♦ 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
Well having read the Twisted Citadel (Book 2) first by accident, it was a very different experience reading this first book than it might have been otherwise. I was hooked the whole way through, knowing where people would end up but desperate to know how on earth they got there.It was a morbid sort of fascination, as book two begins in a rather dark place, thus book one was inevitably spiralling towards disaster, and yet the ride was thrilling and I actually finished this monster of a book in two days.Upon reflection, I have concluded that I rather like this trilogy and I am looking forward to the final book. I strongly recommend reading the books in the correct order, however. There are many intertwining paths that are richly rewarding if understood - and horribly confusing if you come in part way through.All in all, Sara Douglass has written the beginnings of an epic, sprawling fantasy masterpiece with the Serpent Bride, and despite its intimidating size, it is a good read. I highly recommend it.
What do You think about The Serpent Bride (2007)?
I would have given this 3 and a half stars I could. I enjoyed it, but a few aspects which puts it below Douglass' earlier Tencendor novels.I have always loved how flawed her characters are, and their flaws shine through clearly here. This makes them more human and more interesting. But the flaws she employs are something I've seen before in her earlier novels: the reluctant hero, the female pawn, the seductress, the manipulator with their own agenda, and Axis typically struggling to keep his pants on. The pacing and character development is solid though a tad rushed at times.The story is, as expected, epic; and Douglass has plenty of twists and turns and about the right amount of foreshadowing. I found her writing to be slightly less abstract compared to her earlier two Tencendor trilogies, which may just be a natural development. Douglass' strengths lie in the worlds she creates, but it seems that by trying to tie together the three worlds of her earlier novels (the two Tencendor trilogies, Beyond the Hanging Wall and Threshold, the later of which was unconnected until now) it all gets a bit messy. There are so many different Gods, powers, histories, forms of magic and so forth that nothing seems to mesh together neatly. This may be better explained in the final two books of the series, which I haven't read yet.These points aside, it was a pleasure to read about Axis again.
—Jeff Simpson
I love the book and can't wait for the third one to come out. In the beginning of the book I found myself not like Ishbel at all and in various places throughout the story I was wishing I could shake some sense into her. In the end though, Ishbel has become one of the characters I enjoy reading about the most and I can't wait to see how the story ends for her. A nice book to read, I would suggest reading the Axis/Starman series first before starting in the Darkglass Mountain series, but that's not a requirement. There is a lot of drama, but what book of Sara Douglass' doesn't? If you enjoy the drama, magick, and romance to some extents, then this book is definitely a good read.
—Trishy
Sara Douglass books always start off interesting, but by about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way in, I've always lost interest. Yet I keep trying. Why is that?For fantasy fans, another good premise. The Great Serpent commands its high priestess to marry a king to save the world. She does. Then she gets kidnapped (while pregnant) and taken to a neighboring (somewhat unfriendly) kingdom as a price for its ruler, only to discover that the king is actually a god that she has encountered before. She marries the
—Tamara
