Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence
My bouts of plague (this time: three weeks off in the last six because I literally got the flu the moment the vaccine was available) can be tracked by my Goodreads activity. This week brought to you by yet another damn cold and Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence books. Suffice to say I inhaled all six without taking a break to read anything else, which is rare for me and series.
Still a bit too out of it for a coherent review, but Reasons I Think People Would Enjoy Them:
Fantastic worldbuilding that’s not Western-centered. You can see the bits used (Dresediel Lex: mix of Mexico City and Los Angeles; Alikand: Baghdad and Silk Road cities; Kavekana: Hawaii and general Oceania; Iskari: exceedingly French; Camlaanders: taking the piss out of the British in a time-honoured way) but it’s all mixed up and shaken with new bits added.
Ecology themes! #2 does it the most directly (water crisis), but in the essence this is a world where our struggles of technology vs old ways are incorporated in Craftsmen (magicians) vs gods, which allows a farmer’s market to sock a corporation in the face.
Speaking of corporations, there’s a deep magic/spiritual power/money metaphor going on, which means the more powerful characters function in the world of multinational corporations, investment banks and international development with a tentacle twist. I love the fact legal trials are magical battles.
The writing style is a bit like a more serious Pratchett - he trusts the readers to be intelligent and get it, and sometimes you just have to put the book down and laugh.
Casual diversity. Every book has queer people, people of colour (fun thing: having actual gods meant the not!Aztecs crushed the conquistadores like a steamroller), offhand gender diversity. Not one of the mains in various books is a white guy - we have a very Slytherin black woman lawyer, a Native American corporate manager, his father the community leader and tradition-maintainer, likewise Slytherin white woman lawyer with a child soldier past, a vaguely-Arabic refugee girl, a Hawaiian investment manager/priestess (it’s complicated) who happens to be trans…
Did I mention Kai is awesome? I adore Kai. Tara, too. And the big gay skeleton CEO necromancer who sulks by sitting on the beach with froofy drinks, dresses fabulous and never cleans his room because he has nothing left to prove.
By my count in Two Serpents Rising, the first book set in not!Mexico City, there is one white person with lines in the whole book. She’s a pretentious artist lesbian activist who knows how to throw a punch, so I’ll give her a pass.
You know how people complain about it not being realistic that there’s only one queer person in a friend group? Ruin of Angels has a friend group of geeky lesbians that read very true.
And for books written by a white guy, stuff is treated rather well. No fetishisation or salaciousness (which has really put me off several male-written books with female POV characters lately). Sex scenes are elided, female gaze is written in a way that reads true, and descriptions of workplace abuse in the first book especially are very well done from the perspective of female characters. Class issues are addressed, which is rare in high fantasy or corporate thrillers.
Good relationship writing without hitting people over the head with it. I’m convinced Kai has an epic crush on Jax based on the fact that Jax working out is described from her POV as “radiant”, she decides she can’t pass as his girlfriend during a deception, and before going off to save the world she kisses his cheek “because she felt like kissing someone”.