy for the poor, unsuspecting reader who tries to jump into
the middle of the story. To be fair, there are plot elements that don’t depend on
an encyclopedic knowledge of What Has Come Before and are engrossing in their
own right.
Be the Serpent has the same delicious blend of
Faerie, magic, romance, mystery, and action, not to mention great characters,
as has come before. Fans will love it, me among them. If I was disappointed by
once-terror-inspiring characters descending to warm-fuzziness, the switch from
BFF to arch-enemy more than balanced it out.
The story ends on a partial resolution, a false cadence as
it were, promising that the story isn’t over yet. This is great news for fans,
maybe not so much for someone still trying to figure out what’s going on.
I tried to read the attached novella, but I kept falling
asleep.
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