Three Parts Dead
by Max Gladstone
Series:Craft Sequence, #1Hardcover, 333 pg.
Tor Books, 2012
Read: June 1 – 3, 2015
Good grief. I don’t know what to say. Three Parts Dead is a unique reading experience. I spent a lot of time not exactly sure I understood everything going on, but I was riveted (and yes, I understood things eventually — just some of the magic took awhile to register).
The closest thing I can come up with to compare this to is Michael R. Underwood’s Shield and Crocus without the super-heroes, but with Wizard-Lawyers, Vampires, and Gargoyles that can eat Anton Strout’s Stannis for lunch.
Forget my attempt at plot summary, it’s just not going to work — click the links above and read Gladstone’s (or whoever put together his site). This is smart, compelling — occasionally gorgeous — writing. The world building is fantastic. These characters — I’m going to be thinking about them for awhile. Actually, that’s true for the book as a whole. I’m going to be thinking about all of it for awhile. Love it when I read a book like that — this one is going to stick with me.
There’s SF elements, fantasy elements, some mystery, a little legal thriller, some oddly pro-cigarette imagery… a little bit of something for everyone, tied together to make something that’ll knock your socks off.
I can pretty much promise you that you’ve never read anything like Three Parts Dead. That may not be enough of a reason to pick it up, but it you really should.
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