Pathfinder Tales: Song of the Serpent

I truly enjoyed reading this novel. I have read the first six novels in the Pathfinder Tales series, including this one, and I am working on a seventh book. I enjoyed reading this book as much as the others. Yes, there are some plot points that were a bit flat here or there (a typical enough symptom), but it was easy to read beyond those points into scenes that made up the difference in entertainment value. I felt that the storyline used Golarian lore just enough to bring that setting to life, but also managed to have interesting characters and story that transcended the setting (as do most of the other pathfinder novels that I have read). The book included dwarves and orcs in a novel way that gave it a fresh approach. The villians were sufficiently evil and the end scene, though somewhat unexpected, still held my interest and had me rooting for Krunzle in the end. Another reviewer claimed that Krunzle was an unlikeable character who had no agency due to a magical item that had control of him throughout the story. However, the dialogue between the sentient device and Krunzle made the control more like a negotiation rather than a loss of agency. It evolved into an alliance by the end of the book, and Krunzle's freedom was well earned. Cool story, thanks for the book.

I quite liked this. W/out spoilers, the cast of "main characters" is quite extensive and exotic, often playing against type (e.g., a bald, hairless dwarf).

The reveal of 1 of the puppet masters was cool, and I loved how the novel led back to very ancient aspects of Golarion's lore. And to things even older...

The main character, the protagonist Krunzle the Quick, is a rogue's rogue. You wouldn't necessarily want him in your party, but his adventures--and more frequently, misadventures--were fun to observe.

NO SPOILERS

I've now read the first several books in the Pathfinder Tales line, and I'm sorry to say that Song of the Serpent is the worst of the lot. The novel has a few interesting ideas, but it's the most "generic fantasy" book in the line, with many somewhat cheesy setting elements seemingly closer to the very high-magic Forgotten Realms than to Golarion. The plotting is unsatisfactory, with vague mysteries standing in the place of cohesive story-telling. For almost all of the book, the primary protagonist lacks agency, which makes him a hard character to cheer for. The overall tone is a bit off, with some surprisingly gory scenes mixed into an often lighthearted story, and bits of world lore that just strike the reader as wrong, such as half-orcs being depicted as "not uncommonly cannibals." The conclusion is overlong and surprisingly boring for what should be a climactic, tension-filled moment. I don't want to be too uncharitable, as there are some fun scenes here and there and the direction the book takes is definitely unpredictable, which is a plus. The action scenes are fine, and the dialogue is passable. Still, on the whole, only completists like me should pick up this one.

SPOILERS

The book is set in Druma, land of the merchant lords known as Kalistocrats. A thief named Krunzle the Quick is captured by a prominent Kalistocrat and forced to set off on a quest to recover the merchant's daughter, who absconded with a dashing but slimy knight. In order to ensure Krunzle's loyalty, the Kalistocrat has his personal wizard place a magical torc in the shape of a snake around the thief's neck: the snakelike torc is semi-sentient and able to choke Krunzle into submission should he stray from the path. This leads to the problem of Krunzle's lack of agency, as he spends almost the entire book as the puppet of this magical device which seems to come from out of nowhere (and is never satisfactorily explained in the novel). Anyway, Krunzle makes some friends along the way, such as a former slave named Raimeau (who receives an oddly-placed and unnecessary flashback chapter), a troll named Skanderbrog, and a dwarf named Brond. The "damsel in distress" (Gylanna) is portrayed well as a strong character who is very much her father's daughter. As Gylanna is rescued midway through the book, the overall plot is actually to retrieve something that was taken along with Gylanna: a mysterious magical item. The story really starts to break down here, as there's something about an incredibly ancient, incredibly powerful entity buried in a mountain that has led the heroes to this point to free it, etc. But it's all very vague in the end, with a long, weird ritual that simply ends unsatisfactorily with far more questions than answers. The book does integrate some Golarion world-lore (and is one of the few novels to this point to have an interest in dwarfs), but much of the book could take place in any generic fantasy land with little change. Even the main villain, an evil wizard from Tian Xia, is about as cliche as it gets. So as I said above, this is one to avoid.

Unlike some of the other reviewers I enjoyed the characters & I would like to see other stories with them in it, especially the pensive troll. It was the story line that bothered me the most.
It reads like the story has been forcibly superimposed upon a Golarion background and spliced to fit the world.
The explanation of the ending is unnecessarily convoluted. It could have benefited from some serious editing.