What Song the Sirens Sang
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
The tables are turned on legendary master thief Gideon Sable when a priceless magical artifact is stolen from him, in this fast-paced supernatural heist thriller. You can find everything you've ever dreamed of in the strange, old magical shop known as Old Harry's Place. The problem is, not all dreams are kind. Gideon Sable - legendary master thief, conman and well-dressed rogue - and his partner in crime Annie Anybody don't want to be shopkeepers, but when the enigmatic Harry decides to retire, he blackmails the pair into taking the store on. Before the grand reopening can happen, however, a menacing stranger arrives - with a rare and deadly item for them to appraise. A small piece of rock, with an unnerving aura, which 'Smith' claims contains the last echoes of the legendary sirens' song. Before they can find out more, however, Smith vanishes . . . leaving only the stone. Some valuables are more trouble than they're worth. But before Gideon and Annie can work out if they've been set up, the stone is stolen from its impregnable hiding place. How? And why? Gideon only knows one thing for certain: no one steals from him and gets away with it . . . What Song the Sirens Sang is the third supernatural heist thriller featuring master conman Gideon Sable from British SFF veteran and New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green, following The Best Thing You Can Steal and A Matter of Death and Life.
Series
Featured Series
4 primary booksGideon Sable
Gideon Sable is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2022 with contributions by Simon R. Green.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
What Song the Sirens Sang (Gideon Sable 3) by Simon R. Green
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3P25U8MR2P6LR?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
I am a fan of Green's Night Side series. I understood that halfway through the series, the stories became formulaic and hostage to fan service. However, I was a fan and wanted to see Razor Eddie and Shotgun Suzie come onstage and be put through their paces. Green is creative and clever with his naming and deft construction of fairly two-dimensional characters.
Green's subsequent series seems to be an effort to strike the Dark Side magic. This is the first book in the Gideon Sable series that I've read, but the main character - a man who calls himself Gideon Sable - is a kind of John Smith character. He's not a detective; he's a thief. He doesn't have the gift of finding things, but he has a compass that points unerringly to what he needs. He resolves problems by invoking friends, having a plan, and pulling information out of his arse.
Nonetheless, the Sable world inhabits some offshoot of the Night Side in Green's metaverse. Not canonically, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Sable wander into the Night Side in some future book. The characters would fit into the Night Side quite easily. We have Annie Anybody, who switches personalities, Switch-it-Suzie, who can will something to be replaced with something else, and Lex the Damned, who killed an angel and a demon and fashioned perfect armor from their halos.
The story is pedestrian. Green's writing style involves a lot of exposition and information dumps. He will spend a lot of time building up how awful or powerful some person is, we will meet the person, he will either be much nicer than we imagine or Sable will call in a friend or invoke a favor to neutralize the person, and we will move on to the next obstacle.
This is all good fun but it doesn't have a high calory content. It is enjoyable for a few hours of diversion, which is not a bad thing.
