Dead Hand Rule

eBook, 432 pages

Published by Tor Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-29037-3
Goodreads:: 222377053

From the co-author of the viral New York Times bestseller This Is How You Lose the Time War....

Great powers clash and epic action unfolds in book three of the Craft Wars series.

The time until the end-times is ticking away. If the world has any hope of surviving, it must come together now.

The foundations of the world are quaking. Markets crash and cities burn as a new god struggles to be born. Ancient hunters skitter across space, eager and hungry. Dark forces conspire to undermine anything or anyone who could stand in their way. Divided, the world of the craft is certain to fall.

In Alt Coulomb, the great powers of the world gather in conference. Empires, divinities, and corporate concerns take seats at the table. Untold wealth and inexhaustible might is on offer, but coalition will not come easily. Can these forces …

From the co-author of the viral New York Times bestseller This Is How You Lose the Time War....

Great powers clash and epic action unfolds in book three of the Craft Wars series.

The time until the end-times is ticking away. If the world has any hope of surviving, it must come together now.

The foundations of the world are quaking. Markets crash and cities burn as a new god struggles to be born. Ancient hunters skitter across space, eager and hungry. Dark forces conspire to undermine anything or anyone who could stand in their way. Divided, the world of the craft is certain to fall.

In Alt Coulomb, the great powers of the world gather in conference. Empires, divinities, and corporate concerns take seats at the table. Untold wealth and inexhaustible might is on offer, but coalition will not come easily. Can these forces come together to save the world? And if they do, what parts of it will they choose to save, and for whom?

1 edition

enne📚 reviewed Dead Hand Rule by Max Gladstone (Craft Wars, #3)

4 stars

Dead Hand Rule is third (of four) books in Max Gladstone's Craft Wars sequence. Interestingly to me, this book works a lot better for me than Wicked Problems did.

Their power might be vast, but it was bound, as surely as any djinn’s: to wield it they had to be themselves, and they could not act in ways unlike them. If we let them sit there growling at one another across conference tables, that’s all they’ll do, until the stars fall down.

I've seen Gladstone pitch this book as featuring "wizard Davos", which sounds like it shouldn't be good, but somehow works. The heart of this series is economics (via magic metaphor) and this book features large powers in the world coming together, but not actually able to work with each other to stop impending doom. The end of the world is coming, and they're all …

Dead Hand Rule is third (of four) books in Max Gladstone's Craft Wars sequence. Interestingly to me, this book works a lot better for me than Wicked Problems did.

Their power might be vast, but it was bound, as surely as any djinn’s: to wield it they had to be themselves, and they could not act in ways unlike them. If we let them sit there growling at one another across conference tables, that’s all they’ll do, until the stars fall down.

I've seen Gladstone pitch this book as featuring "wizard Davos", which sounds like it shouldn't be good, but somehow works. The heart of this series is economics (via magic metaphor) and this book features large powers in the world coming together, but not actually able to work with each other to stop impending doom. The end of the world is coming, and they're all working to try to get a short-term or long-term advantage over the other rather than to try to stop the invasion of spider capitalism gods.

Some of what also worked in this book is my own expectations. I loved the narrow character focus of Dead Country and its themes. I was unprepared for the second book's extended Marvel Universe shift into bringing every character we've ever known onto the page. This was also a shift from all of the previous Craft Sequence books, which tended to be more self-contained. In any case, I was more prepared for what the scope of the third book would be, but I also feel like it was more tightly written. The focus felt much more on Tara and Kai as primary point of view characters, and interspersed others as needed.

Subjectively, it felt like characters had a little bit more room to breathe rather than be pulled by the madcap plot. I think some of this is the the plot all takes place in and around Alt Columb (which is where the first Craft Sequence book in publication order takes place). All the players of interest are already in the same place, rather than jumping around the world and picking up additional parts of the cast.

All in all, I quite enjoyed it and am deeply looking forward to the final book in the sequence to see what comes.

Small things I really enjoyed about this book that I'll list without any context: * the Donnie and Gav comedy routine * fucking Eberhardt Jax * Denovo's machinations coming back much more strongly here * Elayne Ex Machina * Abelard coming into his own too * nonexistent Temoc/Kopil shippers eating well

(Also a shout out to the Hidden Schools blog which has a lot of series analysis, but especially has a great "story so far" summation prior to this book.)