#a.k. larkwood

[baladric]

some gorgeous queer book series ppl need to be talking about more/at all:

the last binding - freya marske

the serpent's gates - a.k. larkwood

the tithenai chronicles - foz meadows

whatever the fuck everina maxwell is doing

and listen it's not technically a series but alex rowland has another book coming out in the same universe as a taste of gold and iron, and i am so prepared to lose my mind over that

#freya marske #a.k. larkwood #foz meadows #alex rowland #everina maxwell

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#fantasy #books #The Unspoken Name #The Serpent Gates #A.K. Larkwood #poll #result: no #l: English

[layaart]

⚔ 🐍 💀🌼

#the unspoken name #the serpent gates #a.k. larkwood #sticker sheets on my store :) #books #2022 fanart

[randombookposts]

Nobody:

The Quincuriate or whatever they're called trying to get Shuthmili to join:

#qanwa shuthmili #the unspoken name #the serpent gates #the thousand eyes #a.k. larkwood

[literary-illuminati]

Books I Read In September

45. The Oleander Sword, by Tasha Suri

Pre-ordered this, and I’m entirely happy with what I got. I mean it’s got intrigue and angst and the literal and metaphorical selling of souls and lesbians and eldritch horrors and war crimes, what’s not to love?

But really, I’m pretty sure I already made the joke, but SFF lesbians and weird power dynamics around fealty and martyrdom sure are a pair, huh? (Or maybe that’s just a random bit of selection bias in the books I read/see talked about, but eh. I should catch up on Montress.)

Anyway, Malini is a joy to read, and the Yaksha are absolutely gorgeous and come across as rather believably alien, though I really do wish they weren’t quite so straightforwardly malevolent, and the temple/palace intrigues with whatever the asshole emperor’s name was and his priests was great. Can’t wait for book 3.

46. None the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My other pre-ordered book of the year. And look, I am largely outsourcing my opinions on this book to the ongoing 24/7 symposium digging into every bit of symbolism and possible reference in these things going on here in the tag. But, like, book good. 

Also Pal and Cam, my beloveds. And Nona is adorable. 

I need to go scream in the wilderness a bit again.

47. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

This month’s attempt to acquire some Culture, via what was apparently the most influential book of 2007 (literally recommended to me because a coworker’s book club is doing it). 

But no, this was good! Very much of it’s time, though less in a ‘dated in a bad way’ way, and more in a ‘future generations of college students will get assigned this and told to write an essay about the cultural fallout of the War On Terror.’ 

It really, really committed to the whole ‘life story told in a conversation over dinner’ framing device, to a degree that books basically never do - the prose of the whole thing still felt conversational and like it could actually be said by one person to another. The constant asides to the cuisine being served and the order of the courses and everything did eventually start to grate, though. 

The big central twist is, well, barely a twist - except that the title gives you a very definite idea of where the protagonist’s arc is going to end up that you bring with you into the book. Still, really well done.

I’m surprised you don’t see the janissarya analogy made more often in modern polemic. Shoe doesn’t exactly fit, but close enough that you’d think it’d get some use.

48. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

I really do adore Murderbot stories. They’re just perfectly sized for a lazy afternoon or two of reading, they’ve got the plot structure of a tightly edited 40-minute tv episode, and they’re just great fun comfort reads. Perfect book pringles. (Also Murderbot is one of the greatest protagonists of all time).

This one in particular would have honestly worked pretty well as a finale to the series? Or, since it clearly isn’t, I guess ‘works as a season finale’ is the better way to put it? It resolves the central underlying plot thread that’s been running through the books so far quite nicely, anyway. 

I totally admit that aside from Murderbot only, like, four characters have made a sufficient impression that I can reliably identify them by just their names, though. 

49. Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky 

Hey, I finally finished the last Hugo nominee! Now to start feeling properly guilty about failing to answer that ask about my ranking/opinions from a month ago. 

But no, this was good. The only Tchaikovsky I’d read before was Children of Time/Ruin, so this was definitely a change of pace (obvious similarities in setting aside). The whole central conceit of ‘fantasy setting is actually the result of an apocalypse destroying a technologically advanced civilization and the descendents of the survivors viewing the remnants as magical relics and sorcery’ is so thoroughly cliche I think people just stopped writing it for a couple decades, but the execution is really well done. 

Nyr and Lynette are both fun POVs, anyway, and I absolutely adore anything that has multiple POVs seeing/taking part in the same events and interpreting them wildly differently. The one chapter that had two columns with Nyr providing exposition on one side and what Lynette&co actually understood him as saying on the other was great. 

Tchaikovsky also did a really excellent job of capturing the whole horror and grief and ennui of being the Last Of Your Kind better than I usually see, and also saying Fuck the Prime Directive, which is always appreciated. 

Also incredibly endearing that Nyr’s whole transhuman civilization gave themselves giant badass horns and then collectively decided to pretend it was for pragmatic utilitarian reasons. 

50. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Because it’s 2 murder 2 bot month, I guess (but no all my holds on these really did just come in at once).

So apparently this was actually written after the novel, which I only found out after finishing it, but chronologically it seems to have taken place before? Which conveniently means I didn’t accidentally ruin any big twists for myself.  

Anyway, this was a fun detective story sort of thing. Murderbot being continuously annoyed at how much harder the lack of a dystopian panopticon made their job was a great running gag.

51. The Thousand Eyes by A. K. Larkwood 

Because it’s magical lesbians month, I guess. 

But no, this was a fun read. The whole setting and tone were very, hmm, D&D? Like a real mixture of super fantastical elements and generic fantasy things given different names (there are elves, and orcs, and for some reason specifically yuan-ti) and then the vision of society and the economics and the mindset and vocabulary of everyone who hasn’t been asleep in a ditch for ten thousand years is just incredibly modern. Not a complaint, it’s just very much a thing. 

My actual complaint is that this was like four different discrete stories stacked on top of each other and put into a compactor until they all fit in one book. There were a lot of times where I was kind of left feeling that Larkwood was relying on me knowing how a given story/character arc goes so she could just skip through the high points and then resolve it without necessarily building it up beforehand. 

(I also have a perpetual dislike for the plot beat of ‘oh no, the abusive cult who raised you was just doing their religion wrong. We’ve got a direct line to your/their god and he’s actually a great guy!’)

Interesting how minor a character Csorwe is in this one compared to Unspoken Name, really, but Shuthmili and Tal are both incredibly fun POVs so can’t say I really mind. Tsundere dragon goddess of betrayal and destruction was also a great time. 

#book review #monthly tally #analysis/review #the thousand eyes #a.k. larkwood #murderbot #fugitive telemetry #exit strategy #martha wells #elder race #adrian tchaikovsky #the reluctant fundamentalist #moshin hamid #nona the ninth #tamsyn muir #the locked tomb #the oleander sword #the burning kingdoms #tasha suri

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood

goodreads

Two years ago, Csorwe and Shuthmili defied the wizard Belthandros Sethennai and stole his gauntlets. The gauntlets have made Shuthmili extraordinarily powerful, but they're beginning to take a sinister toll on her. She and Csorwe travel to a distant world to discover how to use the gauntlets safely, but when an old enemy arrives on the scene, Shuthmili finds herself torn between clinging to her humanity and embracing eldritch power. Meanwhile, Tal Charossa returns to Tlaanthothe to find that Sethennai has gone missing. As well as being a wizard of unimaginable power, Sethennai is Tal's old boss and former lover, and Tal wants nothing to do with him. When a magical catastrophe befalls the city, Tal tries to run rather than face his past, but soon learns that something even worse may lurk in the future. Throughout the worlds of the Echo Maze, fragments of an undead goddess begin to awaken, and not all confrontations can be put off forever...

Mod opinion: I haven't read this or the first book in this series, but it sounds interesting.

#the thousand eyes #a.k. larkwood #polls #trans lit #trans literature #trans books #lgbt lit #lgbt literature #lgbt books #nonbinary #fantasy

[torpublishinggroup]

Check out this ten-out-of-ten rundown two-out-of-ten (at best) wizards. Get your garbage on!

#wizards #sorcerers #magic users are the worst #garbage wizards #the thousand eyes #the unspoken name #a.k. larkwood #the warden #daniel m. ford #harrow the ninth #tamsyn muir #shades of magic #v.e. schwab #craft sequence #max gladstone #three parts dead

[dustjacketmusings]

Fantasy should have more sentient giant snake people. Adds variety

#the unspoken name #a.k. larkwood #currently reading

[mybookhaven]

The Serpent Gates Duology - A.K. Larkwood

Fantasy - Sci-Fi - Queer rep

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

I think i just figured out my favorite kind of romantic trope, and it says A LOT about me.

A.K. Larkwood's world building was so beautifully done in this Duology that I think I'm gonna be a little bit in love with it for the rest of my life. The combination of cultures, creatures, and worlds is probably my favorite thing about this story, and I consider myself to be a very harsh critic of world building. I loved the plot(s) I loved the characters, and I loved the language, so let's get into it.

Original Cover Art (respectively): Billelis / Katt Phatt

This duology follows 5 (6ish) main characters through land reclamation, seeking magic objects, fighting gods, becoming gods and much more. A LOT of things happen in the span of two books that keeps you hooked and on the edge of your seat wanting to know more.

Csorwe, an almost 14-year-old girl on the brink of sacrificing herself to her god, meets a mysterious wizard who convinces her to abandon everything she knows and follow him away from the people who want to gift her corpse to their god. From there everything falls into chaos. She meets Talasseres Charossa, her future chaotic sword gay brother (nonbiological), and they both start working for the mysterious wizard in hopes of gaining a drop of his favor (A LOT of father issues in that regard).

Sethennai, the wizard, is after an object that is rumored to contain the secrets of great magic, and in all honesty, I've never hated a character that much. he was brilliantly written to make you doubt your emotions towards him until finally you come to realize at the same time as Csorwe and Tal that he is the shittiest person to have ever existed (in any book you've ever read). I LOVED how A.K. Larkwood was capable of doing that, and then she went and did the exact opposite with Oranna, a librarian from the House of Silence, the cult that sacrifices children to The Unspoken Name (their god). My feelings on her progressed from complete hatred to what I call "me falling in love with every morally gray character that shows a bit of affection after committing unspeakable war crimes".

Finally, I just have one comment on the plot process. I think the series in general would've been even better if it was divided into more than two books. A LOT of things happened that were essentially skimmed over to a certain extent. A.K. Larkwood could have published at least 4 books with the events of these two if she went more into detail of some "in-between" events.

Regardless, I LOVED this duology, and I can't wait to read more of A.K. Larkwood's worlds.

P.S. I wanted there to be more exploration of the romance between Csorwe and Shuthmili. I loved every moment between them I just wished we saw a bit more.

P.P.S. My favorite trope is overpowering "bad-guy" royal Goddess impossibly in love with a troublemaker idiot that is the noblest person in existence.

#a.k. larkwood #the serpent gates #the serpent gates duology #the unspoken name #the thousand eyes #sapphic books #books #book review #gay idiot boy my love #gay #sapphic #nonbinary #they/them

[evenaturtleduck]

Forget enemies to lovers--the most entertaining relationship dynamic is whateverthefuck is going on with Tal and Csorwe.

#the unspoken name #a.k. larkwood #favorite books

[theconqueeror]

has anyone read The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood?

i know the series is called the serpent gates but gjdjgjsf how many snakes are actually in the books?

#i have a mild phobia sometimes so I'm on the fence if i should add it to my tbr #but tamsyn muir recommend it so.... #the unspoken name #the serpent gates #a.k. larkwood

[low-shear-velocity-province]

Sometime in the mid-to-late 2010s, two authors, one in the UK and one in New Zealand, each independently thought to themselves, "You know what the world needs? A book series that blurs the line between sci-fi and fantasy about a sword lesbian raised in a necromantic cult." And they were both Correct.

#the locked tomb #the serpent gates #the unspoken name #tamsyn muir #a.k. larkwood

[ofrabjousnight]

i can’t tell you to read The Unspoken Name because it’s like The Locked Tomb, because i haven’t read The Locked Tomb, BUT i can tell you to read The Unspoken Name because it is good

#the unspoken name #a.k. larkwood #books #does involve oodles of religious trauma so do be aware if that's not your thing

[layaart]

tal & csorwe from The Unspoken Name. my beloveds

#the unspoken name #the serpent gates #the thousand eyes #a.k. larkwood #i KNOW her coat isn't sleeveless. however i am attached to this version #books #book fanart #i have already redesigned tal's clothes since i drew this tho. unfortunately idk what he wear #s #together you are both so stupid. god bless. #2022 fanart

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Review: The Thousand Eyes by A.K.Larkwood

Review: The Thousand Eyes by A.K.Larkwood

Series: The Serpent Gates #2Author: A.K. LarkwoodPublisher: Tor BooksReleased: February 15, 2022Received: NetGalley The Thousand Eyes is the second novel in A.K. Larkwood’s The Serpent Gates series. I admit that I was pretty curious about how the sequel would go and thus couldn’t pass up the opportunity to read it. Also, I love that cover. Csorwe and Shuthmili survived the encounter two years…

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#A.K. Larkwood #Book #Book Review #Books #Fantasy #Fiction #Literary #Literature #Net Galley #NetGalley #Review #The Serpent Gates #The Serpent Gates 2 #The Thousand Eyes #The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood #Tor #Tor Books #Tor Publishing #Tor.com

[torpublishinggroup]

#the atlas paradox #one for my enemy #the atlas complex #olivie blake #the unspoken name #a.k. larkwood #ocean's echo #everina maxwell #legends & lattes #travis baldree #book list #book recommendations #bookblr #to read #tbr