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Title: The Bear and the Serpent
Series: Echoes of the Fall #2
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 465
Format: Digital Edition
Series: Echoes of the Fall #2
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 465
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
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Asmander has
returned to the River Kingdom with Maniye and her Steel wolfpack,
only to find he is too late and the kingdom is already riven asunder
between the 2 siblings vying for control. Asmander's father continues
his manipulation to make the best of a bad situation (in his eyes)
and Asmander is finally forced to realize how bad his father truly
is.
The male heir, who
Asmander is championing, is set upon by assassins and his own
supposedly loyal servants. He escapes with the help of Maniye and the
Wolfpack and they have adventures out in the swampy swampland. They
come across a segment of the Serpent that is trying to make a deal
with the plague people, who are their mythical enemies. However, the
plague people are on the run from the soul-less people from over the
ocean. A lot of pointless crap happens and Asmander finally sneaks
his two friends (the siblings) together so they can talk. The female
heir takes the crown and her brother takes the number 2 place. Their
storyline ends with the news that the soulless have already started
attacking the River Kingdom and the Horse People are almost gone.
The second
storyline deal with the Bear and his attempt to bring all the
northern tribes together when he finds out that the villages of the
Seals have been attacked and all the Seal people have turned into
their animal forms but lost their minds. He puts together an Olympic
style event and everyone does feats of this and that and eventually
they go after the soulless people invading their land. They drive
them off but with horrific losses and we the readers are shown an
airship in the colors of Black and Gold.
That storyline ends
with the Tribes victorious but the Bear realizing just how small
their victory actually was.
My
Thoughts:
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This is the first book of Tchaikovsky's that I'm actually
disappointed in. Even when I read Spiderlight
back in '16, I was more pissed off than disappointed. I was bored for
most of this book and it felt like it was re-treading so much from
the first book in terms of the Tribal abilities and the reveal about
the Wasp Kinden being the soulless people, while it should have been
wicked awesome, just left me feeling kind of “Oh, ok, whatever.
Next!”
I can remember halfway through when Maniye and her crew are dealing
with the male heir and all I could think of was “throw that pussy
to the crocodiles and get this story moving, please”. The Bear
story didn't please me any more with “fear” just turning everyone
into animals. Whatever. Master your fear or you DESERVE to go
extinct. Needless to say, I was not feeling generous and nothing in
this book made me feel like being generous.
Now, with all of that being said, the reason I gave this 3 stars is
because it is completely up to par in terms of technical writing.
Tchaikovsky can write like a master wordsmith and even in books like
this where I'm just blah'ed out, I can still appreciate the skill
even while not really enjoying the ride.
My expectations for the third and final book have really taken a
nosedive with this. Poop.
★★★☆☆
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