This novel has a particularly good villain, who is unfortunately an extremely realistic character. Some authors write about complex themes only to falter at some level of execution, for instance by using metaphors that undermine the stated message of the story, and this is especially an issue with the depiction of antagonists. In this case, however, the plot's main conflict only complements the story's themes. ( )

Three parts dead is one of the most original books I've read in a while. It is sort of urban fantasy in a made up world (for those who are not familiar with the terms: urban usual consists of fantasy in our world). It has a strange mixture of magic and lawyers, gods and technology. How does all of this fit together? Well, magic is performed using soulstuff, and soulstuff can be exchanged between people (and gods). When soulstuff changes hands, a contract is drawn up, and with contracts come loopholes and lawyers... As for the technology, well, the magic is not necessarily used for magic purposes, but is often used for the mundane. For instance, the magic of the god Kos keeps the city running, since he provides the heat for all the machinery. Part of the service of his priesthood consists of managing all the valves and pressure gauges, and his priests are therefore called things like Novice Technician or Maintenance Monk.
The story: Tara becomes an associate at something reminiscent of a law firm. This particular firm specializes in resurrections. Her first job is a big one: the god Kos has died, and together with her boss she needs to find out how it happened...

To me, the main attraction of Three parts dead is the world and its magic. The characters are sympathetic and competent. The only reason I give 4 stars instead of 5, is that the book contains relatively little emotion. It is like it describes all the moves in a match, but doesn't focus on the participants's emotions very much. It is not at all distracting when reading the book, but it does make it easier to put it away. I believe this book is a debut, so I'm sure the author can still improve in this respect, and other than that, it really is a very good book. I have high hopes for the author's next works! ( )

Guys I think I found a new fantasy author to love and gush over.

Where to begin? I loved that this wasn't a story of absolutes--good, evil, right, wrong...practically everything in here is a shade of gray. One person's helpful deed, is another person's horrible sin--but that doesn't mean it was either of those. Gladstone spends a good chunk of the book building up the fact that everybody sees everything differently, but its the person with more power who decides which way is the 'right' way (this is illustrated very literally in the end).

I thought Tara was marvelous--kind of drunk on her power in the beginning (to an almost bad ending), but also partly resentful of how it separates her and how others just don't understand, she comes into her own (for good or ill) and finds a place that needs her (and maybe will appreciate her for it).

This is a very complicated book however. Gladstone draws out explanations and motivations for as long as he can, revealing such things as how Tara got herself kicked out of the Hidden Schools (kind of, not really...its complicated, but it may have involved an explosion) until much later in the story in a mildly inconvenient moment. This works well for the endgame, but for other things (the Gods' War?) it gets a bit irksome. The characters act, talk and react as if its something the reader should know (like water is wet or fire is hot).

Murder Mystery, religious thriller, and fantasy--Gladstone blended all the elements of various genres quite well. This is kind of like a Criminal Minds episode (if that was set in a world with magic and Gods talking to their acolytes mentally), there's a police procedural feel to the novel with Tara and co gathering facts and clues and investigating leads. The pacing feels off however because again as a reader we don't know everything about the world, so something I found to be 'ah-ha! clue!' is easily dismissed because its just an everyday occurrence in the world.

The thing of it is, even those minor sort of complaints didn't really stop me from eagerly turning page after page. By the end I understood quite a lot about the world, but I can't tell you how I know. The casual, organic sort of way Gladstone conveys the world-building is wonderful. ( )

Tara Abernathy, recent graduate and worker of Craft (basically magic, but with more than a whiff of necromancy), begins working for Elayne Kavarian, who brings her to the city of Alt Coulumb where a God, Kos, has died. She must use all her ingenuity to figure out what really happened, alongside the priest, Abelard, who was there when Kos expired.

The intricate world-building from the rules of magic to the role of divinity in everyday life is the main strength of this book, the first in a series. The pacing stays fast, switching perspectives often between the main players who are in different places investigating the death of Kos, and of a judge, and constantly having the reader guess who they can trust. The characters could be more fleshed out, and it was a little on the violent side for me. But the genreblend of fantasy and legal drama worked really well, the ending was satisfying, and I'd be willing to continue the series. ( )

originally posted at www.csdaley.com

It is really hard to do something completely fresh and original in fantasy for me these days. I have been reading fantasy for a long time. I read a lot of books. So when something jumps out at me as different I tend to take notice. Three Parts Dead is different. While on its surface it is an Urban Fantasy set in a world that looks a little like ours. Underneath it is a mash up of many different genres. By many different genres I am not frakking around. There is a bang up legal procedure that culminates in one of the most interesting court room dramas I have ever read.

I am not even sure I know how to describe this book. The main story revolves around the murder of a god and a young lawyer's search for justice. There are gargoyles and vampires and magic (called the craft). The story is gritty and reads like a great mystery novel. The world building is fantastic and the characters pop off the page. I was a little sad to find out that this is a series that will not center around any one character, although I am hopeful that we will see a few of our favorites from book to book.

The writing is smooth and moves at a brisk pace. I like how Gladstone gives us a little bit of the world. Lets our assumptions take hold and then blows it up and goes somewhere surprising. The book had me constantly wondering where it was going next. It is a pretty rare book that does this to me. I don't think I have read a more enjoyable book this last year. When I finished it was everything I could do to delay gratification and not jump into the next book. Three Parts Dead will keep you reading and smiling. You will love the world and how Gladstone peels it back a little at a time. I love that the book ends. Fantasy has become dominated by massive series. It was refreshing to get to the end of the novel and have a conclusion. Gladstone lets his writing and his world draw you into the series. Go buy this book right now and prepare to be entertained.
( )

It's a little frustrating as a mystery, but very satisfying as a fantasy. ( )

Enjoyable, and I'd like to read the second in the series.

But the literal Deus ex Machina at the end... ( )

On the one hand, Gladstone has created something entirely unique, here: a magico-legal thriller about apotheosis set in a steampunk theocracy. So far, so good. I love a lot of the little touches: the Seril/Justice story in particular is extremely well-done, as is his handling of the workings of magic. I found the wry humor in several parts charming. Gladstone's characters are a little thin, but well-loved and the ensemble cast overall works well. On the one hand, the ruse of "character X is so naive, I have to tell them about setting point Y" is over-used and very obvious; on the other, it gets the reader up to speed quickly on the (really lovely) world-building.

However, there are some books one can only get through on a plane. This is one of them. Gladstone shifts perspectives approximately once every 2-3 pages and it's completely jarring. This is especially true because there is so much world-building that the reader has to keep in mind, that to remember "OK, she's using the Craft for which she needs her special knife and blah-glyph and there are clouds, so it will be less powerful" for long enough to get back to the scene where that information is relevant is difficult.

I *might* read more books from the series, but only if the perspective-shifting is substantially better -- it's too bad, because it does overwhelm the otherwise good writing. ( )

This was very, very good. Excellent world building, characters you were caring about and invested in, and a future story you want to read. Excellent. ( )

Picked it up and didn't put it down. The delightful world he's built does occasionally get in the way, but more often it moves the story along and provides something interesting for the characters to push against. Basically just a lot of fun. ( )

I came to this because I loved "This Is How You Lose The Time War." It justified that in every way: inventive, exciting, memorable. ( )

An excellent new approach to magic and theurgy, and and brand new world, with brand new avatars and styles.

A well planned world with complex heroes, protagonists, sly villains, and twists that stay hidden until the moment they come due. Well worth the read. ( )

Who knew probate could be so exciting? ;) ( )

I did this on audio, and Claudia Alick did a nice job with all the characters. I especially loved her depiction of Elayne Kevarian. Her Abelard was pretty great too. Aww, Abelard. I want to hug that guy.

It’s a unique combination of fantasy and legal drama, things I never expected to see together in one book. There’s a little bit of everything in here, all with Gladstone’s own special twist—gargoyles, vampires, gods, goddesses, and supercharged magical folk and places. It’s a lot to keep track of, but so fun to see what he does with them. The author has a nice sense of humor that pops up in unexpected places too. The ending was whiz-bang, and I was amazed at how small things I didn’t attach much significance to were pivotal to the plot.

This has been on my list for ages, in fact, it’s on a reading challenge I’m doing to clear 12 titles from my TBR shelf this year. I’m glad I finally got to it, and I plan to continue with the series. ( )

This book basically has necromantic wizard lawyers dealing with contract law with gods. So Tara Abernathy, a junior associate from Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao whose whole professional future depends on success, gets called in to help with the resurrection of Kos, a recently-deceased god. There is no doubt that Kos will be resurrected (mostly), but how much of His old self He gets to keep depends on how well the Craftsman representing His creditors argues in their favour with respect to the power owed to them against how well Kos’s defence Craftswomen (Tara and her boss, Ms. Kevarian) represent His interests and His blamelessness in His own demise.

So, all in all, it was a kind of fun, kind of weird world that I found interesting. I liked the book, but for some reason my attention kept wandering while I was actually trying to read it. I liked the very final scene: finishing the book off that way helped bump it back up to 3 stars from 2.5 for me. What had dragged the book down to that murky 2.5-star region was the tendency to outright drop a couple pages of mostly unnecessary background information on top of the clumsy way information was parcelled out between the characters in dialogue. And then there were the climatic explanation scenes where our heroes and villains basically explained what had actually happened earlier in the book. You know that kind of explanatory stand-off scene? Yeah.

In spite of some of the clumsiness, I’ll probably check out the sequels eventually to see if they turn out any better. It also looks like they feature different characters, so they’re not strict sequels. Plus I kind of want to get to the third one because I like the title [b:Full Fathom Five|16148208|Full Fathom Five (Craft Sequence #3)|Max Gladstone|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385068358s/16148208.jpg|21982690].

I did like the thing with the cigarette. ( )

I have for a while wanted to read this book so when I found it one Scribd I just had to read it.

Tara has been thrown out from her the Hidden School, fallen to the earth. You don't get to know why, at least not yet. She returns home to her family and resumes her life there until the chance comes to her in the form of Elayne Kevarian who hires her to work for the necromantic firm: Kelethres, Albrecht and Ao and her first job is to bring the God Kos Everburning back to life. Together with Elayne and Abelard, the chain-smoking priest of Kos she must now resurrect Kos before His city falls apart.

Max Gladstone has created a wonderful and interesting world where ordinary people have discovered that they also can have the power of Gods, or at least some of it with led to the Gods War and the world that Tara is living in now is the result of the war. Tara has the Craft, she can bring people back from the dead. Now one of the last great Gods have died, and it's up to Tara to bring him back, but she must also figure out how he died because it's not very easy thing to kill a God...

I liked this book very much. It was not always an easy book to read, I had to get to know a new world and its history, but as the story progressed and I learned more about the world and characters the more I liked the story. Max Gladstone has written a fascinating book, and I loved how the story progressed and you got a greater insight into the world he has created. Also, the ending, it was great. I never that coming and I love getting surprised when I read a book!

A truly great first book in a new series! ( )

Wild ride -- very original world, and basically a lawyer procedural in a dystopian magic world post-God wars (in which most gods died). That's a nouthful but it's something like that. There's a mystery detective side, there's a creepy necromantic magic side, there are many ethical debates and well. It's interesting. I'd give it 5 stars for blowing my mind, but I think I just didn't love any of the characters enough to go there -- they are compelling, but not necessarily likeable. ( )

I really enjoyed this book!

I didn't read this as critically as some of the things I've read recently (nothing drew me out enough that I had to start analyzing why I didn't like it).

Gods are like giant conglomerates who loan out their power (with interest rates!), and the craft users are lawyers. Legal battles are fought with magic. It's AWESOME. ( )

Three Parts Dead was a great book knocked down to okay book by a few flaws. First, its greatness. The world building is excellent, though strongly reminiscent of China Mieville's Bas-Lag series. It's got that same dark fantasy/steampunk aesthetic, and though Mieville would wax poetic about city life and architecture, Gladstone instead indulges in such descriptions of the setting's highly complex magic system, "the Craft." The magic relies on much of the classical trappings of black magic, like magic circles, candles, runes scribed in dead languages, and so forth, but with the added effect of slowly transforming its users into minor eldritch horrors. Craftsmen and Craftswomen can, and do, "live" forever, eventually becoming nothing more than talking skeletons, or wraiths possessing statue-bodies. Aside from the Craft, we have the ingenious idea of a god's power being industrialized. In the city of Alt Coulomb, the god Kos the Everburning loans out his power to fuel steam engines, while the maimed goddess Justice invests her power in ordinary citizens, turning them into an army of cold, unfeeling automatons to keep the peace. There are also gargoyles, and vampires, and tentacle eldritch horrors, and floating wizard towers, and other such things.

This would make for a great book, if not for its flaws. First of all, the plot is more like that of a legal thriller/mystery than any fantasy novel I've read, and though that ought to appeal to some people, I was not so interested. In particular, it seems that at least twice the book treats us to nothing more exciting than the characters sorting through legal documents to find court evidence. Granted, they were magic legal documents, sorted with magic, but I still found it pretty boring. Similarly, there are a few scenes where the heroine outright explains her deductions, which, though necessary for any mystery, still felt tedious. Indeed, many other scenes felt tedious, as they just stretched on for too long. This may be a result of too many POV characters each experiencing the same thing in turn. As for the characters themselves, though they were all lovingly crafted with an assortment of personalities, virtues, and personal problems, I did not feel emotionally invested in a single one of them. Towards the end of the book, at what was supposed to be an epic showdown between the protagonists and the villain, I truly did not care who won or who lost, no matter how contemptible the villain was portrayed.

In the end, I suppose many of my objections are born of personal taste. Those fantasy fans who are fond of mystery and intrigue might like it more, but otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it. ( )

This happens to be a fairly old book and I’m not known to read older books much, feeling much more comfortable with the writing styles of recent releases. However, I stumbled upon the reviews for this book when I was browsing and I was fascinated. And I’m actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

As soon as I got into the book a bit, the first thing that came to mind was how similar the premise felt to City of Stairs - that’s one of my all time favorites, so my interest increased exponentially and I wasn’t disappointed. The author drops us smack dab into the middle of the story, and we get to know the world and it’s magic system called Craft as we go on. I’m not always a fan of that kind of writing style, but it somehow worked here and I didn’t feel lost, so hats off to the author’s skills. The whole idea is also very imaginative, a world which has gods and deities who provide sustenance so that their cities can run, Craftsmen and women who use starlight and earth to wield their magic and work for Craft firms (similar to law firms) to solve when issues rise across kingdoms. I thought the use of business contracts as the way how the exchange between gods and other entities works was ingenious. As this story is essentially a murder mystery/ legal thriller, I really enjoyed the way the characters unraveled the mystery and built their case. While I really loved the different uses of Craft throughout the story, I thought the scene at the Court of Craft was phenomenal and has left an impression on my mind that I won’t soon forget. When the confrontations between different Craft users occur, I can’t call them action sequences but more like battle of wills and they were stunning to read about. While some part of the murder mystery was fairly easy to guess, it was very interesting to read other twists as well as find out the various motivations. And I still can’t get over the brilliant final chapter and the epilogue - they were truly epic.

Tara is our main protagonist, a new associate working on her first case and is very much invested in solving it perfectly so that she can make her job permanent. She is strong willed, tenacious, confident and good at thinking outside the box when things aren’t going her way. She is also open minded and willing to look at all the evidence as well as the bigger picture before making judgments, despite strong evidence pointing her in a particular direction. Abelard on the other hand wants to believe in god and his faith, is feeling a bit shaken due to the god's death and just wants everything to return to normal. This leads to some very interesting discussions between them about faith and justice, idealism vs practicality, an engineer’s view of the world vs that of a Craftswoman. They don’t always understand each other’s perspective, but trust enough to work together towards their common goal. Elayne is the mentor figure to Tara and while we only get a little of her POV, her mind works in brilliant ways and it was masterful the way she makes sure everything happens the way she wants it to. There are other side characters we meet along the way and we are intrigued initially because we don’t know why we need to follow along with them, but the author ties up everybody’s storyline amazingly well towards the end and we quickly realize how each of them had an important role to play. I ended up loving every one of them and it’s nice to see the small bonds that developed between each of them too.

Finally, I have to say that this is one of the most unique fantasy worlds I’ve read in a while. If you are a fan of the Divine Cities trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett, or love your fantasy worlds to have steampunk elements while also featuring gods and magic and discussing economics and trade etc, then this book is perfect for you. The magic system can be a tad bit too convenient, but it didn’t in anyway hamper my enjoyment of the story. It also works well as a standalone, so you will be very satisfied. There seem to be quite a few books in this series, but I’m not in a hurry - I might just decide to pick up the sequel the next time I’m confused about what to read. ( )

A good detective story and I rather like the feel of the theology / magic system as something which isn't overly-explained but feels like something that a lot of “engineering” has gone into, as you'd expect of a long-running, powerful civilization. ( )

Good stuff all the way through! This universe feels new to me and I want to know more. Our big bad magic wielder's solution to the shadow monster made me laugh. Looking forward to the next one. ( )

Tara is a first year associate in a necromancy firm, assisting a senior partner investigating the mysterious death of a god. However, I did not like the book because it's very hard to follow. A whole world is presented, with gods and priests and guardians, but it's never explained to the reader. I did not conect with the characters either, in part because other than Tara, we were provided with insufficient background to understand their motivations. While I managed to struggle through, I will not be reading the rest of the series. ( )

Read this 3rd, in chronological rather than publication order. Makes sense and plays well that way, but this one gives some details on the Craft that the first two lacked because they were written later. ( )

Three Parts Dead is the first book in the Craft Sequence series. This was another one of my series-sampling audio listens, to see if I might want to pursue it in print someday. Unlike some of my previous listens that had resulted in a waffling “maybe”, this one is a firm “NO”.

Audio Narration
The narrator was Claudia Alick and she really didn’t work for me. For the first few hours, it wasn’t horrible exactly, it just seemed like the wrong tone for the story. My first impression was that the narrator would be better suited to “Mary Poppins” because she read with such a brisk, cheerful tone. This is a story about witchcraft, necromancy, and dead gods. There’s something very discordant about hearing those topics read about with such gleeful cheerfulness. Maybe that was the intent – to give an extra weird vibe to a weird story. If so, then I guess it succeeded?

As the audiobook went on and more characters became more heavily involved in the story, the narrator didn’t seem to voice them consistently. Sometimes I had trouble keeping track of who was speaking, even when there was only back-and-forth dialogue between two characters. Sometimes I would think a different character had shown up because she seemed to be voicing somebody else instead. Abelard’s voice in particular seemed to crop up everywhere even when he wasn’t speaking. Even the non-dialogue parts were off sometimes. There were a few spots where it felt like every other sentence was read with one tone, and the alternate sentences were read with a slightly different tone. It would switch back and forth in rapid succession until I felt like I was trapped in a bad dream sequence on a TV show.

Story
The story starts with Tara getting thrown out of school. Literally. She's tossed out the window of a school floating around in the sky where people are taught “craft”, manages to survive the fall thanks to her skill with the aforementioned craft, causes some mayhem at home using that craft, then gets hired to investigate the death of a god which is what becomes the main plot.

I feel like I should have liked this better than I did. I’ve never read anything quite like it. The world is unique and the story sounds on the surface like something I might find interesting. I’m sure the narration contributed to my issues, but I don’t think I would have enjoyed it much more in print. The story didn’t hold my interest and I didn’t care much about the characters.

The magic was one of those poorly-defined “systems” that does whatever is convenient at the time it’s needed to take the plot in a certain direction, and there were a lot of coincidental happenings that the reader seemed to be expected to believe were clever machinations by characters who never could have actually manipulated the combination of circumstances to occur the way they did. Sure, they didn’t plan events to go exactly they way they did, but they knew x would lead to some sort of y and a would lead to some sort of b, and c would lead to some sort of d, and then the combination of the unpredictable results of y, b, and d would somehow manage to bring about the desired outcome. I couldn’t buy into it. Probably another issue I had was that a lot of events are more metaphorical than anything and I like things to be more concrete. I guess it just comes down to a writing style that didn’t work for me.

I’m rating this at 2.5 stars and rounding down to 2 on Goodreads. I don’t plan to revisit the series in the future. It wasn’t all bad, and there were times when I was interested in the story. I suspect if not for the audio narration I might have chosen to round up to 3 instead, but I’m still confident I wouldn’t have enjoyed it enough to continue the series. ( )