Book: Three parts dead
Aug. 3rd, 2014 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Max Gladstone
Details: (c) 2012 Max Gladstone; Pub 2012 Tor; ISBN 978-1-4668-0203-2
Verdict: Three parts dead is a great read, with some cool original concepts including magical lawyers.
Reasons for reading it: Gladstone is nominated for the Campbell, and several friends were enthusiastic about him. I somewhat regret being over-optimistic about how much time I'd have to read the Hugo nominees, and given that I wasn't actually going to get through everything, I should have started with the Campbell, as that's the most interesting category, instead of working my way up through the shorter works.
How it came into my hands: Tor, unlike Orbit, went out of their way to make sure their nominated authors actually got a decent shot in the Hugo voting, by including full works and even previous episodes in series, in the Hugo packet. So I read this as a professionally formatted, non-DRM ebook.
Three parts dead was one of the most purely enjoyable novels I've read in a while. I got really into the story, I wanted to know what would happen next, and I kept smiling at more cool notions about how the world works. I am definitely right in the core audience for fantasy with magical lawyers, where the gods are the personifications of legal contracts. And I liked what Three parts dead does with that genre that doesn't have a name because urban fantasy already means two other things: fantasy with magic and supernatural creatures set in a somewhat technological city that actually has an economy and bureaucracy of sorts. I also like the Bildungsroman structure with the young apprentice starting out on her first major mission, clearly someone who's destined to be powerful but currently inexperienced, and there's a very nice master-journeyman dynamic.
The story is exciting throughout, there's a good range of gods and fantasy creatures; I liked the gargoyles and the Blacksuits a lot, and the vampires and shadow monsters are not bad either. The conflict between the religions and the technologist-lawyers is really interesting; the religious institution we see most of is a bit too closely modelled on Christianity to make sense in a fantasy world, but there's a nice sense of both religious politics and individuals' relationships with faith. And the wizard equivalent lawyers who become something other than human are really interestingly done and original. I really liked the way that both the church and the Craft organizations are morally questionable, it's not that religion is right and humans shouldn't try to manipulate magic, and it's not that the upstart Craftspeople are right and religion is just obsolete superstition.
There are bits where the book feels a little bit generic fantasy, and the world-building isn't as deep as it might be, it's varied and imaginative scenery but it's only scenery, it never felt like the world was actually believable. There's plenty of excitement and people barely escaping from dire circumstances, but the book is patchy in its success at portraying truly scary monsters or properly numinous gods and religious experiences. Some of it works, some of it just reads like role-playing manual flowery but not really emotionally vivid descriptions. I generally don't like jumping about between different viewpoint characters, especially as the characters here don't really have clearly distinct voices, they have traits, but they are largely walking viewpoints. I would have preferred to stay in Tara's head the whole time, and have her learn about aspects of the plot she wasn't present for.
The idealist in me wants this book to be the bridge between Correia and his sad puppy friends, and the loosely "liberal" fans who want to see diverse stories. Because it's undoubtedly an exciting story with lots of action and plenty of violence and monsters and generally it's all about the story, and it deals with large, significant moral themes including religion. It also has a protagonist who is a young woman of colour, and is even pictured on the cover as someone who would be African-American if she lived in this reality. It's not even slightly a book about race or gender, it's classic fantasy in many ways, but it has characters of various social backgrounds, ages, genders and races without being tokenist about it.
Details: (c) 2012 Max Gladstone; Pub 2012 Tor; ISBN 978-1-4668-0203-2
Verdict: Three parts dead is a great read, with some cool original concepts including magical lawyers.
Reasons for reading it: Gladstone is nominated for the Campbell, and several friends were enthusiastic about him. I somewhat regret being over-optimistic about how much time I'd have to read the Hugo nominees, and given that I wasn't actually going to get through everything, I should have started with the Campbell, as that's the most interesting category, instead of working my way up through the shorter works.
How it came into my hands: Tor, unlike Orbit, went out of their way to make sure their nominated authors actually got a decent shot in the Hugo voting, by including full works and even previous episodes in series, in the Hugo packet. So I read this as a professionally formatted, non-DRM ebook.
Three parts dead was one of the most purely enjoyable novels I've read in a while. I got really into the story, I wanted to know what would happen next, and I kept smiling at more cool notions about how the world works. I am definitely right in the core audience for fantasy with magical lawyers, where the gods are the personifications of legal contracts. And I liked what Three parts dead does with that genre that doesn't have a name because urban fantasy already means two other things: fantasy with magic and supernatural creatures set in a somewhat technological city that actually has an economy and bureaucracy of sorts. I also like the Bildungsroman structure with the young apprentice starting out on her first major mission, clearly someone who's destined to be powerful but currently inexperienced, and there's a very nice master-journeyman dynamic.
The story is exciting throughout, there's a good range of gods and fantasy creatures; I liked the gargoyles and the Blacksuits a lot, and the vampires and shadow monsters are not bad either. The conflict between the religions and the technologist-lawyers is really interesting; the religious institution we see most of is a bit too closely modelled on Christianity to make sense in a fantasy world, but there's a nice sense of both religious politics and individuals' relationships with faith. And the wizard equivalent lawyers who become something other than human are really interestingly done and original. I really liked the way that both the church and the Craft organizations are morally questionable, it's not that religion is right and humans shouldn't try to manipulate magic, and it's not that the upstart Craftspeople are right and religion is just obsolete superstition.
There are bits where the book feels a little bit generic fantasy, and the world-building isn't as deep as it might be, it's varied and imaginative scenery but it's only scenery, it never felt like the world was actually believable. There's plenty of excitement and people barely escaping from dire circumstances, but the book is patchy in its success at portraying truly scary monsters or properly numinous gods and religious experiences. Some of it works, some of it just reads like role-playing manual flowery but not really emotionally vivid descriptions. I generally don't like jumping about between different viewpoint characters, especially as the characters here don't really have clearly distinct voices, they have traits, but they are largely walking viewpoints. I would have preferred to stay in Tara's head the whole time, and have her learn about aspects of the plot she wasn't present for.
The idealist in me wants this book to be the bridge between Correia and his sad puppy friends, and the loosely "liberal" fans who want to see diverse stories. Because it's undoubtedly an exciting story with lots of action and plenty of violence and monsters and generally it's all about the story, and it deals with large, significant moral themes including religion. It also has a protagonist who is a young woman of colour, and is even pictured on the cover as someone who would be African-American if she lived in this reality. It's not even slightly a book about race or gender, it's classic fantasy in many ways, but it has characters of various social backgrounds, ages, genders and races without being tokenist about it.
