Siren's Song (Cassandra Palmer World, #12.6) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Dec 29, 2018 Steph rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: series-ongoing, author-웃, series-spinoff-or-same-world, year-read-2019, sos-games-bsb-r19

As the author explains, Siren's Song is a companion novel for Dragon’s Claw (Dory's POV):

“Pritkin has a nice part to play in “Dragon’s Claw”, the new Dory novella. As some of you know, I’ve been doing Dory stories for a while, and I usually have an alternate POV in each of them (Marlowe in “Zombie's Bite” and Mircea in “Lover's Knot”). I planned for Pritkin to be the alternate POV in DC, but his story just grew and grew. I checked with my publishing company just to be sure, and they said tha

As the author explains, Siren's Song is a companion novel for Dragon’s Claw (Dory's POV):

“Pritkin has a nice part to play in “Dragon’s Claw”, the new Dory novella. As some of you know, I’ve been doing Dory stories for a while, and I usually have an alternate POV in each of them (Marlowe in “Zombie's Bite” and Mircea in “Lover's Knot”). I planned for Pritkin to be the alternate POV in DC, but his story just grew and grew. I checked with my publishing company just to be sure, and they said that any novellas I publish have to come in under 60,000 words (which is why DC is 59,690). And that was just Dory’s side of things. I didn’t have room to squeeze Pritkin’s POV in and do it justice, so I decided to do a separate novella for him. He and Dory do cross paths, but they’re working on separate parts of a big problem, so most of his stuff you won’t have seen before.”

Siren's Song isn't simply the same story told from Pritkin's POV, it's his POV during the same battle with briefly intersects with Dory's, plus many insights into his past and origins.

... he could hear his demon whispering to him, as it hadn’t in centuries. A siren’s song promising anything and everything, if only John would give in and use its power.

It also further intertwines Chance's Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab series, which makes it harder to read one without keeping up with the other as I've been doing for several years. Since the last Cassie installment I read was #7 Reap the Wind and (I think) these two novellas pick up around/after #8 Ride the Storm, it's time I return to Cassie so that I don't get spoiled or further behind on this newly merged world. John Pritkin has always been one of my favorite characters in Cassie's world, so I'm always quick to read any stories where he's featured. This one will be enjoyed by fans of both of Chance's series, especially those who read Cassandra Palmer's tales.

(Nov 2018) Update per author's blog::

“Siren’s Song”, the twin novella to “Dragon’s Claw”, is not going to be out on Dec. 1 as I’d hoped. I have about half of it done, but had to put it aside to finish up the ninth Cassie book, Brave the Tempest. BTT is going well and will be turned in this month, but that means I won’t be starting SS again until probably around the time it was due out. I’m sorry about this, but Brave the Tempest is a great book and it deserved the time to be all it can be. This is to let you know that I will be finishing up SS just as soon as I turn in BTT, so I am still hoping to have it out in December. But it’s not going to be on the 1st of the month, and I wanted to let you know ahead of time. Thanks for your patience–I promise that it will be worth it!

...more

4 likes · Like · see review