Two Serpents Rise continues the Craft sequence with new characters and a new city. Caleb Altemoc is a risk manager for Red King Consolidated, one small cog in the giant corporation that keeps water flowing to the Aztec-flavored desert city Dresediel Lex. His boss is a scarlet skeleton who won control of the city by killing all its gods, and now eats a bite of soulstuff from everybody in the city who turns a tap. He's the son of the last priest of the Old Gods, who's most wanted terrorist dad drops in to dispense heartfelt advice. And he's fallen in love with a cliff-running sorceress who's inspiring him to take dangerous risks and has her own secrets. It's three trains on a collision course, and our hero at the center.

The basic question that the book asks is "under what circumstances should the few die to protect the many?" The old city was sustained by human sacrifice. The new city by immense magical contracts and the sliver-slicing of souls. Caleb rejects both paths, and tries to forge his own third course that respects the sanctity of life. On the one hand, it's nice to have a hero who refuses the easy pitfalls of hard men making hard decisions. On the other hand, he lives in a world where the major technology of the day is killing continents, and the lives of millions depend on torturing a comatose god. Some people don't get to make good decisions.

I'm picky, but I also feel like the writing was a little less finely tuned, the psychedelic technicolor explosions of magic and action an indulgent light show rather than something meaningful. I feel like Caleb is less well-realized as a character than Tara from the first book, even with all his tense emotional ties. Mind you, not enough to drop it a star, but I definitely preferred the first book.