The Siren Depths

[sawyl]

It's time to end my journey through Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura with a few thoughts on the final novel in the series, The Siren Depths. Set shortly after the end of the second novel, it ties up two of the biggest questions left dangling from the first book: where does Moon come from and just what were the Fell trying to achieve when they raided Sky Copper and attacked Indigo Cloud.

Settled into the their new home and with no threats on the horizon, the Raksura court of Indigo Cloud decide to cast an augury to determine whether the should start building their numbers. The answer comes back with more information than expected. Yes the time is right to breed, but the court should also expect to see changes while the path of Moon, the first consort, may be about to part from the destiny of the rest of the court. The meaning of the message soon becomes clear when a delegation arrives from the neighbouring court of Emerald Twilight. They have solved the mystery of Moon's antecedence but in doing so they have alerted his ancestral court of Opal Night to his existence and now they are demanding his return.

Horrified by events but unable to avoid his responsibilities, Moon reluctantly agrees to be escorted back to Opal Night by the delegation from Emerald Twilight but only after agreeing with Jade, Indigo Cloud's sister queen, that she will follow close behind and fight to win him back from his birth family. But of course nothing quite goes to plans and Moon finds himself alone at Opal Night, trying to navigate the complex politics of a court with two equal queens — the hostile Onyx and Moon's mother, the angry, grieving Malachite — whilst struggling to overcome his own worries that Indigo Cloud have decided to abandon him to his fate. Fortunately Stone, Indigo Cloud's line-grandfather, arrives ahead of the others to snap Moon out of the worst of his self-doubting misery.

When Moon's sister Celadon returns with news that the the Fell are in position to threaten a nearby groundling city, Moon feels obliged to help his sister persuade the city's inhabitants just what a Fell attack might do to them. But the city, a spectacular vertical construction built out of a giant figure carved into a cliff, seems suspiciously unbothered by the Raksura's warnings. Combined with clues from elsewhere, the Raksurans start to suspect that the Fell's plan may be more subtle than it first seems.

There's a lot to like in The Siren Depths, from the world building to the consistency and rigour with which Wells has worked out the Raksurans society. The characters get to go through a great deal of growth during the book, with Chime finally coming to terms with the lost of his skills as a mentor and Moon coming to realise that not only can he trust the rest of Indigo Cloud but also that Jade would be willing to do practically anything to get him back. Oh, and as if all that wasn't enough, there are airships — honest to goodness blimps — which Moon, on first encountering them, casually dismisses as not as efficient as the Golden Islanders' flying boats.

A fine end to an enjoyable series that manages to smuggle a lot of interesting ideas into a relatively small space. In fact, I think I've got enough stuff to say about the books as a group that I'm going to have to spin it out into a separate post...