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A review by _b_a_l_
Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone
5.0
Max Gladstone writes such fragile, badass and wonderfully human characters - be they witches, gods, gargoyles or undying animated skeletons.
This is particularly awesome when it comes to his female protagonists because as a whole the fantasy genre often suffers from cardboard cut-out women.
As a bonus Tara is my favourite character and Alt Coulumb is my favourite city.
Some of the most beautiful bits:
“Your once human Craftsmen, who style themselves masters of the universe, have slim regard for awe or wonder, for anything they cannot buy and sell. So deadly are they, even hope becomes a tool in their grip.”
God was in the smoke, and God was in his heart, and God was in the blood that burned through his veins and the air into which he exhaled, and others too, all through the city, a constant heartbeat. To live was to be loved was to burn.
We’re so alone, she thought. We touch one another too firmly and wound or break, or else we pull away. We tell stories in which we are lone noble heroes, until we stand face-to-face with a goddess and see something older and bigger than each of us because it is each of us, our souls touching, the subtle interaction at a distance of minds with minds, when we reach the edge of loneliness and teeter uncertain at the brink.
Fangmouthswallowinggroundingoutgearsanddigestedtopulpbyathicketofthorncurledshapes to wake from the dark dream of herself in a well-appointed office where, told to sit, she sat Walkforwardtosomethingyouthinkisfreedomdownahalllinedwithrazorsangledin and with every step the razors near, halfway down the hall and they press against your skin, dimpling flesh, and you can’t turn back because the light beyond the door at the end of the hall is so beautiful you could fall into it forever, at last, happy—there’s a monster behind you but you’re not afraid of monsters, even ones like this sculpted from childhood centipede fears, hooked legs too large for that enormous body and moving fast, a primal terror that barely makes sense because when save in the farthest mouse-shadows of history did your ancestors have to fear spiders? No, monsters do not scare you. But to face them, to defend yourself, would be to turn from the light at the end of the razor hall, which you cannot do. Your life waits there for you. Light washes you like water, like the tears you weep, like—Mom—rare as a father’s approving smile, it’s there and only your own skin is stopping you so you step into the razors and the razors bite and you scream, you bleed, they’re inside you, cold lines rasping bone, but you’ve done this to yourself and having come so far what’s another step or scream?
“The world is breaking. The Wars made cracks, and we have broken it further. Our work turns soil to ash and water to poison. Even as we push ourselves to the brink of doom, beings of a size you cannot comprehend watch us with many eyes across vast gulfs of space. The universe is larger than this petty island of rock. As if we needed an external threat: this planet will not last forever, and when it dies we must be elsewhere. We have not done the work we need. Gods slow us with compromise. Small minds see only small context: local politics and squabbles of history. It takes genius to see large enough to build the tools to break the world, not like a man breaks a mirror, but like a chick breaks an eggshell. And great minds keep their secrets close.”
This is particularly awesome when it comes to his female protagonists because as a whole the fantasy genre often suffers from cardboard cut-out women.
As a bonus Tara is my favourite character and Alt Coulumb is my favourite city.
Some of the most beautiful bits:
“Your once human Craftsmen, who style themselves masters of the universe, have slim regard for awe or wonder, for anything they cannot buy and sell. So deadly are they, even hope becomes a tool in their grip.”
God was in the smoke, and God was in his heart, and God was in the blood that burned through his veins and the air into which he exhaled, and others too, all through the city, a constant heartbeat. To live was to be loved was to burn.
We’re so alone, she thought. We touch one another too firmly and wound or break, or else we pull away. We tell stories in which we are lone noble heroes, until we stand face-to-face with a goddess and see something older and bigger than each of us because it is each of us, our souls touching, the subtle interaction at a distance of minds with minds, when we reach the edge of loneliness and teeter uncertain at the brink.
Fangmouthswallowinggroundingoutgearsanddigestedtopulpbyathicketofthorncurledshapes to wake from the dark dream of herself in a well-appointed office where, told to sit, she sat Walkforwardtosomethingyouthinkisfreedomdownahalllinedwithrazorsangledin and with every step the razors near, halfway down the hall and they press against your skin, dimpling flesh, and you can’t turn back because the light beyond the door at the end of the hall is so beautiful you could fall into it forever, at last, happy—there’s a monster behind you but you’re not afraid of monsters, even ones like this sculpted from childhood centipede fears, hooked legs too large for that enormous body and moving fast, a primal terror that barely makes sense because when save in the farthest mouse-shadows of history did your ancestors have to fear spiders? No, monsters do not scare you. But to face them, to defend yourself, would be to turn from the light at the end of the razor hall, which you cannot do. Your life waits there for you. Light washes you like water, like the tears you weep, like—Mom—rare as a father’s approving smile, it’s there and only your own skin is stopping you so you step into the razors and the razors bite and you scream, you bleed, they’re inside you, cold lines rasping bone, but you’ve done this to yourself and having come so far what’s another step or scream?
“The world is breaking. The Wars made cracks, and we have broken it further. Our work turns soil to ash and water to poison. Even as we push ourselves to the brink of doom, beings of a size you cannot comprehend watch us with many eyes across vast gulfs of space. The universe is larger than this petty island of rock. As if we needed an external threat: this planet will not last forever, and when it dies we must be elsewhere. We have not done the work we need. Gods slow us with compromise. Small minds see only small context: local politics and squabbles of history. It takes genius to see large enough to build the tools to break the world, not like a man breaks a mirror, but like a chick breaks an eggshell. And great minds keep their secrets close.”