Roanne Lau’s debut The Serpent Called Mercy is a heady mix of high fantasy, monsters and politics. Lau drops readers into a familiar fantasy setting in which there are strict social hierarchies, immigrant populations, organised crime and contested politics. She then focusses on a character at the bottom of the social pile – Lyhtlet, a “slumdog” who lives by her wits and on the edge of abject poverty. But also there is some ill-defined magic, a vague form of religion and plenty of weird monsters because… monsters are fun?
Lythlet and her best friend Desi are in trouble. Deep in debt to loan sharks, and abused at work, Lythlet falls back onto thievery to get the pair through their next visit from the heavies. Desi used to earn money as a fighter but has quit and dedicated himself to religion. But then the pair see and grab an opportunity to become “conquessors”. These are fighters who take on monsters in the ring while spectators watch on and bet on either their success or their death. Although Desi has the strength and fighting ability, it turns out to be Lythlet’s logical abilities that serve them best in the ring as they try to work out how to defeat a range of creatures with strange abilities and powers. The match-master Dothilos notices this and starts to groom Lythlet for greater things, including bringing her into his organised crime syndicate.
There is a lot going on in The Serpent Called Mercy and some aspects work better than others. The central relationship between Lythlet and Desi is the core, and the push on pull on them as they gain success in the ring in well observed. The link between politics and organised crime has been done many many times in fantasy and elsewhere and so there is nothing really new here. The interesting slant is the view of Dothilos who has a similar background to Lythlet and uses that to “instruct” her and in doing so tempt her to the dark side.
The magic “system” is particularly weak and undeveloped. Early in the book, Lau suddenly introduces an ability to wield some form of magic for eight seconds by climbing to the top of a particular type bamboo pole. And then there is the tale that apparently Lythlet’s people had some sort of access to magic in the past but lost it when they emigrated to the city. Later Lau introduces special weapons that have particular powers because they have been made using certain monsters. The monsters themselves are inventive but fairly random and readers will have to hold themselves back from asking too many questions – where do they come from? who has caught them? (and how?), and, really?: A monster with three heads (one that it wears and two that it carries) that it can swap to give itself different powers?
The Serpent Called Mercy is pitched as The Witcher meets Squid Game. While it has the monsters from the former and some of the very obvious social commentary from the latter in some ways it is closer to a cross between The Hunger Games (young people battling to the death) and the Green Bone Saga (politics, social division and organised crime) than either of these. But comparisons aside, Lau has clearly taken from a broad range influences but reimagined them and delivered them in her own style and with her own vision. And while some of the elements are not well enough developed or explained to carry the story off entirely successfully, The Serpent Called Mercy is still a promising fantasy debut.
The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau
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