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Kelvin of Rud #2
Serpent's Silver
A Roundear there Shall Surely Be Born to a strong, raised to be free Fighting Dragons in his Youth Leading Armies, Nothing Loth Ridding his Country of a Sore Joining Two, then united Four Until from Seven there be One Only the will his Task be Done...
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
15 people are currently reading
825 people want to read
About the author
Piers Anthony
442 books4,218 followersThough he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.
Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.
Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 2, 2013
Second book in this series. These are fun to read stories about a reluctant hero on different worlds and how they are all related to other worlds. The imagination of the authors is incredible, not being creative myself. Maybe that's why I enjoy fantasy so much.
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November 19, 2010AMAZING BOOK!!!
January 1, 2014
I mean its good cute fun and all but damn whats the need for a third book not to mention I just cant take kelvin seriously. I wish jon crumb had been in the story more I like her...
January 26, 2025
Silver Linings
Every cloud has them, so the saying goes, but Kelvin isn't so sure. He knows he's stuck with being the Roundear of Prophecy...and he even knows the Prophecy isn't completed and his adventures aren't over.
But he had hoped for a bit of a rest.
There's not much chance of that – his father's got himself imprisoned in a dungeon beyond Flaw, his half-brother is entangled with a beautiful girl and a silver serpent, and King Philip of Blastmore is beginning to figure out how much he is ruled by Melbah the witch. Kelvin's father-in-law has strong ideas about who should advise the king in Melbah's stead. If that weren't enough, the relationship between the flopears and the silver serpents has become completely and dangerously misunderstood...
This sequel is in some ways superior to the first book in that there's less meandering and the story gets going fairly quickly. There's still sexism, although it's hard to tell if this comes from the characters or the writers, because the women do get chances to act heroically but there's a constant commentary about how absurd it is that they could be warriors.
Thankfully the frequent threat of rape has been removed and the only references are to what happened to Heln in Dragon's Gold and these are much more tactful and sensitive.
There's some fun to be had with the lookalikes in the other frame who are the polar opposites of their counterparts in Kelvin's world, and the names did make me chuckle. Smoothy Jac and Heeto are quite likeable, and there are also engaging new characters such as Heln's father, who is a complex person with an actual character arc, as well as the bratty King Philip and the witch Melbah, but they aren't fully explored.
Unfortunately as the story goes along, the authors seem to struggle to balance and interweave the various storylines. Some characters who are initially interesting fade out completely and there are long stretches when Kelvin's half-brother, Kian, and his love interest, Lonny, are fumbling around in the dark wondering how things work, which is pretty pointless as these things will never be explained in a satisfactory manner as they don't make sense.
The authors should probably be commended for trying something unusual regarding the flopears and silver serpents but the relationship between them stretches credulity, even for a fantasy story.
The half-flopear girl Gerta is also engaging, but her importance diminishes as the plot progresses and the seemingly important fact that she's half-human is never explored. There are also inconsistencies regarding her character. Initially she speaks in a very stilted way often given to characters who are naive or less intelligent or aren't native speakers, but later she speaks in a normal way.
The first ending in the other frame is a bit of an anticlimax, although St Helens' showdown with Melbah is more satisfying. The deus ex machina weapon is a bit of letdown unfortunately.
All in all, it's an enjoyable light read with some of the awkward, borderline nasty elements from the first book edited out and more complex characters but some plot snags and pacing problems hold it back from getting four stars.
Every cloud has them, so the saying goes, but Kelvin isn't so sure. He knows he's stuck with being the Roundear of Prophecy...and he even knows the Prophecy isn't completed and his adventures aren't over.
But he had hoped for a bit of a rest.
There's not much chance of that – his father's got himself imprisoned in a dungeon beyond Flaw, his half-brother is entangled with a beautiful girl and a silver serpent, and King Philip of Blastmore is beginning to figure out how much he is ruled by Melbah the witch. Kelvin's father-in-law has strong ideas about who should advise the king in Melbah's stead. If that weren't enough, the relationship between the flopears and the silver serpents has become completely and dangerously misunderstood...
This sequel is in some ways superior to the first book in that there's less meandering and the story gets going fairly quickly. There's still sexism, although it's hard to tell if this comes from the characters or the writers, because the women do get chances to act heroically but there's a constant commentary about how absurd it is that they could be warriors.
Thankfully the frequent threat of rape has been removed and the only references are to what happened to Heln in Dragon's Gold and these are much more tactful and sensitive.
There's some fun to be had with the lookalikes in the other frame who are the polar opposites of their counterparts in Kelvin's world, and the names did make me chuckle. Smoothy Jac and Heeto are quite likeable, and there are also engaging new characters such as Heln's father, who is a complex person with an actual character arc, as well as the bratty King Philip and the witch Melbah, but they aren't fully explored.
Unfortunately as the story goes along, the authors seem to struggle to balance and interweave the various storylines. Some characters who are initially interesting fade out completely and there are long stretches when Kelvin's half-brother, Kian, and his love interest, Lonny, are fumbling around in the dark wondering how things work, which is pretty pointless as these things will never be explained in a satisfactory manner as they don't make sense.
The authors should probably be commended for trying something unusual regarding the flopears and silver serpents but the relationship between them stretches credulity, even for a fantasy story.
The half-flopear girl Gerta is also engaging, but her importance diminishes as the plot progresses and the seemingly important fact that she's half-human is never explored. There are also inconsistencies regarding her character. Initially she speaks in a very stilted way often given to characters who are naive or less intelligent or aren't native speakers, but later she speaks in a normal way.
The first ending in the other frame is a bit of an anticlimax, although St Helens' showdown with Melbah is more satisfying. The deus ex machina weapon is a bit of letdown unfortunately.
All in all, it's an enjoyable light read with some of the awkward, borderline nasty elements from the first book edited out and more complex characters but some plot snags and pacing problems hold it back from getting four stars.
January 31, 2025
I’m glad I stopped to read the first book. This one I wasn’t as engaged in, but it still had a lot of adventure. It continued exactly where the first book left off and had “the flaw” which brought them to another world with floppy eared people. It had a multiverse feel to it where we saw people from their home dimension. It wasn’t bad just not as good as the first book
March 15, 2025
The second in the series, an absolutely glorious tale, following the adventures and misadventures of Kelvin Roundear and his companions, journeying through the various different alternate worlds of the Gates, and very quickly finding out that everything they thought they were sure of, isn't always the case! Again, 5/5 Stars, will reread.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 26, 2019
Even though imaginative, I found it difficult to follow the different frame's storylines.
March 10, 2017
Serpent's silver is a fiction book. With a main idea of watch you back because you never know what's going to happen next.
The story reads from the standpoint of a series a series win which 2 brothers set out to conquer/ free different realms whilst encountering serpents and magical beings. Their father is from a distant realm himself, which is called earth. Earth harbors new technologies vs medieval more barbaric fighting tools.
One brother is a charmer and goes on the inside of the enemy's territory. The other brother is the heroic glory seeking brother. Both brothers are blond hair blue eyes and both have a blood lust.
Wow! This book is one of the most interesting and action packed books I have read. The book in this series seems appropriate because the boys dad was talking of distant lands and magical beings. In the first book there were dragons, now there's serpents. Whats next? This series makes me want to read all of Piers Anthony’s books.
The story reads from the standpoint of a series a series win which 2 brothers set out to conquer/ free different realms whilst encountering serpents and magical beings. Their father is from a distant realm himself, which is called earth. Earth harbors new technologies vs medieval more barbaric fighting tools.
One brother is a charmer and goes on the inside of the enemy's territory. The other brother is the heroic glory seeking brother. Both brothers are blond hair blue eyes and both have a blood lust.
Wow! This book is one of the most interesting and action packed books I have read. The book in this series seems appropriate because the boys dad was talking of distant lands and magical beings. In the first book there were dragons, now there's serpents. Whats next? This series makes me want to read all of Piers Anthony’s books.
August 18, 2015
My rating is barely 2 stars. This is the second book in the Kelvin of Rud trilogy and I read it immediately after finishing the first book. I spent the whole time being annoyed and irritated at the characters and the story. I can understand a naive character, but many of these were downright stupid! One, who had allegedly been a military commander was an inept bone head whose sole talent was being thrown in dungeons. Many of the plot devices were improbable. No one would make such obvious mistakes, but these characters did. I was thrilled to finish this story. Despite misgivings, I pushed on to book 3.
February 11, 2012
This sequel turned into one of those books where Our Hero does everything just right, all the pieces fall into place, and everyone lives happily ever after. I'm not going to bother reading the third book in this series.
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September 26, 201214
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews