— Josh (garik16) (11-5) (@garik16) September 8, 2020
Short Review (cont): The sequel to The Gilded Wolves brings the cast, still in mourning, to Russia as they need to discover a legendary artifact. Still a fun heist novel at times, but undermined tremendously by its main character being an absolute ASS.— Josh (garik16) (11-5) (@garik16) September 8, 2020
2/3
Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 22 2020 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
The Silvered Serpents is the sequel to last year's "The Gilded Wolves" (Reviewed Here). The Gilded Wolves was a novel a lot of people I trust seemed to love - a heist novel featuring an alternate early 20th Century Paris/France, featuring a with a secret Order of Magic behind the scenes, and a crew of outsiders (due to race, class, and other reasons) aiming to pull off a series of heists regarding hidden and lost magics for both fortune and recognition of their own worth. Unfortunately, I just couldn't find myself to love the novel as much as others, especially as its magic system and one major character were so close in nature to that of another novel I loved (Robert Jackson Bennett's Foundryside) that it was distracting. Still, there was enough here between the characters, and the very strong setting (which dealt with themes of race and colonialism) to make me want to see where the series would go from the end of the first novel, and I applied for an e-ARC of this sequel as soon as I saw it on NetGalley.
Unfortunately, I honestly found The Silvered Serpents to be an inferior novel to its predecessor, to the point where I actually had a bad taste in my mouth by the ending. The book takes its predecessor's biggest fault - its least interesting character being its primary protagonist, who was honestly a little annoying in his motivations and actions - and makes it far worse, turning that character into an utterly unlikable person in response to the prior book's happenings. The rest of the cast has some highlights, but otherwise this novel turns into a heist novel in which the characters just aren't fun or interesting to read, the themes of the setting aren't really explored too heavily, and certain plot elements are both predictable and lead to a cliffhanger ending that is utterly unsatisfying. There are some highlights where I can see how I might've loved this book otherwise, but they're the exception not the rule.
NOTE: A Major Spoiler as to The Gilded Wolves' ending is unavoidable in further discussion, so it will not be hidden in the rest of this review. You are forewarned.
---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Séverin Montagnet-Alarie has spent the time since Tristan's death on a single-minded quest to rediscover the legendary book "The Divine Lyrics", a book whose power the Fallen House once sought, which had long been sought lost....until Roux-Joubert, the Fallen House murderer, had revealed that it still existed inside the Sleeping Palace of the Fallen House. With the power of the book, he could become a god, restore Tristan, and ensure that nothing ever happened again to his friends. Unfortunately, months of searching by Séverin and the Order have revealed no clue to the Sleeping Palace so hope seems dim....until one last lead reveals a possible clue.
Of course, since that fateful day, the team has been separated. After Séverin's monstrous words, Laila has been living out her life as the dancer L'Enigme, knowing that without the book, her artificial life will soon come to an end on her 19th birthday, with only weeks left to go. Enrique has been attempting to show his scholarship, and the importance of bringing back colonial works to the colonies, to the Ilustrados, all the while carrying out a secret affair with Hypnos. Zofia has returned to Poland to care for her sister, who is dying - all the while without knowing the truth of what Zofia has done.
But this one lead brings them all back together, as it leads them to Russia, in a race to find the book before the Order can get there first. But the agents of The Fallen House are still out there, hunting for the book - and them - as well, and time is running out. And what exactly the team will find as they hunt for the book, and what they will have to, may be more than they could possibly imagine.....
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As with the first novel, The Silvered Serpents is told from the perspectives of the four remaining members of the team: Séverin, Laila, Zofia, and Enrique (sixth ranger Hypnos, who is now the fifth ranger, does not get a POV). It's a team of outcasts for various reasons - Laila is Indian in a colonial European power, to say nothing of her dark origins, Enrique is half Filipino and thus isn't trusted by either the locals or by the greater Filipino community, and Zofia is Jewish in a very antisemitic setting as well as autistic, and very uncomfortable with other people, to say nothing about expressing herself (even to herself). It's a cast that I really should like, and with Laila, Zofia, and Enrique, I kind of do.
The problem is Séverin, whose response to his brother's death is to not just close himself off to others, subsuming his feelings to his drive to become all powerful so that he can fix everything, but also to just become an utter asshole. At the end of the last book, he drove Laila away by calling her not a person, which is not only insanely rude but literally picking at her ultimate fear, and while that might have been in the moment of grief (but still honestly unforgivable), he's only worse here months after the fact, manipulating others but especially Laila in totally cruel and cold ways. And this isn't a momentary thing that he eventually is forced to get over as you might expect, with the team being forced to come to a reckoning to work together and to realize that they each depend upon the others - no this happens FOR THE ENTIRE NOVEL. Given that he's the leader of the team, this is just painful and utterly infuriating to read - and the novel never manages to make up for it at all.
The rest of the team is mostly better, with Laila being incredibly sympathetic, Austistic Jew Zofia being incredibly easy to like and root for, and Enrique's unstoppable curiosity towards histories being utterly charming, but they never really stand out, and the fun dialogue you might expect in a heist novel is mostly suppressed by the darkness hanging over Séverin. Extra team member Hypnos is mostly sympathetic as well, but he acts like an utter ass regarding his relationship with Enrique - which only is worse to read given how that relationship hurt Zofia at the end of the last book - and when finally called upon it, acts like he didn't know what he was doing. Two new temporary team members aren't particularly interesting, and the book teases where its going with them from the beginning in such an obvious way you'll see it coming throughout, which doesn't help it all.
And then the plot ends in the most unsatisfying way possible. The story leaves Paris and moves to Russia, but its a Russia that isn't very specific and just feels generic, as our characters search for the special book that could lead them to godhood. So it gives you an impression that certain events will eventually happen in this book, with the implications of them being dealt with either at the end or in the next novel....except they don't happen at all here, being left entirely to the next novel (contrast the ending of the first book, which had its climax early and then what felt like a long epilogue section). It's utterly unsatisfying as a way to end a book I was already not enjoying and almost reading on at that point only to see how things would be resolved (and they're not). I should point out that again the book does touch on the issues of colonization and its impact, and the horrors of treating people as non-persons, but none of this winds up mattering to the plot in the end.
I'm sure there's a way to write a heist novel with characters so suffering from trauma that they act poorly to one another and without the levity and quips for the most part you see within such a novel. I'm sure there's a way to write a such a book in a way that it brings up serious relevant themes. But The Silvered Serpents is not that book, and I cannot recommend it.
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