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Max Gladstone
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Three Parts Dead (Craft Sequence, 1) Paperback – July 23, 2013

by Max Gladstone (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,669 ratings
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From the co-author of the viral New York Times bestseller This is How You Lose the Time War.

"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 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.


Also Available by Max Gladstone:

The Craft Sequence
1. Three Parts Dead
2. Two Serpents Rise
3. Full Fathom Five
4. Last First Snow
5. Four Roads Cross
6. Ruin of Angels

The Craft Wars
1. Dead Country
2. Wicked Problems

Last Exit
Empress of Forever

This is How You Lose the Time War (with Amal El-Mohtar)

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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 6
    Craft Sequence
  2. Print length
    336 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Tor Books
  5. Publication date
    July 23, 2013
  6. Dimensions
    5.55 x 1.2 x 8.15 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0765333112
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0765333117
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This has so many of my favorite things: an intriguing world, fun characters, a puzzle of a story that manages to be both funky fantasy and legal thriller. Three Parts Dead is simultaneously fast paced and thoughtful, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.” ―Carrie Vaughn, author of the Kitty Norville series

“Neil Gaiman and Jim Butcher are conjured for a China Miéville story about magical lawyers trying to revive a dead God in a steampunk city. Recommended: Hell yes!” ―Geek Speak Magazine

“Max Gladstone has evidently devised a necromantic steampunk machine that enabled him to channel the Roger Zelazny of Lord of Light, cathect the Neil Gaiman of American Gods, and subsume the oeuvre of John Grisham, all with the aim of producing loopy, metaphysically-minded legal thrillers.” ―James Morrow, author of The Last Witchfinder

“With his first book, Max Gladstone gives promise of being a true star of twenty-first century fantasy.” ―John Crowley, author of Little, Big and The Deep

“The combination of legal thriller and steam-powered fantasy may seem improbable, but Gladstone makes it work with an appealing cast and a setting rich in imaginitive details....the story remains suspenseful and fast-paced throughout, and the diverse, female-led cast is a joy to follow through the fascinating and unusual landscape.” ―Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Max Gladstone has created a fascinating universe and equally fascinating characters.... This is his first novel. I can't wait for his second.” ―Jerry Pournelle, author of The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer

“Sci-fi, fantasy and a murder mystery all rolled in one.... exciting and fast paced with unexpected twists and turns. It culminates in a big surprise ending.” ―RT Book Reviews

About the Author

Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award–winning author, MAX GLADSTONE, has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia and once wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat. He is the author of many books, including Last Exit, Empress of Forever, the Craft Sequence of fantasy novels and, with Amal El-Mohtar, the viral New York Times bestseller This Is How You Lose the Time War. His dreams are much nicer than you’d expect.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; First Edition (July 23, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765333112
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765333117
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.55 x 1.2 x 8.15 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,669 ratings

About the author

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Max Gladstone

Max Gladstone

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MAX GLADSTONE is a fencer, a fiddler, and Hugo Award Finalist. He has taught English in China, wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia. Max lives and writes in Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston. He is the author of the Craft Sequence (Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, Full Fathom Five, Last First Snow, Four Roads Cross, and Ruin of Angels).

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
2,669 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Andreea Pausan
5.0 out of 5 stars a feast
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
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I enjoyed this book immensely, not only because the author manages to create a whole new world around us, with incredible characters and magic and rules of engagement, but also because the arena is the court of law, a trial and a criminal investigation wrapped in an enigma: who killed Kos, the Everburning god of the city of Alt Coulomb? Everything, from the city of alt Coulomb to the characters and the action has such a strong impact on the reader that you do not know what impressed you most; in my case, it was the very clever and imaginative structure built with different characters (magicians, gargoyles, immortals, vampires, gods) in a court setting with proper documentation, pleas, proof and argument. All very originally done, packed with a lot of action, drama and surprising insights on the characters' pasts and motivation. Plus the essence of the word used to describe the magic: craft (meaning job, but also trade and wizardry). The main investigator/ advocate is Tara, a Black novice magician thrown out of school because she dared take action against a famous professor, the same who would be opposite council in the Kos trial, the same who sorted out the death of Kos's consort, goddess of the moon, turning her into blind Justice some 40 years before, trial won against his former lover and Tara's current employer and protector Craftswoman Elayne Kevarian. Tara is resourceful, determined, smart, fearless. She is also a beginner in a dangerous, many-layered multiple-trap game with a thousand players and high interest. She gets help from Abelard, a novice who witnessed the death of his god, who smokes incessantly to be reminded of his presence and looses his innocence as he follows Tara and is thrown into the pit snake opened by the god's death. The outcome is as surprising as the every twist along the way. This book was a feast.
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Mark
4.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Amount of Worldbuilding Stuffed into Few Pages.
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2015
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“An author’s ability to solve conflict satisfactorily with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.” — Brandon Sanderson

Three Parts dead could have benefitted from a bit more reader understanding of the magic system, before it was used to solve all of the problems. I spent large parts of the book being intrigued by the magic, but never quite getting enough explanation of how it works, and what it really can and cannot do, to satisfy me. I’m fine with vague magic not explained to the reader when it’s not used for many of the various plot events, such as in The Lord of the Rings, or A Song of Ice and Fire. But here, the Craft, as it is called, is one of the only tools the main characters use for solving their problems.

That’s not to say it’s a bad magic system, though. It seems, from the hurried glimpses we caught of it, to be internally consistent and intricately cool. I’m fully expecting to learn more about it in the future volumes in the series, and I hope that, once the rules are more defined, I will even come to enjoy the system. I just felt like the book wasn’t long enough for all the complexity we were supposed to get from it.

The plot is really cool, and I enjoyed how it was handled, with lots of twists and turns and unexpected happenings. And it felt very much like the bad guys were moving during the book, instead of having their plans set before the book began. This is a feeling that I don’t get from a lot of other books. There are several times where a scene happens, and we think it’s the climax of some kind of plot, but instead, turns out just to be another machination… I found this sense really cool, even though I can’t describe it properly. Perhaps the best description I can give is that the reaction scenes were also action scenes.

The characters in the book are an incredibly diverse cast of interesting people, not only in their physical makeup, but also their professions. Our main character is a disgraced student of the Craft school, trying to get a job with an imperious boss who is immortal. Her encounters include her old school teacher, a shape-shifting gargoyle, a bumbling underpriest with a smoking problem, a vampire, and a street-girl always searching for her next high—which she gets by either turning into an extension of the justice system of the city or having a vampire drink her blood.

The characters are incredible. The world-building is off the charts, and the magic system has so many cool intricacies.

I just felt like it was too much for the few pages the story fit into. This is one problem I’m really hoping will be fixed as we go along, now that we’ve had an introduction to the world, and I’m really excited about the later books.

The plot itself is really cool, and the climax was understandable, which surprised me in a good way. Everything is explained really well, though many of the events that happened I did not know were possible until they happened, giving it a slight Deus Ex Machina feel in places. Despite that, it had enough twists and turns to keep me suitably engaged, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

In summary, Three Parts Dead is too short, and tries to cram too much really cool worldbuilding, characters, and intricate magic into its pages, but the parts that do come through are brilliantly done, and I’m excited to get more in this world in the reminder of the books, which I am going to be starting this afternoon. With the fourth book coming out soon after this review, now’s a great time to catch up on this series, and I give the first book a solid four of five stars for its really cool ending.

Review originally from my blog, Mental Megalodon.
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Alexander McCall
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most original books I've read lately
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 24, 2023
Verified Purchase
The story begins with a reference to the God Wars, a god getting murdered and a woman being thrown off a floating university to slam into the ground, barely surviving.
Man, does this book know how to get my attention.
And it’s an intriguing world we find ourselves in. Magic has often been seen as about words and contracts and this book brings it to its logical conclusion. Mages are lawyers/accountants, creating contracts of power and selling and buying it to move it between themselves.
It’s an interesting system and lends itself nicely to the plot. The god Kos has died and the auditors are called in to sort out his affairs. I found it easiest to think of Kos as a sentient corporation of power. So all his debts have to be settled, all of the outstanding bargains and divisions need to be sorted and what’s left of him has to be carved up. And yet there’s still the question: How did the god die? And it’s that question that our story revolves around.
It’s got a good cast of characters too. There’s Tara, who is on probation for the necromantic firm she’s just been hired for. Her boss is an old hand at this and covers the bigger picture, leaving much of the grunt work to her assistant. There priests facing a crisis of faith, piratical vampires, drug addled cops and secret contracts. The world is alive, vibrant, a little confusing at times but enthralling all the same.
Also the plotting is just great. The mystery twines nicely around the action, with hints of the eventual reveal. And when all the cards are flipped it leads to an amazing, explosive finale. Seriously, I‘m a sucker for a good ending and this was an amazing ending.
I’ve not read a lot of books like this. It’s new, it’s fresh and it’s powerful. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
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Tanabrus
3.0 out of 5 stars Prevedibile ma molto originale, interessante
Reviewed in Italy on August 26, 2017
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L'ambientazione scelta dall'autore per questo suo esordio è senza dubbio particolare e originale.
Un misto tra fantasy e urban fantasy, dove ci sono elementi di stampo moderno in un mondo però dove l'avanzamento tecnologico sembra arretrato se non del tutto bloccato, dove le divinità esistono e vivono nel mondo, nutrendosi della fede dei loro adoratori.
Un mondo dove esistono gli esperti nell'arte del Craft, dotati e ambiziosi umani che imitano le divinità piegando al loro volere il mondo. Maghi? Non proprio, sono più negromanti.

Già, perché in questo mondo descritto da Gladstone le tinte sono fosche.
La Guerra degli Dèi ha contrapposto decenni addietro questi negromanti (guidati dai re immortali) agli Dèi stessi, in una guerra lunghissima e devastante che ha visto umani sterminati ma anche divinità mutilate e uccise.

Ora la guerra è finita, gli Dèi restano dove la gente li vuole, altrimenti gli umani sono liberi di scegliere cosa fare. La gente comune è terrorizzata dai negromanti. I negromanti stessi non sanno bene cosa diventeranno col tempo, creature potentissime dalla vita lunghissima.
Che di lavoro svolgono una professione che è un incrocio tra la negromanzia, il lavoro di notaio (pare che i contratti siano fondamentali nei rapporti di forza e di dipendenze tra entità, qui) e quello di avvocato.

Come concetto è interessante, così come sono interessanti i personaggi presentati dall'autore.
Un po' prevedibili i colpi di scena, ma nel complesso il tutto funziona. E i gargoyles sono una piacevole sorpresa.

La cosa che più mi ha lasciato perplesso però è la parte da avvocato.
Con le prove che non vengono presentate, ma diventano una sorta di campo di battaglia supervisionato dal giudice, dove l'accusa cerca di mostrare grazie alla propria potenza i buchi nei contratti, e la difesa impiega se stessa per dimostrare invece che il tutto regge e non ha punti deboli?
Mi ricorda una versione leggermente più civilizzata del caro, vecchio giudizio divino "la giustizia sarà dalla parte di chi vincerà il duello, a prescindere dalla bravura dei duellanti".

Un buon esordio, sicuramente abbastanza originale da attirare l'attenzione.
Confido la prevedibilità di alcune cose e la parte giudiziaria migliorino in seguito, così come che si riesca a farci un'idea più precisa del livello globale (medioevo? Pseudo-ottocentesco? Moderno ma senza tecnologia?).
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Férial
4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended
Reviewed in France on February 15, 2018
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A very good read. Original, disturbing (some), intelligent, a new magic, gods that can be killed, a nice vilain, a kick-ass heroin, a loveable priest, a sympathetic vampire, angry gargoyles, a new world barely explored (yet), a mystery to be solved and a good writing. Well, yes, I recommend this read.
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Frau M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Neu, anders, wundervoll
Reviewed in Germany on August 24, 2017
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Max Gladstone gelingt, was in Fantasy sehr selten ist: Ein wirklich neues Konzept, eine Welt, die man so noch nicht kennt und deren Regeln schlüssig sind und funktionieren. Dazu Charaktere, die manchmal überraschen können und nur selten im Klischee hängen bleiben. Und Frauen, die unterschiedlich sein dürfen und nicht auf die Charaktereigenschaft "weiblich" reduziert sind. Macht Spaß zu lesen, ich freue mich schon auf die nächsten Bände.

Und ich wünschte wirklich, Peter Kenny würde die audiobooks machen, would be perfect ;)
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Jazell
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful series started
Reviewed in Canada on July 12, 2016
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I am now a huge fan , well constructed world , fantastic characters, and a powerful and strong new vision... Loved it can't wait to start book 2 ... Thanks
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