RogerBW's Blog

The Siren Depths, Martha Wells 07 September 2024

2012 fantasy, last of its trilogy. Moon is taken from his adoptive court by what may be his birth family, but it's all much more complicated than that.

Perhaps my mood has shifted; perhaps this book doesn't bring as much new as I'd hoped. There's yet another court, and yet more politics, and somehow it doesn't have the fascination that the earlier books held for me; how many times will Moon have to say "you claim you care about me, but you didn't look for me when I went missing as a baby" before it sinks in? After the first half-dozen maybe he should say something else instead.

There's more of the Fell, the shapeshifting flying enemy of the Raksura whom we met in the first book, and some of their motivations become clearer. There's a very fine piece of delving into ancient ruins (always one of Wells' strengths) to form the climactic action. But at the end of it all… yes, all right, all Moon's problems have been solved and he has a home that values him. But what are his positive desires? He doesn't seem to have any. All the Raksura we meet are basically content for things to go on as they always have, and don't think of ever changing anything, even as the world's other intelligent species are clearly out-developing them. Wells has clearly spotted this, but with Moon as the viewpoint character, it has to be left as hints for the reader.

So the series ends here, not in a definitive way but at least Moon's to-do list is empty; Wells took it up again a few years later with The Edge of Worlds.

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Previous in series: The Serpent Sea | Series: Books of the Raksura

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