Book Review: Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

Craft Sequence  Book 1

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Three parts Dead hooked me with its cover it is beautiful and empowering. If you follow Jim C. Hines,  you will know how rare and wonderful this is in a speculative fiction book!

This book was hard to read, hard at times to put down, and harder to review.

Gladstone has created something that is its own, blending the lines between contemporary fiction, steampunk, magic realism, paranormal, urban fantasy and epic fantasy. In many ways it reads like a Magical Realism, Urban Fantasy, or Paranormal book, it is however, set in a different world, so technically this is a Fantasy book.

Three Parts Dead has all the criteria for a great speculative fiction or fantasy book; an interesting mix, of technology, magic, gods, goddesses, power, religion, politics. Gladstone has included the young protagonists, the magic school, the older mentors, and the evil antagonists. Add in gargoyles, vampires, mages, skeletons a bit of steampunk, dead gods and a bit of a mystery.

The ideas and concepts behind the world are what carry this book, and make it an interesting read despite the flaws. In many ways there really are too many concepts, ideas and too little time spent in this world to develop any of the world, ideas or characters to any extent.

As a fantasy book, it falls short in many ways, there was very little world building information, I felt lost and not sure where this was taking place. This is another world, yet we really never get a picture of the world, and all of the metaphors and descriptions were "earth based", which only added to the confusion on where this all was taking place, or what the characters or world were like. In some ways this felt like a condensed cliff notes version of what could have been a great trilogy.

The omniscient POV took some time to adjust to, with an over kill on exposition interjected with dialogue. There is a lot of information given, but much of the world building or side reminiscence did not help to clarify or aid the story. It is like the author threw in commentary on people or things here and there in a "it's fantasy I need world building descriptions, without actually world building, explaining things that needed explaining or making it relative."

As a reader this book is worth it just because it is different and has unique concepts. I really wish his had been more of an epic fantasy with more book (or books) to explain all of the fascinating world, religion, politics and concepts that we only got hints of.

Read more on Tor.com about Three Parts Dead and more great books from the Reddit Fantasy Lists Under-Rated and Under-Read Fantasy.
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Max Gladstone

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