Review: Last First Snow by Max Gladstone

lasst first snow by max gladstoneFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Craft Sequence #4
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: July 14, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Forty years after the God Wars, Dresediel Lex bears the scars of liberation—especially in the Skittersill, a poor district still bound by the fallen gods’ decaying edicts. As long as the gods’ wards last, they strangle development; when they fail, demons will be loosed upon the city. The King in Red hires Elayne Kevarian of the Craft firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao to fix the wards, but the Skittersill’s people have their own ideas. A protest rises against Elayne’s work, led by Temoc, a warrior-priest turned community organizer who wants to build a peaceful future for his city, his wife, and his young son.

As Elayne drags Temoc and the King in Red to the bargaining table, old wounds reopen, old gods stir in their graves, civil blood breaks to new mutiny, and profiteers circle in the desert sky. Elayne and Temoc must fight conspiracy, dark magic, and their own demons to save the peace—or failing that, to save as many people as they can.

My Review:

Dresediel Lex is a desert city. The last time it snowed was also the first time it snowed – 40 years ago during the God Wars.

It was also the first and last time that Craftswoman Elayne Kevarian met Temoc, the last Eagle Knight of the Old Gods.

Forty years ago, Elayne and Temoc were both young and idealistic, and Kopil, the King in Red, still had a fleshly body. Now Elayne and Temoc are both older and wiser, and Kopil has made the final transition of a Craftsman – he rules Dresediel Lex as the skeletal King in Red.

While 40 years is enough time for Elayne and Temoc to have both lost their naivete and idealism, it is not enough time for a powerful skeleton to forget all the wrongs that were done him during the Wars – even though he won.

Last First Snow starts out as a tale of modern urban renewal (or urban removal, depending upon perspective). The Powers That Be in Dresediel Lex, meaning the King in Red and the insurance companies represented by Tan Batac, want to remake the Skittersill slum into a modern suburb of palaces and high-end shopping. Which will, of course, force out the blue-collar dockworkers who have called the Skittersill their home for the last 40 years.

Elayne is a Craftswoman. In terms of the Craft Sequence, that makes her a combination of lawyer and necromancer, and she is very good at her job. The Skittersill is a depressed area because the Old Gods that Kopil defeated left wards that keep it economically depressed. Those wards also keep out demons and suppress fires, but they are fraying now that the Old Gods have been defeated.

Development requires new wards. It also requires that the working-class poor who have made the Skittersill their home shove off for less desirable pastures. However, they don’t want to leave their homes or their community, and who can blame them? They are all well aware that all this glorious proposed development is not for their benefit. It never is.

Elayne steps in to broker a “peace agreement” between the two sides, something that she can present to the redistricting judge. It is only when she arrives at the Skittersill that she discovers that the community is being led by her old frenenemy, Temoc. In the God Wars, she once saved his life.

And he once earned the ire of the King in Red. Neither of those events slips into the background when the “peace conference” erupts in violence. A lone assassin has brought the God Wars back again with a vengeance. As the district slips further into violence, and back into the old ways that Kopil and Elayne once defeated, it feels as if there is nothing she can do except watch the body count rise.

Until Elayne follows the money and discovers just who benefits from the destruction. And decides to make sure that they don’t. No matter the cost.

Escape Rating A: The Craft Sequence is an urban fantasy series that is guaranteed to leave readers with a terrible book hangover. Each volume immerses you further into this world, and makes it that much more difficult to let go.

three parts dead by max gladstoneLast First Snow is no exception. But readers will be rewarded by starting with the first book in the series, Three Parts Dead (reviewed here). Each book builds on the layers of world creation erected by its predecessor, and the result is utterly compelling.

We have sayings about gods, “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad,” is one that will come to mind during the reading of Last First Snow. Sometimes the question is whether Kopil has lost it, or whether Temoc has been clinging to the worship of his Old Gods for far too long.

But the phrase that I want to apply to Kopil, the King in Red, is the one about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Because while Kopil and Elayne won the war to abolish the Old Gods of Dresediel Lex and their blood sacrifices and replace their worship with technology and self-determination, the King in Red is now himself an absolute power. When the situation in the Skittersill goes pear-shaped, Kopil uses it as an excuse to get out all of his war toys and use all of his power and obliterate the people who have defied him.

He doesn’t care about the cost, not to the district and not to his own troops, because he has lost his ability to empathize with people. He isn’t really people any longer.

One of the questions in this reader’s mind is whether Kopil has become an even greater tyrant than the Old Gods he fought so hard to defeat. Elayne Kevarian, who has been his ally all this time, begins to work against him, telling herself that it is in his long-term best interests. Whether it is or not is something we will have to judge in later books.

Last First Snow works on multiple levels. In its base, it is a story about urban renewal. We’ve seen this story play out in real life; the powers that be sell the plan on the grounds of how it will help the residents of some area that middle class people see as blighted. All of the benefits to area residents are touted until the deal is closed. And then, the poor or working class folks who lived in the area are forced out by construction and rising prices and the rich get richer. Everyone in the Skittersill knows exactly what will happen. They can’t stop progress, but they can work towards getting themselves a halfway decent deal as part of it.

There are too many forces arrayed against them. Too many people who are trying to make sure the deal fails, no matter what underhanded methods are used. Even Elayne knows it is too easy, but she doesn’t find the flaw until it is too late for everything but counting the bodies. We’ve all guessed. Even she’s guessed. But as a Craftswoman, for the legal parts of that training, she needs proof she can take before a judge.

We also see how far Kopil has stepped away from being human. He’s still holding on to the grudges, but none of the feeling. He wants to suppress the Skittersill rebellion because Temoc is on the other side of it. Kopil is still fighting old battles and old wars. It’s possible that he can’t feel the reality of any new ones.

I’m still thinking about Last First Snow. Every angle on the story inspires more and more possible tangents in my brain. Plus the manipulators of events are clearly not done. Peace is definitely only temporary.

If you like urban fantasy that makes you think (and think, and rethink) you will love Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

15 for 15: My Most Anticipated Books for 2015

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I took a look at last year’s list, and was surprised and pleased to discover that I read almost everything I was looking forward to, and even better, liked them! (I have the other two books, but just haven’t gotten a round tuit yet. This is what TBR piles are made of.)

It’s also hard not to miss the trend. The books I’m looking forward to are sequels to things I read last year or new pieces of ongoing series. It is difficult to anticipate something if you don’t know that it exists.

And even though these books aren’t being released until sometime in 2015, I already have arcs for a few of them, and have even read a couple. So far, the stuff I’m looking forward to is every bit as good as I’m hoping it will be.

Speaking of hopes, the dragon book is for Cass (Surprise, surprise!) She adored the first book in the series, liked the second one a lot, and has high hopes for the third one. Because, dragons.

So what books can’t you wait to see in 2015? 

 

Most anticipated in 2015:
Ancillary Mercy (Imperial Radch #3) by Ann Leckie
Dreaming Spies (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #13) by Laurie R. King
The End of All Things (Old Man’s War #6) by John Scalzi
Flask of the Drunken Master (Shinobi Mystery #3) by Susan Spann
The Invasion of the Tearling (Queen of the Tearling #2) by Erika Johansen
Last First Snow (Craft Sequence #4) by Max Gladstone
Madness in Solidar (Imager Portfolio #9) by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
Obsession in Death (In Death #40) by J.D. Robb
A Pattern of Lies (Bess Crawford #7) by Charles Todd
Pirate’s Alley (Sentinels of New Orleans #4) by Suzanne Johnson
Ryder: American Treasure (Ryder #2) by Nick Pengelley
Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling #14) by Nalini Singh
The Talon of the Hawk (Twelve Kingdoms #3) by Jeffe Kennedy
The Terrans (First Salik War #1) by Jean Johnson
The Voyage of the Basilisk (Memoir by Lady Trent #3) by Marie Brennan

Review: Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone

full fathom five by max gladstoneFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback
Genre: fantasy
Series: Craft Sequence, #3
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: July 15, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

On the island of Kavekana, Kai builds gods to order, then hands them to others to maintain. Her creations aren’t conscious and lack their own wills and voices, but they accept sacrifices, and protect their worshippers from other gods—perfect vehicles for Craftsmen and Craftswomen operating in the divinely controlled Old World. When Kai sees one of her creations dying and tries to save her, she’s grievously injured—then sidelined from the business entirely, her near-suicidal rescue attempt offered up as proof of her instability. But when Kai gets tired of hearing her boss, her coworkers, and her ex-boyfriend call her crazy, and starts digging into the reasons her creations die, she uncovers a conspiracy of silence and fear—which will crush her, if Kai can’t stop it first.

My Review:

three parts dead by max gladstoneThe lawyer/necromancers are back in this third book of the Craft Sequence, after Three Parts Dead (reviewed here) and Two Serpents Rise (here).

Admittedly, the concept of law as necromancy is one that is too close to the truth not to make for an awesome story, but Full Fathom Five isn’t so much about the contract law as it is about the way that we create deities in our own image, and what happens when we succeed.

Worship is power in the universe of this series, and power is not merely divine power (although it is also that) but all actual power like electricity. It heats homes and lights cities.

But the fascinating thing about the deities in this world is that they can die by losing too much power, either by losing worshippers or much more spectacularly, by getting caught short in the futures market.

If money is power, then in this world, power is also money.

two serpents rise by max gladstoneIn the series, we’ve seen the rise and fall of deities (Three Parts Dead), the near catastrophic loss of a technology based corporation that provides power in the place of any deities (Two Serpents Down) and in Full Fathom Five we see the middle-option; fake deities (literally idols) as a way of putting oneself outside either of the other systems.

Idols are like gods, except they are literally created by humans. Actually sculpted to accept worship and hold contracts, just like real deities. Investing in an idol avoids paying tithes in deity-country and taxes in corporation territory.

But what happens when the idols start waking up and dispensing inspiration and grace? In other words, what happens when a tiny country whose ability to fend off both sides rests on the neutrality of the idols they create, and when those idols cease being neutral?

Kai makes idols. They live, and they sometimes die. But when she tries to save one from certain death, she gets sidelined and sidetracked from investigating what went wrong. Also demoted and displaced.

The contract necromancers are searching into every nook and cranny to discover why one of the idols defaulted on its contracts and went effectively bankrupt.

Meanwhile, both a poet and a street gang have begun worshipping gods who have inspired and saved them, but who no one else knows exists.

Except that someone does, and it’s someone who will do anything to protect the secret, up to killing as many gods and goddesses as it takes to keep anyone else from knowing that their tiny country is no longer neutral in the god wars.

Escape Rating A: I think there is a pattern in these stories, at least so far. When humans create or reject their own gods, what different ways might that happen. This one is not so much about the literal creation of idols, as it first appears, but what happens when worship creates a new god and upsets the old world order.

People don’t like change, and will go to great lengths to protect the status quo.

Kai pokes her nose into this investigation because she can’t reconcile what happened to what is supposed to happen. And every time someone tries to tell her that her memory is wrong, or that she must still be recovering, she can’t get past that voice in her head that says she remembers events correctly.

Her work is what she has, and she needs to figure out how she could have been so mistaken. Of course, she isn’t.

The street gang, a bunch of kids, is telling themselves stories about the “Blue Lady”, but their storytelling is a form of worship. They have found a god, or she has found them, and she is protecting and helping them.

Unfortunately, her attention means that someone really is out to get them.

And a lost poet was given 6 months of grace and inspiration by the goddess, and can’t find his way back again now that she’s gone.

Kai keeps finding links between the idol who died, and this goddess who doesn’t exist. The deeper she probes, the more she discovers that her world is bigger and darker than she thought.

And friendship is the greatest saving grace of all.

Just as in the other parts of this series, each glimpse into this world shows a different facet, and the case is complicated with both magic and the depths of human (and divine) nature.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone

two serpents rise by max gladstoneFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Steampunk
Series: Craft Sequence #2
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: October 29, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Shadow demons plague the city reservoir, and Red King Consolidated has sent in Caleb Altemoc — casual gambler and professional risk manager — to cleanse the water for the sixteen million people of Dresediel Lex. At the scene of the crime, Caleb finds an alluring and clever cliff runner, crazy Mal, who easily outpaces him.

But Caleb has more than the demon infestation, Mal, or job security to worry about when he discovers that his father — the last priest of the old gods and leader of the True Quechal terrorists — has broken into his home and is wanted in connection to the attacks on the water supply.

From the beginning, Caleb and Mal are bound by lust, Craft, and chance, as both play a dangerous game where gods and people are pawns. They sleep on water, they dance in fire… and all the while the Twin Serpents slumbering beneath the earth are stirring, and they are hungry.

My Review:

When I decided that I just had to read something I wanted to read, instead of the next thing on my schedule, I turned back to Max Gladstone’s incredible Craft Sequence. The first book, Three Parts Dead, was utterly marvelous (see review) and I couldn’t resist diving back into his world.

It’s a world where the gods are real, and they can be worshiped, killed, chained, or sometimes all of the above. The power that they wield is the equivalent of mega-power companies with soul-binding contracts. You really do give a bit of your soul when you worship.

three parts dead by max gladstoneBut gods that are manifest can also be fought. In Three Parts Dead, the story was about the internecine warfare that ensued when a god died. Or was killed.

In Two Serpents Rise, the action moves from a city whose god is openly worshipped, to a place that overthrew its gods and set science-based magic up in its place.

Red King Consolidated provides clean water to the desert city of Dresediel Lex. It’s not just a name, there really is a King in Red. But he’s not human anymore. Sixty years ago he led the forces that threw down the gods of the city. Now he’s a Craft practitioner who gave up his flesh to live forever. The King in Red is a skeleton in a red robe, held together by the magic of his will.

And part of his will is to be the sole provider of clean water for the entire city. To that end, he subsumes his last competitor, Heartstone. And sets off chaos.

The hero of the story is Caleb Altemoc. He begins as a mid-level administrator for RKC with a penchant for gambling and a different kind of skeleton in his family closet. His father is the last living priest of the old gods who thinks that RKC and the King in Red are anathema. He’s a terrorist moving heaven and earth to get the old gods back.

Even though they required human sacrifice.

Caleb and his father don’t exactly get along.

When Caleb investigates an attack on the water supply that looks like his father’s work, Caleb finds a woman who has no business being on the scene. He thinks she’s a danger-seeking bystander being used by the terrorists.

It’s not until the final consolidation of RKC and Heartstone that Caleb discovers that the woman who fascinates him is also an executive of the other company. He still thinks she’s innocent, especially when they both get tapped to investigate more sabotage.

As the tale unfolds, we discover that everyone is being used; by their companies, by their gods, by their leaders.

Especially Caleb.

Escape Rating A: Although the publisher summary for this book emphasizes the romance between Caleb and Mal, the female executive for Heartstone, their relationship feels like more of an infatuation, more of a tease than the motivation it might have been.

And that’s a good thing. A number of the red herrings and false starts that make the solution of the underlying mystery so fascinating result from Caleb and Mal’s distraction of each other. They are each set upon a path, but they can’t stop veering off course to save or damn each other.

A much more important and foundational relationship in the story is Caleb’s friendship with Teo. Teo is the person who is there for Caleb at every turning point in his life and in the story, because they are best friends and not because there is any romantic possibility.

Another building block for this chapter in the Craft Sequence is that old saying: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Everyone who gets too close to the old gods tips over the edge into insanity, and that includes Caleb’s father Temoc.

In the end, the story turns on Caleb making a huge gamble, a gamble he’s able to envision precisely because he is not an absolutist in either the religious or the quasi-scientific Craft camps. He sees both sides, and persists in trying to find a way to compromise the absolutes.

Caleb’s journey is the one that we follow; he travels from safe, mid-level manager to a mover of worlds, while trying to solve a mystery that too many people want to use to destroy an entire city.

full fathom five by max gladstoneCaleb, and this world of the Craft Sequence, are amazing, absorbing and utterly fascinating. I can’t wait for book three, Full Fathom Five.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

three parts dead by max gladstoneFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Steampunk
Series: Craft Sequence #1
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: October 2, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

My Review:

One of the foundational concepts of this story is that practicing law is roughly equivalent to practicing necromancy. That what we would call a law firm this universe would consider to be a partnership in a craft firm, where the Craft involved is the Craft of resurrecting the dead. Contract law is all about siphoning living energy from people.

On the other hand, that IS what a lot of people think lawyers do in this world, too.

Another construct underpinning this world is the idea of a world where gods are created and/or maintained by the worship of their followers. (This is an idea that Neil Gaiman took to an entirely different conclusion in American Gods.)

So we have the “legal” question of what happens when a god dies with contracts outstanding. And since Kos Everburning is a god, he always has outstanding contracts. After all, he was supposed to live forever. And he will. The question is who will control his resurrection; his worshippers or the opposing forces who have bought up those contracts that are about to default.

Into this very hot mess the author thrusts two characters in search of a purpose; the Craftswoman Tara, who must figure out who is behind Kos’ death before the spiral of destruction consumes her, and the very junior engineer-priest Abelard, who had the misfortune to be the first to discover that his god was dead.

Neither Tara nor Abelard are in positions of power or authority. Tara is less than a junior associate of her Craft firm; her employment is probationary. Abelard is the most junior priest in the order, and the god he worships died on his watch. If things go badly, the resurrected Kos may not even care for his people.

But Tara is intelligent and most importantly, persevering. As the chain of dead bodies and attempted assassinations gets longer and longer, Tara and Abelard doggedly conduct an investigation whose object is increasingly familiar even as the methods they pursue become more imbued with Craft and magic.

Who had the means, the motive and the opportunity to kill this god? Who needs to kill to keep this secret? And even more basic, and more important, who benefits most from the death of Kos?

Escape Rating A: Now I understand why people raved about this book–raved to the point where the author was nominated for the Campbell Award in 2013. The worldbuilding is absolutely phenomenal. Just the combination of contract law and necromancy is equal parts stunning and sly.

Tara and Abelard make an interesting pair of “detectives”. Tara is the one with the training, but she spends much of the story doubting herself and her ability not merely to solve the case, but simply to do her job well enough to remain employed. She constantly second-guesses herself. Part of her doubt isn’t about ability, it’s about figuring out where she wants to be.

Abelard is fascinating because he never loses faith. He knows his god is dead–after all, he’s seen the body. And yet, he still believes, and because of that belief he keeps going no matter how badly things seem to be going.

Although it is relatively easy to figure out who the ‘bad guy” is, his motives are not so easy to discern. The game he is playing has been very long and extremely convoluted. His henchpeople are not easily discovered. And even though I guessed who, the why, the what and the how, kept me flicking pages furiously at the end.

For anyone who enjoys complicated plots and intricate mysteries woven into their complex worldbuilding, Three Parts Dead is the start of a spellbinding series.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.