Scan barcode
_b_a_l_'s review
5.0
I adored this.
More Tara. More godpunk fractured worlds. Magic corporations and nightmare powered telecoms. Artists and angels and squid-borg-parasites.
Max Gladstone's writing is the perfect balance of poetry and story; both dreamy painterliness and fast-paced action.
And I'm pretty sure that this is the most beautiful and true paragraph about being trans ever published in a fantasy novel:
"“I understand that during initiation Kavekanese priests and priestesses rebuild themselves around their soul, which allows the smooth and complete correction of many . . . bookkeeping errors. Not all of us have such access, and medical Craft has certain path-dependent limitations: physical transformations of any sort are trivial if you don’t mind dying in the process. I happen to enjoy my independence—not to mention my heartbeat. I’m happy to share a moment later, but can we focus on business for now?”
“Of course,” Kai said. She did not look at Eberhardt Jax in the brief pause as he lifted his briefcase to the table and spun the wheel locks on its latch. That much she could offer, even in this room, even chained and buttressed by their roles of venture-priest and pitchman. The pool let her rewrite herself from the inside out, but she still felt a stab of anxiety meeting mainlanders who knew: do they see me, or are they looking for something inside me that isn’t there at all? Jax must have felt the same. Worse. But they weren’t meeting to discuss that."
Other bits of beauty and squee-ing and tears:
"It answered in a language she didn’t understand, that sounded like the death of something beautiful."
***
"There, in the sky, approaching a foreign city beneath the belly of an ancient beast, tossed by winds, stuck in coach because the priesthood didn’t think this side trip rated business class, she felt the touch of a cool blue hand upon her brow. The touch melted against her forehead and rolled down her skin like honey tears, hot and sweet and deep, to bead and tremble on her lips, then slip within. She tasted salt and sand and volcanic rock. Root musk rolled down her tongue into her throat. She burned all over at once, and exhaled the beauty worming through her veins."
***
"So easy to look out at the world through warped glass and think the world was warped itself. Easy, too, to live in a warped world and forget that, with effort, you could make crooked lines straight."
***
"The city changed—buildings changed, streets changed, languages changed—but people adapted, and endured."
***
"The boy with the flowers blocked her path. His eyes were big and wet and needy, and that need ran deeper than the sale. The scar on his cheek drank sunlight. He offered her a flower."
***
“I do not understand you. But neither do I understand fire, or starlight, or storms, and I love them."
***
"The flood reared, cobra-like and vast, slavering mouths and crooked claws and burning eyes, and struck.... She fought to remain herself in the flood. A reflex, the oldest battle: she knew who she was, she knew her body, knew her past and her home and her family and her soul. She clung to them."
***
"She was larger than the limits of her skin."
***
“I heard—legs. Skittering closer. Whispers older than time. They speak in the pulses of distant suns. They’re so, so hungry. And they smell us.”
More Tara. More godpunk fractured worlds. Magic corporations and nightmare powered telecoms. Artists and angels and squid-borg-parasites.
Max Gladstone's writing is the perfect balance of poetry and story; both dreamy painterliness and fast-paced action.
And I'm pretty sure that this is the most beautiful and true paragraph about being trans ever published in a fantasy novel:
"“I understand that during initiation Kavekanese priests and priestesses rebuild themselves around their soul, which allows the smooth and complete correction of many . . . bookkeeping errors. Not all of us have such access, and medical Craft has certain path-dependent limitations: physical transformations of any sort are trivial if you don’t mind dying in the process. I happen to enjoy my independence—not to mention my heartbeat. I’m happy to share a moment later, but can we focus on business for now?”
“Of course,” Kai said. She did not look at Eberhardt Jax in the brief pause as he lifted his briefcase to the table and spun the wheel locks on its latch. That much she could offer, even in this room, even chained and buttressed by their roles of venture-priest and pitchman. The pool let her rewrite herself from the inside out, but she still felt a stab of anxiety meeting mainlanders who knew: do they see me, or are they looking for something inside me that isn’t there at all? Jax must have felt the same. Worse. But they weren’t meeting to discuss that."
Other bits of beauty and squee-ing and tears:
"It answered in a language she didn’t understand, that sounded like the death of something beautiful."
***
"There, in the sky, approaching a foreign city beneath the belly of an ancient beast, tossed by winds, stuck in coach because the priesthood didn’t think this side trip rated business class, she felt the touch of a cool blue hand upon her brow. The touch melted against her forehead and rolled down her skin like honey tears, hot and sweet and deep, to bead and tremble on her lips, then slip within. She tasted salt and sand and volcanic rock. Root musk rolled down her tongue into her throat. She burned all over at once, and exhaled the beauty worming through her veins."
***
"So easy to look out at the world through warped glass and think the world was warped itself. Easy, too, to live in a warped world and forget that, with effort, you could make crooked lines straight."
***
"The city changed—buildings changed, streets changed, languages changed—but people adapted, and endured."
***
"The boy with the flowers blocked her path. His eyes were big and wet and needy, and that need ran deeper than the sale. The scar on his cheek drank sunlight. He offered her a flower."
***
“I do not understand you. But neither do I understand fire, or starlight, or storms, and I love them."
***
"The flood reared, cobra-like and vast, slavering mouths and crooked claws and burning eyes, and struck.... She fought to remain herself in the flood. A reflex, the oldest battle: she knew who she was, she knew her body, knew her past and her home and her family and her soul. She clung to them."
***
"She was larger than the limits of her skin."
***
“I heard—legs. Skittering closer. Whispers older than time. They speak in the pulses of distant suns. They’re so, so hungry. And they smell us.”
catsnflags's review
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
chillvamp's review
5.0
Amazing as usual. The trippiness of the setting is so unique in the way that the author words it, it's so vivid and gorgeous to read about. The book is full of imagery that made me need to stop for a second just to go "wow, okay". I loved all the characters, both the old (Kai's back!! Izza!! TARA!!) and the new (Raymet didn't track for me at first and then at one point I looked up and realized I loved her). The squids are so unsettling, and Bescond was a fantastic antagonist. Vane, too!! I really enjoy the way Max Gladstone paces his novels: the first third or so is set-up and you revel in the cool details at your leisure and then the middle arrives and drags you along for a ride like falling dominoes and everything falls in such a satisfying arrangement. I loved this.
saidahgilbert's review against another edition
4.0
For some reason, this book took me a few days to finish. I breezed through the previous books in a day each but this one, I lingered over. The story was not boring. It was just difficult to follow the twists and turns of the narrative sometimes. It almost had me wishing for the clear chapter divisions of The Song of Ice and Fire series. I still enjoyed the story. I liked Kai much better in this book than Full Fathom Five.
luisvilla's review against another edition
3.0
Gimmick bad; book good?
The craft books have always been based on, essentially, a gimmick: mundane office jobs in a magical world. But Gladstone has always been really, really committed to the gimmick, which made it feel less gimmicky and more fun. You were never going to confuse it for high literature, but pushing hard on the edges of a profession was at least entertaining. Here, Gladstone's commitment to the gimmick wanes. I'd been excited to see VC through his entertaining, screwy lens. But he pays it lip service, instead: not integral to the plot in any way, and glossed over so trivially that you learn nothing interesting about our world or his. Might as well have left it out altogether.
All of this probably makes it a better book? So I guess if you're into decently written fantasy, by all means! Just don't go into this expecting the same thing as other Craft novels.
The craft books have always been based on, essentially, a gimmick: mundane office jobs in a magical world. But Gladstone has always been really, really committed to the gimmick, which made it feel less gimmicky and more fun. You were never going to confuse it for high literature, but pushing hard on the edges of a profession was at least entertaining. Here, Gladstone's commitment to the gimmick wanes. I'd been excited to see VC through his entertaining, screwy lens. But he pays it lip service, instead: not integral to the plot in any way, and glossed over so trivially that you learn nothing interesting about our world or his. Might as well have left it out altogether.
All of this probably makes it a better book? So I guess if you're into decently written fantasy, by all means! Just don't go into this expecting the same thing as other Craft novels.
elros451's review against another edition
5.0
5 stars
Pretty easily the best of the Craft Sequence for me. The best setting, the best of Gladstone's writing, the best cast of the characters and one of the coolest premises for a book that I've read in a while.
Pretty easily the best of the Craft Sequence for me. The best setting, the best of Gladstone's writing, the best cast of the characters and one of the coolest premises for a book that I've read in a while.
mcmanifold's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
While the concept was really great, and there were some good story beats, I didn’t really connect with the characters as much, even characters I connected with in previous books.
nicolemhill's review
4.0
The Craft Sequence continues to be one of the most original series going in fantasy — and, quietly, one of the most feminist.
elusivity's review
4.0
This one started off somewhat slowly. I puzzled over what the vignette about a young Kai and her sister Ley meant. Apparently, the loss of their father to the sea kicked off a slow dissolution to the family, with Kai staying in Kavekanvana and Ley heading off for her fortunes in Agdel Lex, the city that is three cities in one space.
This story seemed keyed to Ley, a secretive person who also harbor a great drive to ...something. I wasn't sure how much having lost a father can contribute to her closed-off personality (mentioned and emphasized throughout), nor why the family would drift apart so drastically. Not that the situation cannot arise, but I wish the family dynamic is a LOT more fleshed out. As it stood, Kai rarely if ever sees Ley, they don't understand or disclose anything true of intimate to one another Yet Kai will drag herself and a bunch of people to try and first extricate Ley from law, then from the world altering plan Ley created with the dastardly Alethia Vane (who is so evil, like Cruella de Ville evil, casually shoving pedestrians off the sidewalk as she passed, for no reason except she wanted to. What is the reason for her being so evil?!). They just have that inexplicable and wondrous sibling bond I guess.
This is a women's story; or rather, a story peopled by women. No important character is male, apart from a secondary character who is transgender male yet had sufficient experience with of being a woman that he bore children, and another who modded himself as a giant crocodile or something. The delver crew of Zeddig, Rayment, Gal, and Ley back in the days when she was dating Zeddig, ended up being 2 homosexual pairs. The ponderingly slow but brutal police/villain was a woman who punch and break necks and fed people to be tortured by her Lord the giant star Squid.
Inventive as always. Despite all my tiny nits, recommended highly!
This story seemed keyed to Ley, a secretive person who also harbor a great drive to ...something. I wasn't sure how much having lost a father can contribute to her closed-off personality (mentioned and emphasized throughout), nor why the family would drift apart so drastically. Not that the situation cannot arise, but I wish the family dynamic is a LOT more fleshed out. As it stood, Kai rarely if ever sees Ley, they don't understand or disclose anything true of intimate to one another Yet Kai will drag herself and a bunch of people to try and first extricate Ley from law, then from the world altering plan Ley created with the dastardly Alethia Vane (who is so evil, like Cruella de Ville evil, casually shoving pedestrians off the sidewalk as she passed, for no reason except she wanted to. What is the reason for her being so evil?!). They just have that inexplicable and wondrous sibling bond I guess.
This is a women's story; or rather, a story peopled by women. No important character is male, apart from a secondary character who is transgender male yet had sufficient experience with of being a woman that he bore children, and another who modded himself as a giant crocodile or something. The delver crew of Zeddig, Rayment, Gal, and Ley back in the days when she was dating Zeddig, ended up being 2 homosexual pairs. The ponderingly slow but brutal police/villain was a woman who punch and break necks and fed people to be tortured by her Lord the giant star Squid.
Inventive as always. Despite all my tiny nits, recommended highly!