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@Tak@reading.taks.garden I wish bookwyrm had better fields for editor / illustrator so that it didn't make it look like Litany for a Broken World was written by Karen Conlin

I guess I could re-add them all in a different order??

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.)

This book was not for me. Maybe I was in the wrong space for reading it, but it felt like YA (derogatory). Everything felt a little too thin and pulled along by a plot. Folks who are at odds with each other resolve those feelings too quickly or in ways that feel unearned. (Especially feelings around Alekhai and Sijara both.)

There were a lot (a lot) of fight scenes. To me a good fight scene is like a good sex scene--there needs to be some character development driving it or I'm going to be bored. Many of these fell flat for me, but positively I really liked the one where Fen meets Alekhai for the first time, because there's so much going on emotionally for her there.

The book has so much intriguing drive-by worldbuilding, but none of it feels connected to the whole. Declaration ceremonies for names and genders come up and are never mentioned again. The world is full of nanites? Undetectable alien neural chips?! The Accusers could have been been building infrastructure and teleporting food the whole time? Resurrected people are supposed to come back not quite the same, but this never happens (emotionally or mentally)?

I was really intrigued by the idea of the ecologically failing Newearth, and the capital letters of the Makers, Accusers, and Executors who constructed the situation and are still present. Unfortunately, they are all ultimately set dressing for the rebellion against the king who must die, and none of it truly gets fleshed out to any satisfying degree.

The fantasy politics of this world also felt a bit short. The word anarchism is only used once as a pejorative, and the replacement for the titular king is the glory of democracy. With minimal spoilers, the "mini boss" that must be faced before the "final boss" is group infighting. I'm not sure if I had a specific desire from this novel, but I was hoping there'd be something more weird, more speculative, more interesting. Maybe it's just me, but this kind of arc is not enough for me these days (and democracy doesn't really feel like the shiniest of destinations either).

Minorly, I saw a blurb that Alekhai is supposed to be trans-coded, but I'm not sure I see it. Is it just because everybody says he's so beautiful (as all of my trans friends are)? Is it that he says he would have used a randomizer for his declaration ceremony if he could? I would credit this more if I felt like it came up in any other way.

I don't like to complain about a book so much, but sometimes I have to articulate all the things that didn't work in order to understand my own feelings. A story about found family and the destruction of empire should have resonated with me a lot more deeply. I don't feel like this book was bad more than I was just disappointed--it didn't cohere for me and live up to what I hoped it could be.

(This was the #SFFBookClub pick for February 2026.)

I always enjoy Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle stories. There's something about the idea of monks going around and collecting knowledge and stories that manages to always be compelling.

A Mouthful of Dust is a short novella centered on food, survival, and secrets that don't want to be revealed. It did not dislodge Mammoths at the Gates as my favorite Singing Hills book, but it was still an enjoyable snack.

Thanks as always go to my agent, Diana Fox, who told me back in 2020 that maybe the world wasn’t ready for famine and eating babies. Then in 2024, she said, “Okay, they may be ready now,” and here we are.

Along with having a recipe for curry, I was amused at some of the author's notes at the end of the book.