★★★★★ Faery Cosmology

Be the Serpent

Seanan McGuire

Regarding spoilers: I wrote most of this review before reading Be the Serpent, based on what I thought was coming. (Thus, it is not, strictly speaking, a review, but a preview, or perhaps a precognition 😀) I then read the book, and it turned out I needed to fix almost nothing. So, there are no spoilers here: nothing that could not be foreseen, except for one small one, which will be evident.

Be the Serpent is one of the best October Daye novels to date. The best was The Winter Long. In The Winter Long Seanan McGuire did what I have come to see as the characteristic McGuire move: she rewrote the past. You may have thought you knew what was going on when you read Rosemary and Rue, but you did not. The Winter Long shows you that what actually happened in Rosemary and Rue was entirely different from the story Toby told in that book. The Winter Long completely reshaped the world we thought we were in. The Winter Long wasn't the only book to rewrite the past. In Night and Silence we learn that the stepmother of Toby's daughter Gillian is Janet Carter, who broke Maeve's ride 500 years ago, and is also Toby's grandmother.

Inbetween all this rewriting of the past, we also have books that rewrite the future. We have known from early on that Toby was the subject of several prophecies. Also, the Luidaeg had plans for her. As is the nature of fairy tale prophecies, they come true, but not in the way that anyone thought they would. Thus, in fulfilling prophecies, Toby rewrites the future. In The Unkindest Tide Toby rescues the Roane. In A Killing Frost she brings back Oberon, as prophecy said she would. The odd thing about Oberon being back, though, is that he doesn't really seem to be. Throughout When Sorrows Come and the shorter stories McGuire has written since, he mostly just hangs around quietly in the background, as if he were something painted on the wallpaper.

All this rearranging of the past and future happens without explicit time travel. (McGuire has nothing in principle against time-travel as a plot device -- we know this because it showed up in That Ain’t Witchcraft (Incryptid series) and Middlegame. Nothing would surprise me less than the eventual appearance of a time-travel spell in the October Daye books. But so far, in the first fifteen books, that hasn't happened.) Of course, we've known another big rewrite was coming since we saw these ominous words in the publisher's blurb:

Until an old friend and ally turns out to have been an enemy in disguise for this entire time, and October’s brief respite turns into a battle for her life, her community, and everything she has ever believed to be true.

The debts of the Broken Ride are coming due, and whether she incurred them or not, she’s going to be the one who has to pay.

The reference to the Broken Ride told us that we were due to dig at least five hundred years deep into history. And Oberon at last emerges as a significant character. Be the Serpent reaches deep into the past and deep into the future. How was Faery born? Did Oberon say, "Let there be light"? Was there a Big Bang? Did both of those things happen? Will what was broken in the Broken Ride be fixed?

But of course, what you really want to know is, "Who's the serpent?" Does the Luidaeg, who after all, has promised to kill Toby, finally turn on her? Does Tybalt, who has just become her real, sanctioned husband, betray her? Someone else? How badly is McGuire going to hurt us?

Now that I have actually read Be the Serpent, I have little to add to the preview above. Only two small things. First, much of Be the Serpent concerns arguments among families, and like real family arguments, they get tedious at times. Second, we end with a cliff-hanger.

Such Dangerous Seas

Be the Serpent is followed by the novella Such Dangerous Seas. Once again, we are reaching deep into the past. This one is told from the point of view of Antigone of Albany, better known to us as The Luidaeg. It begins by retelling the the story of the slaughter of the Roane, which has been told several times before in the course of the October Daye Series. However, it goes on from there to relate The Luidaeg's attempt to get justice. We see the Luidaeg in an unusual way, as a petitioner, weaker than those she is dealing with. This is a vulnerable Annie, unlike the powerful and self-confident Luidaeg we have come to know.

Such Dangerous Seas builds on revelations from Be the Serpent. You won't fully understand Such Dangerous Seas unless you have read Be the Serpent.

I thank NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader's copy in exchange for a candid review. Book to be released 30-Aug-2022.

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