The Serpent Gates
#7093.79 adjusted 3.81 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 2 books Status Complete 2020–2022 Reading commitment Low A.K. Larkwood Last reviewed 2026-08-13
Overview
A debut fantasy duology following Csorwe, an orc priestess raised from childhood to be ritually sacrificed to her god on her fourteenth birthday. Instead, a wizard she has never met offers her a way out, and she becomes his sword-hand, travelling between worlds through the ancient, mostly-forgotten Serpent Gates. A.K. Larkwood's two novels, The Unspoken Name (2020) and The Thousand Eyes (2022), follow Csorwe across years of service, betrayal, and shifting loyalty as she is drawn deeper into the wizard's schemes and the wider politics of the multiple worlds the Serpent Gates connect. The Unspoken Name was a finalist for the British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel and drew notice for its queer protagonist and its unusually sympathetic treatment of a character raised inside a culture of ritual sacrifice, complicating the more familiar chosen-one escape narrative its opening chapters initially suggest.
Portal fantasy, Epic fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (2 works) counts toward ranking
The Serpent Gates A.K. Larkwood
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Unspoken Name | 2020 | 1 | core | 3.72 (9,705 ratings) |
 | The Thousand Eyes | 2022 | 2 | core | 4.10 (2,310 ratings) |
A debut fantasy duology following Csorwe, an orc priestess raised to be sacrificed to a god, who is instead recruited by a wizard to travel between worlds through the ancient Serpent Gates. Marketed by the publisher as a complete 2-book series (collected in a single 'The Serpent Gates' omnibus edition); no 3rd volume announced.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Serpent Gates? The Serpent Gates's Core Canon is 2 books.
- What is the reading order for The Serpent Gates? Publication order, starting with The Unspoken Name. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is The Serpent Gates finished? Complete (2020–2022).
- How much reading does The Serpent Gates take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 2 Core Canon books).
- How is The Serpent Gates ranked? #709 in this site's official ranking, based on 12,015 reader ratings across 2 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #709?
Ranked #709 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.79 across 2 core books.
- A smaller readership (12,015 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Less than 0.01 behind #708, The Ship of Ishtar (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 2 books · Complete · 12k ratings · Ranks #709 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment portal fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (2 Core Canon books)
- The Unspoken Name (2020)
- The Thousand Eyes (2022)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- Locus Award (Best First Novel), 2021: finalist: The Unspoken Name; Confirmed directly via sfadb.com's own 2021 Locus Awards results: placed 9th in the Best First Novel poll. Per this canon's Locus no-cutoff-poll convention, any non-1st-place placement registers as 'finalist' with the rank noted here rather than in a separate field.
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- Time of Iron Portal fantasy / Romantasy · Ongoing · Low commitment · 3.86
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.79 across 12,015 ratings on 2 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: The Serpent Gates admitted; Core Canon = the completed duology accepted 2026-08-13
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Wikipedia: The Unspoken Name Tier 2
Last reviewed: 2026-08-13
Rule: Core Canon = both novels, a completed duology marketed as such by the publisher (collected in a single omnibus edition): The Unspoken Name (2020) and The Thousand Eyes (2022). No 3rd volume announced.