Fixing Two Serpents Rise
It will not come to a surprise to long time readers of this website that I am not the biggest fan of Two Serpents Rise. I’ve come to appreciate certain elements of it, but if I didn’t run this site I don’t think I’d pick it up again.
So, before we discuss Two Serpents Rise in the book club and AMA this week I wanted to lay out how I would personally fix the book.
You may disagree that this book needs a fix at all. If so, awesome! Glad you enjoy it. If you want to read this essay out of general interest to see my perspective, you’re welcome to. If you agree with me that some fixes are needed, I’d love to hear what you think about these ideas and any I’ve missed.
My goal here is fix-it, not fanfic. I’m not changing key plot points, removing or adding major elements, or switching out lead characters. The ideas I list below might not all work together, but illustrate a variety of ways to fix what I view as some of the key issues.
What are the issues with Two Serpents Rise?
I go into more detail in my review of Two Serpents Rise here, and a little in my breakdown of Mal’s character and arc here. I’ve tried to be fair on the book in both of these essays, but if you’ve ever got into a discussion with me you’ll know I find the negatives far outweigh the positives.
The key issues for me can be broken down into:
The choice of POV character (Caleb)
The villain (Mal)
The pacing
To quote myself in my review:
“Caleb is the ultimate weakest point of the book – and the series (though your mileage may vary). He is, frankly, boring. He shouldn’t be! A casual gambler, professional risk manager, son of a terrorist / freedom fighter, at the heart of the plot, he sounds fun. However, what we get for a huge part of the book is Caleb falling head over heels for a woman he met once (boring), going against all sense to follow her (creepy), ignoring the very clear warning signs that she is up to something bad (irritating), obsessing over her constantly (boring, creepy AND irritating), and basically accidentally falling into the plot because of said obsession.
If you like your fantasy with a heavy dose of lovelorn straight men who make stupid decisions because of a manic pixie dream girl, then great. We prefer ours without it.”
Caleb works for some people (largely straight men in my experience - nothing wrong with that, but interesting IMO) but doesn’t for me. I really enjoy him in Wicked Problems, and in fact also enjoy Mal in that book. Which brings me onto Mal and quoting myself again:
“From very early on it’s clear that she’s either the bad guy or she’s a red herring; either way, her role is clear. We don’t get her POV until very late on, just Caleb’s biased perspective on her. All we hear is how absolutely amazing and beautiful and wonderful she is – and she cliff runs! She uses Craft! She’s rich and powerful and beautiful and oh Caleb is so in love with her. We get hints of her backstory, which just reinforce that yep she’s the bad guy. And then…she’s the bad guy.
It’s not a twist as it’s so clear from early on, and if we saw her perspective about why she wants to raise deadly, fiery, ancient, magical humongous serpents from their sleep to…destroy the city…and kill thousands of people…because? Tradition? Then we might sympathise more. Instead, we just see the horror of her RAISING DEADLY MASSIVE MAGICAL SERPENTS TO DESTROY THE CITY AND KILL THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE.
In both Caleb and Mal there are the seeds of excellent characters. But the way they’re utilised is underwhelming, and undermines the entire book.”
And finally, my critique of the pacing. The Craft Sequence varies in timescale for books - some days, some months, but generally I feel the plot pacing works. Whereas in Two Serpents Rise, we get a moment of action then “months passed with nothing happening” before another spurt of action. Sure, in the real world this might be how things happen but it’s not the kind of realism I want in my speculative fiction. Just as soon as I’m intrigued by something, the momentum stalls and sputters out. Again. And again. And again.
So, how would I fix this?
I have several ideas, which could stand alone or be combined in various ways - though I don’t think one could put them all together for a successful book. They fall into two broader categories, which I call ‘compression’ and ‘let the women speak’.
Compression I - novella
There simply isn’t enough story to fill 300 pages. I love Gladstone’s writing style, which my friend has described as ‘dense’ or ‘chunky’; that is, he generally packs a hell of a lot of ideas, description, character, and plot into every page he writes. But Two Serpents Rise, to me, doesn’t showcase this. Caleb spends too much time hanging around thinking, while Gladstone’s character usually think at the same time as doing. There’s not enough action, and this undermines Caleb as much as the plot. He seems like a bit of an idiot, spending so many pages being told exactly what’s going on and blindly ignoring it.
We could keep much of the same story and character development while cutting a hundred or more pages. We’d have to lose a couple of scenes and trim others down, but that’s doable. I’ve debated creating a cut down version for AO3 but it feels like crossing a bit of an ethical boundary (big fan of derivative works, fanfic etc, but this would be less fanfic and more taking a written book and excising portions).
A shorter book would also mean the single POV makes more sense. Look at Dead Country. Coming in at a neat 239 pages (not a novella, but not normal Craft Sequenc length), it only shows us Tara’s POV, and yet it still works. This is a full 100 pages shorter than Two Serpents Rise. In general I’m a fan of bigger books with more POVs, especially in the Craft Sequence, but Dead Country shows the shorter single character book can work in this series. Could Dead Country be blown up to 340 pages? Not without losing much of its essence and adding a crazy amount of padding. Padding that is, I feel, present in Two Serpents Rise.
Compression II - timeline
This one wouldn’t solve all the problems on its own, but could be combined with either the shorter novel or (ideally) additional POVs as outlined in the next section.
Momentum constantly stalls when I reread 2SR rather than building to a climax. By the time we get to Mal stealing Qet’s heart and waking the Serpents, I’m bored rather than anticipating the endgame. Firstly, the book is split into sections, which doesn’t help with the pacing. And secondly, the timeline is too long.
We’re not told exactly how much time is passing, but on page ten Caleb mentions “a full solar [eclipse] like the one this autumn”. If we work off our real-world calendar, this implies to me it’s spring at the latest here. In summer, do you say “this autumn” or “in a couple of months”?
On page 196, Caleb says to Kopil “we only have six weeks to the next eclipse”, which is the solar eclipse mentioned previously, and the climax of the story. So that means 196-340ish is about six weeks, but 10-196 is at least several months.
On page 133 when the Tzimet reappear in the water, Mal says that RKC has “wanted an excuse to draw on [The Serpents] for months.” They only got access to the Serpents in the Heartstone deal, which took place in the chapter starting on page 108. So, several months between pages 108 and 133?
We hear lots about months of due diligence and negotiations, but it’s not super clear if those took place from the start of the book and the first Tzimet infestation, or prior to that. Later in the book we see lots of “months ago” references to Caleb and Mal meeting, chasing each other, sharing a tent on the way to Seven Leaf Lake.
Realistically, I think Two Serpents Rise takes place over 6-10 months, and I’m more inclined towards the 8/9 month region.
There is too much hanging around time in the story, which makes it even more ridiculous that Caleb falls for Mal’s nonsense. Two Serpents Rise wouldn’t work with the three or four days of Three Parts Dead, but could take place over three months rather than nine. I’d believe Caleb so quickly falling for Mal and not questioning himself if his obsession was of a shorter length, and believe that Teo would be willing not to report Mal to their superiors at RKC if it was closer to a few weeks than a year. As it is, everyone just seems to be ignoring the clear evidence in front of them for convenient plot reasons rather than because it rings true to their character.
The timeline compression could be integral to the plot. It’s only so many days or weeks until the eclipse, and perhaps Caleb knows something will happen then even if he remains convinced Mal isn’t involved. After all, he suspects his father’s group of religious rebels - surely if they were going to do something, it would be on a religiously important day like the eclipse? Kopil could know this too, and set Caleb on his mission with a strict time limit. Each chapter could tell us how long is left until the eclipse, so we feel that tension ratcheting up along with the plot.
Let the women speak III - Teo POV
When I mention my dislike of Two Serpents Rise to other fans, often they come back with “I understand what you mean about Caleb, but Teo is cool.”
I agree she is. I do not agree that this is showcased particularly well in this book.
Teo is a loyal but exasperated friend of Caleb’s, who reluctantly enables his quest, and tells him Mal is suspicious af. She has a girlfriend situationship who dislikes Caleb, but we don’t really see the dynamic between Teo and Sam, so this feels like an unnecessary addition to give Teo more to her life than Caleb. We’re also told that “Teo had ventured into the Abyss herself during the negotiations, painted in henna and silver wards against the odd intelligences that lived there.”
I usually like Gladstone’s offhand references to cool worldbuilding things that we don’t see, feeling it adds to the vastness of the Domain and the Craft Sequence. But in a story with so little action, you can’t tease that and not show it??
Imagine a Two Serpents Rise with Teo’s POV alongside Caleb. We could see some of those cool Craft-y negotiations that are strangely missing from a book set in one of the first Craft cities. We could learn more about Caleb from the POV of someone who knows and loves him. We could see a different side of the city through Teo’s perspective, and build up to her badassery at the end of the book. That would have been cool from her POV too - instead of Caleb getting knocked out and waking up to find Temoc trying to sacrifice Teo, let’s see that from Teo’s perspective!
And whilst I’d like to see Teo’s POV for her own sake, she would also make Caleb seem more interesting. We’re told what Caleb is - or used to be - like. A gambler. Someone who weighs up odds and risks. Someone who has spent his life being dragged in by the cops because of his father. That Caleb is interesting. The Caleb we see is not. That is the point, you might say. Teo does tells us he used to be a certain way and now he’s different.
Yet we don’t see that. We just see kinda dull Caleb hanging around falling for Mal and occasionally doing his job. The Caleb of Wicked Problems thinks in gambling metaphors, is constantly sizing people up, reading their tells, calling their bluffs. I’d like to see that POV, but I also think that Teo’s POV would show us more of her friend Caleb and what’s changed.
Rather than being told Caleb “used to have fire, and you’ve got scared. You’re becoming a risk manager in truth as well as title, and it’s hard to watch” we could see Teo remembering what Caleb was like. Without using traditional flashbacks, Gladstone is an expert at weaving characters’ memories into their present day thoughts and choices throughout the series. I’d have loved to see that here through Teo.
Let the women speak II - Elayne (and maybe Mina?)
This idea actually comes from Gladstone himself. In our interview the other year, he mentioned that Elayne Kevarian was originally planned to feature in Two Serpents Rise. As an Elayne stan, this of course set off all sorts of ideas in my mind.
First question to answer, is how big of a role would Elayne play? I think if she played a significant role it would change too much of the plot (she knows Kopil and Temoc too well, she’d figure out Mal too quickly, she’s too Craft-y for this book) and that’s not the point of this essay, so for our purposes she would need to play a smaller role.
Perhaps she would pop up a la Four Roads Cross, when Tara calls her for help and Elayne introduces her to both Ash Wakefield and Kopil. A small but crucial role, maybe clarifying something for Caleb or giving him some advice he didn’t realise he needed. This might be through a nightmare, or with Elayne showing up in person. Imagine Elayne going for dinner (and cards) with Caleb, and giving him advice about Mal? Or perhaps he could have a revelation about how to play his hand, so to speak, while they’re playing bridge. Wicked Problems era Caleb thinks in gambling metaphors, and it would be a cool way to bring that side of him out.
If she showed up in person, maybe we’d also get to see Mina (Caleb’s mom), who I thought was dead when I first read Two Serpents Rise. What do you mean Mina lives in Dresediel Lex but is barely mentioned let alone shown in a novel set in that very city, told entirely from her son’s POV over many months, and where her ex-husband plays an integral role? She doesn’t show up once? Caleb doesn’t worry about her in the riots and Tzimet? Arguably she could be in the field or at some flying university, but we need that explicitly mentioned to explain why she isn’t there and Caleb isn’t concerned about her.
Okay, perhaps I need to work on a summary of an alternative 2SR where Mina and Elayne play major roles. But that won’t work for this fix-it rather than fanfic…
Let the women speak III - Mal
This is my favourite option of all five (though I’d like it alongside timeline compression please).
One of my biggest issues with Mal is that she is so obviously the bad guy of the piece but it feels like the narrative expects you to be on Caleb’s side, believe her innocence, and be shocked when it turns out she’s part of the Big Serpent Plan. This would be solved by a single change: make it a Caleb and Mal POV two-hander.
Mal is incredibly sympathetic in Wicked Problems. She used to be one of my most disliked characters in the series, and now I want to see more from her. Even though me mostly see her through Dawn’s perspective, we’re given a deeper understanding of how she was raised, why she went through with the plan, and what she saw in Caleb in the first place. I want to see THAT in Two Serpents Rise.
A major theme of Two Serpents Rise and the series as a whole is the tension between different ways of running the world, gods versus Craft, past versus present, sacrifice of the one or sacrifice of the many. But, through Caleb’s eyes, we only really see one of those sides. When Mal bloodlets and self-harms as sacrifice, we are as horrified as Caleb is. When Caleb calls Mal’s parents fanatics, we’re on his side rather than hers.
What if, instead, the entire book showed us both sides? What if we went through Mal’s plan with her? What if we believed what she believed? Perhaps we shouldn’t be told the full plan, particularly the part about raining fire and destruction on the city, but we should know Mal and Allie and Alaxic are working towards something they truly believe in, whilst also seeing Caleb floundering in his side of the story to try and stop them. What if we got to the part where Caleb takes Mal into the facility desalinating water through Qet Sea-Lord’s corpse, and half the readership are on Caleb’s side and half on Mal’s?
I think this would make Mal a much stronger character, add to the themes of the book, show multiple sides of Dresediel Lex and the world of Craft, and ratchet up the tension tenfold.
My ideal solution
As much as I enjoy all these ideas, I don’t think throwing them all in together would make a particularly satisfying book, unless the plot itself were dramatically changed.
The novella idea is more standalone. Perhaps Elayne could cameo in that one, but the point here is to cut rather than add. Now I’ve had the ideas of other POVs, this is my least favourite of the options.
Timeline compression is essential for the pacing, in my opinion, so whatever we go with I’m keeping that. As much as I love Elayne, adding her alone won’t solve the issues. Teo POV plus some Elayne scenes would work well. I want Mina in this version too, either with Elayne or just showing up for dinner with Caleb, but not necessarily as a POV character.
However, my current favourite idea is making the book a Caleb and Mal dual POV. Elayne could potentially be added (I still enjoy my dinner and cards scene helping Caleb solve a problem), but it isn’t essential here. I’d like more Teo scenes, and Mina should be added out of principle, but I don’t think Teo POV would work if we’re restructuring the book as a dual POV with warring motivations and goals.
Whether you agree with my diagnosis of the issues with the book, what do you think of the fix-its? Have I missed something obvious? Which option do you prefer?
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