“Stunningly good. Stupefyingly good.” –Patrick Rothfuss Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence chronicles the epic struggle to build a just society in a modern fantasy world. 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 … 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 lawyers ride lightning bolts, souls are currency, and cities are powered by the remains of fallen gods, Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence introduces readers to a modern fantasy landscape and an epic struggle to build a just society.
For more from Max Gladstone, check out:
The Craft Sequence
Three Parts Dead
Two Serpents Rise
Full Fathom Five
Last First Snow
Four Roads Cross
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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I’d had several different people recommend this series to me, and it did not disappoint! It’s hard to fit this into a genre–it’s part urban fantasy, part legal thriller, part steampunk philosophical musings but overall really fun, with a great fast-moving plot and interesting characters.
I love epic fantasy, but haven’t delved too much into steampunk/ urban fantasy, which this book dabbled in. This was just a ridiculously SMART book. The way the author has conceived of magic in this world is fascinating—it’s all about the power of words and verbal/ written contracts, so I assume he must have a law degree! He also has a lot of interesting observations about faith, religion, and criminal justice systems as well (the premise is that a god has died, and it’s the protagonist’s job to bring him back to life).
This is one of the few books to seriously explore the idea of how wide spread access to magic would shape society. The system of magic is strongly connected to economics and law. The world-building is first-rate, original and weird (with echoes of China Mieville). The story is a weird mash-up of young wizard coming of age, who-done-it and court room drama. The main heroine and the supporting cast are interestingly portrayed and the plot zips along with plenty of twists and turns. It was a very strong first novel and definitely recommended. And did I mention it was weird?
Okay, I’ve been meaning to pick up this series for ages–it kept popping up in all my feeds and everyone had such great things to say about it. My only regret is that I took so long to get to it. This is such a cool series. The voice is solid. The world is so cool. Do yourself a favor and bump it up your TBR pile.
It was a beautiful world I didn’t know existed until I read it. This book was magic itself.
This book is a brilliant one, and I can list at least three factors that I enjoyed:
The first is the world that the writer built. Fantasy as a genre suffers from many repetitions, but not in this case. The world in the matter of this book is a combination of science fiction and fantasy. A world where becoming a priest is an engineer, and engaging in “art” also means being a lawyer. Gods are creatures bound by contracts and obligations, and the only way to view all these contracts is by representing virtual reality. The police are a group of people who devote themselves to a hive-like existence, at least as long as they are in a suit. All these issues are integrated into each other and wait for the reader to discover them because nothing is explained or taken for granted.
The second factor is the plot. Behind all this madness there is an intelligent mystery plot which does not allow you to stop turning the pages.
The third factor is the figures, which I have found well rounded and built, from the female heroine who seeks her place in the world, to the pious priest, to the words and the heat of God.