Adrienne Martini Reviews The Knife and the Serpent by Tim Pratt
The Knife and the Serpent, Tim Pratt (Angry Robot 978-1-91520-280-2, $18.99, 400pp, tp) June 2024.
Tim Pratt’s latest novel, The Knife and the Serpent, has all of the hallmarks of a Tim Pratt story: The underlying voice is smart and engaging even when a character (or two) is neither; the plot is brisk but not so brisk that it is rushed; and the stakes are high, but not so high there won’t be jokes. And, while the title feels like it ought to belong to a work of high fantasy, this story is firmly science fictional. There’s a sentient spaceship. Clones show up. Technology is so advanced it feels like magic, sure, but it doesn’t function like magic in the story.
Right at the outset, Glenn discovers his girlfriend Vivy is leading a double life. Most of the time, she’s a Berkeley grad student in public policy. The other times, she’s an Interventionist agent in Nigh-space. Vivy is a James Bond-type, who goes off to collect information on rogue networks and who enjoys sexy-times when not on the job.
Those adult activities are pertinent to the story, mostly. As Glenn explains, “I won’t go into excessive detail; for one thing, I’d get distracted, and this would turn into amateur erotica instead of the epic tale of clashing philosophies it’s meant to be.’’ It can be a bit much sometimes – this may be more a matter of personal preference than a solid critique, however.
Glenn and Vivy wind up in a clash with Tamsin, whose relationship to the pair I’ll leave undescribed to avoid spoilers. Compared to the arc Glenn and Vivy grow through, Tamsin feels undeveloped. She goes from ambitious to ambitious-cubed so quickly it rings a little hollow, and The Knife and the Serpent remains great fun, mind, but Tamsin’s lack of a journey kept kicking me out of what Pratt was trying to do.
Adrienne Martini has been reading or writing about science fiction for decades and has had two non-fiction, non-genre books published by Simon and Schuster. She lives in Upstate New York with one husband, two kids, and one corgi. She also runs a lot.
This review and more like it in the July 2024 issue of Locus.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.
