Dead Country by Max Gladstone centers around Tara Abernathy, not a witch, a user of the Craft. The village where she was raised was afraid of her abilities and chased her away but now she has returned for her father's funeral.
I enjoyed the world building and the way Craft is used. There were a bunch of really interesting concepts and for the most part I really liked the book.
What I had a hard time with was the incredibly abrupt ending.

My head is still spinning!

Not having read any of the previous books in the Craft Sequence, I fell into this super-intricate world and characters head first, and I didn't come up for air until the last page. Every time there was a flashback or a mention to Tara's past I was mesmerized and wanted to immediately read that book, and that one, and that one, and sure, it made for a dizzying reading experience but an overall great one. Gladstone's prose is, obviously highly accomplished and intense (I knew as much from Last Exit and from This Is How You Lose the Time War) and Tara Abernathy is a complicated character I definitely want to get to know better.

I'm sure readers who have already gone through the previous Craft Sequence books will have a much easier ride, but I don't regret using Dead Country as a starting point!

“Dead Country” is the first volume in Max Gladstone’s Craft War Trilogy which, in turn, is part of the Craft Sequence of books (to be honest I don’t know if that’s the name of the world or just the first few books, but who cares? Not me!). The real question after you finish the first book of any trilogy is: do you want to immediately read the next book?

Yes, yes I do. Of course, it isn’t available just yet but I am patient (waiting is hard, as Daniel Tiger tells us).

If you had asked me the question after reading the first half of the book I wouldn’t have been so sure. Part of the joy of the Craft Sequence to me is seeing all the clever ways Gladstone replaces things with magic and this novel is about many things but certainly not contract magic between companies (see other entries in the series).

This book covers the central character revisiting her roots and burying her father. Of course, as you might be able to guess, things get complicated and secrets are uncovered, the world is threatened, and the next book is setup with a variety of intriguing developments dangled in front of the reader.

Would I recommend this as the starting point of this overall series? Not really, but I would recommend you check out the series if you haven’t already… and if you have you should totally read this book!

Dead Country is the latest book in Max Gladstone's "Craft Sequence" series and the first book in his "Craft Wars" trilogy that is meant to conclude his work in the series. The Craft Sequence, one of my favorite series over the last few years, features a fantasy world where magic is based upon law and economics, with gods essentially being corporations - so for example, the main character Craftspeople, who use law, logical arguments, and economic principles to do what is essentially magic: so for example, if a god is a being whose power comes from offerings and beliefs of its worshippers and who can die if it expend too much of that power such that it has none left, well in that case resurrecting that god is essentially not just necromancy, but bankruptcy. I'm making this sound drier than it actualy is, with Gladstone combining the concepts in such a way that its always fascinating and makes sense, featuring really great characters (often queer and people of color), and some very serious themes that are dealt with in ways that are usually very fun. It's been a really balanced series six books in, and the wait for this new book over the last few years has been long, even if Gladstone has written some good stuff in the interim outside the series.

Dead Country is an interesting return to the series. The book is very short, the shortest in the series by far, and is basically a fantasy Western using Craft concepts and loses a good amount of the fun and humor that colored some of the earlier books. At the same time, the story still works really well, as it features one of the series' old protagonists, Tara Abernathy (a main protagonist in Three Parts Dead and Four Roads Cross and a minor character in The Ruin of Angels), as she goes home to the town that cast her out with torches and pitchforks upon the death of her father....only to find a young orphaned woman there with a natural gift for the Craft, and raiders touched by a Craft-related Curse making more and more incursions on the town. The result is a story that works generally well, except for a final act reveal really, and deals touchingly with themes of home and what it means to a person, as well as the value of people among prejudice and systems, over the course of its plot. It really works for the most part even if the tone of the book is kind of different.

NOTE: The Blurb for this book advertises Dead Country as the first of a trilogy concluding the Craft Sequence and also as "the perfect entry point to this incomparable world." I would disagree - this book relies heavily on knowledge of the prior Craft works, particularly Three Parts Dead and Four Roads Cross, where our protagonist was introduced and to a lesser extent Ruin of Angels (also featuring her). Readers who go into this book blind are likely going to be very confused and missing some of the important character background that I had, which made things have such impact here in this book. So I would not recommend starting the series here, and this review is based upon the reader having some foreknowledge of the series.



---------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------
Tara Abernathy had established a life for herself as in-house Craftswoman to the God and Goddess of Alt Coulumb. She had friends, allies, and support there....and oh yeah, a big problem: the beings coming from beyond to consume the world. She didn't think much about where she came from all those years ago, to the Badlands town of Edgemont near the Crack in the World which once chased her out with torches and pitchforks.

And then she received mail from her mother, informer her that her father had died. And so, heartbroken, Tara embarks on her own back to Edgemont, to look back on the one she loved that she has lost, who she left behind without a word.

But when Tara arrives in the badlands, everything goes wrong at once, and not in ways she expected. Raiders, infected by a curse left behind from Craft used in the God Wars, are strangely more active and powerful, and had destroyed a small outpost outside of town...an outpost where Tara finds a lone young woman named Dawn as the last survivor. But Dawn is not just a mere survivor, but a girl naturally gifted in the Craft, and Tara finds herself doing the unthinkable - trying to teach Dawn how to control her power before she destroys herself and everything around her.

It's a task that should be beyond Tara's capabilities in normal times, and here in Edgemont, with people who are afraid of the craft and willing to chase her out of town because of it, it should be impossible. But with the raiders coming in force for Edgemont and all the people Tara left behind, Tara will be forced to not only train Dawn, but to reorient herself as a leader within the town, or else her father's sacrifice will have been for naught, and Tara's guilt will be without end....to say nothing of her life....
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Dead Country takes a couple of familiar setups and puts a few craft spins on it. There's the Western setup - the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven setup, where an outsider comes to a town besieged by dangerous outsiders and despite mistrust and enmity, manages to organize them into a defense that saves the day. There's the unlikely mentor of magician setup, where a person whose training went poorly and dangerously has to train a young neophyte in how to use their power on their own, with that young neophyte making potentially dangerous mistakes even as the mentor tries to teach them better than they were taught. And then there's the setup of the unwilling return to one's homeland, where a person who escaped from a hometown that wouldn't accept her is forced back by circumstance to confront the demons of her past and what really matters to them as their own home. There's a lot of familiar concepts here, but Gladstone plays with them really interestingly, with great help from Tara's excellent character and the setup of the Craft.

Tara remains an absolute star, even here where she's given far more to handle in terms of carrying the story than ever before - we never leave her perspective throughout this entire book and no other characters ever jump into the protagonist role at times, unlike many other Craft books. Burdened already with the knowledge of monsters from beyond coming to end the world if they aren't stopped, a task that seems impossible without Tara taking monstrous steps of her own, Tara finds herself instead returning to the place she was driven out of in Edgemont, where the villagers all fear and hate her for simply being who she is - and her own power. Years ago, Tara might've taken that as a reason to make her trip back home simple and quick - go mourn her beloved father, for whom she feels tremendous guilt at not being there to save his life, and then leave - but now, after what happened to her at the Hidden Schools and after spending years in Alt Coulumb and elsewhere gaining friends and learning to care for others, Tara isn't simply able to abandon these people once she sees the monsters knocking on their door. Even more so when her father sacrificed himself to save these people. And so Tara finds herself struggling to save a people who fear and distrust what she is, which is even more difficult because the Craft isn't some random magic, but a power based upon understanding who people are and taking advantage of their faith and coordination.

Meanwhile, Tara also finds herself struggling with finding herself as a mentor to Dawn, a young woman with natural gifts with the Craft but no one to support her or teach her otherwise. Tara sees a lot of herself in Dawn, as a person cast out with nowhere to go, and Tara knows that if she doesn't train Dawn, Dawn will wind up dead as a victim of her own power. And yet, the only methods Tara knows of teaching the Craft are the dark ones once used on her at the Hidden Schools, where her professor exploited her and other students, treated them like tools and manipulated them, and left them either an empty shell or utterly devastated and on the run - even her healthier mentor from earlier in the Craft Sequence (Elaine) used and manipulated Tara in the course of her mentorship. And so Tara is utterly terrified of doing the same thing to Dawn as a matter of not knowing how else to train her....and is desperate to find a way to teach Dawn to be better than Tara herself is. This of course isn't made better by Dawn, having had only bad experiences with others who fear her power, finding it hard to care about or find worth in the Edgemont villagers who hate and fear the Craft and its users...something Tara is trying to teach her otherwise about.

These character arcs, as well as others involved here - there's a romance between Tara and a local villager she grew up with who isn't prejudiced or afraid that works very well as well - combine to form a plot that is short but works excellently in pace, momentum, and themes. Tara tries her hardest, but she still isn't perfect and will screw things up, and the conflict that results is excellently done from beginning to end (mostly). And the plot and character arcs really work well in hitting themes of what truly "Home" is - and how much of one's past Home can one truly leave behind - and (like other craft books) the power of identifying one's self and others, and the danger of creating legal and economic systems (in this case, magical such systems) that can obtain a life of their own and can swallow and strangle everything within it, even without meaning to. There's a lot of good stuff here explicitly and metaphorically and Gladstone's writing is excellent at teasing it out.

That said, the book has a few knocks on it here, largely stemming from how short it is I think. First off, the book relies on one reveal in its final act - with a character referenced a few times here but not explicitly part of this book (but being from prior books in the series) suddenly being a huge part of events in what feels like a very random coincidence that wasn't set up very well. There's also a final act twist that is foreshadowed, but feels so abrupt to truly work for me, and that twist is gonna be a major part in the rest of this series. Finally, one of the plot arcs features the book avoiding the typical way that trope plays out for most of the book - to my great satisfaction - before indeed taking that typical plot turn in the end, which isn't a bad thing, but it just disappointed me a little since I hoped we'd go in a different direction. Not really a bad mark there, just a personal annoyance.

However, despite that last paragraph, Dead Country is very very well written, and works really well with its characters and themes once you accept those reveals/twists for what they are. I am excited to see how the trilogy continues and the Craft Sequence ends.

This was okay. It took me a bit to get into it but I didn’t hate it. It took me a lot longer to understand the world and, to be honest, I still don’t think I fully understand the world the story takes place in. There wasn’t much world building which I think would have been helpful to understand how everything worked. I mean, there was some explanations throughout as Tara taught but I personally didn’t find it to be enough that I could actually really understand. Overall, it wasn’t bad but I don’t think that this is really the type of book for me.

Decades after being driven away from her hometown as a child, Tara Abernathy has resurrected gods, fought monsters, and saved the day on multiple locations. But when she returns to Edgemont for a family funeral, Tara finds the town under assault by evil remnants of old Craft workings and must work with an old friend and a young magic user to save the people who once tried to kill her.

Dead Country saw me coming, and laid out a series of tropes and vibes I (mostly) love that worked well together. At the broadest strokes it's a western - the gunmagicslinger comes to an isolated town, and must save it from the raiders. There's a bit of From Dusk Till Dawn (with demon zombies instead of vampires), a bit of Hellboy, a bit of Mad Max, and even a bit of a Hallmark movie. At one point, I was even convinced that the successful city woman back home in the small town she resented would wind up finding love and settling down, if only because Tara kept insisting so hard that she was going to leave.

But the strongest connection (and for me, the most important) was to Discworld, specifically Night Watch. This influence plays out in several ways, including the overall vibe of "this is a story universe where powerful beings regularly threaten the world's existence so the current events may seem small by consideration, but these people deserve protection, too." There are also meditations on power (as Tara becomes a teacher and reflects on the ways her instructors used and abused their students) and the ethical obligations people have to each other just for being people (lines like "we've failed each other a lot, this town and me. Someone has to suck it up and do the work," and "what do we become, when we see people as things to be owned or traded?" especially bring Vimes and Granny Weatherwax to mind). So while the setting may initially feel very different from the previous Craft books, this turns out to be a way of saying that the big problems of the world need to be confronted everywhere and not just the "important" places.

You can’t go home again. I haven’t read any of the other books in this series. I know they’re well reviewed but so many books so little time…. Despite not having read other books in the series I was able to follow this one just fine. It’s solid stand alone. For me it was a three star book, it was fine but not wonderful. I suspect for an author/series fan it’s a four star book. More than good enough to keep the author on my I should read this person list.

It's been a long time since Tara Abernathy was a young adept, finding her way in the world. Now Tara is a powerful practitioner, ally to gods and rulers, and ready to take on whatever Craft throws at her. Her father's death draws her back to her hometown, where she must confront the reasons she left, the horrors left over from the Godwars, and the people she left behind. In addition to picking up an apprentice of her own, Tara finds herself protecting her town and fighting against Blight-ridden raiders. For fans of the Craft Sequence, Dead Country is not to be missed. Engaging and exciting, this installment brings back elements from the previous novels and hints at a growing conflict to come.

Han pasado ya algunos años desde que leí Three Parts Dead y caí bajo el influjo de Max Gladstone, así que cuando supe que iba escribir una trilogía para dar un gran final a su Craft Sequence, supe que no iba a dejar escapar la oportunidad.


Dead Country sigue los pasos de uno de los personajes más queridos de toda la historia, Tara Abernathy, en su vuelta a los orígenes por el fallecimiento de su padre. Todo este camino de regreso a su hogar, del que no salió precisamente en loor de multitudes, lo utiliza el autor para hacer una reflexión sobre el sentimiento de pertenencia y de familiaridad. Seremos testigos de como alguien que aparentemente lo ha conseguido todo en la vida sigue teniendo puntos débiles donde los tuvo en su infancia pero también recuerdos imperecederos que le servirán para anclarse en la realidad.

Por el camino se encontrará a una joven que le recuerda poderosamente a sí misma en su juventud, alguien con mucho poder y poco control sobre él que necesita una guía para no perderse definitivamente. Aquí asistiremos también al debate interior sobre cuál es la mejor manera de formar a un pupilo, porque muchas veces repetimos, a sabiendas o no, los errores que sufrimos en el pasado. Me parece muy atractiva disquisición moral sobre las elecciones de aprendizaje, aunque para otros lectores pueda parecer tediosa.

Se nota que Dead Country es el inicio de una trilogía porque sienta las bases de lo que será la amenaza que pende sobre el mundo en el resto de los libros, aunque afortunadamente se puede disfrutar como un todo, siempre nos deja con el gusanillo de saber qué pasará a continuación.

En el aspecto mágico, Gladstone utiliza la figura del tutor y el aprendiz para volver a dar un barniz sobre su estupendo sistema mágico, ya que pretende que esta trilogía sirva tanto como colofón para toda la secuencia como puerta de entrada a los lectores que no conozcan las seis entregas anteriores. En este sentido creo que logra un difícil equilibrio pero sin duda sus lectores habituales disfrutarán más de las referencias a otros personajes y hechos de las novelas anteriores.

No puedo dejar de recomendar un libro que da comienzo al fin de una saga que comencé a leer hace 10 años y del que he disfrutado enormemente.

This book is the beginning of the Craft Wars trilogy, which marks the end of the Craft Sequence. I’ve been a fan of the Craft books for a long time, and I am *pumped* for the concluding trilogy after reading this.

Insofar as the Craft Sequence has a protagonist, it’s Tara Abernathy, and she’s front and center in this book. She’s on the way to her hometown for her father’s funeral when she picks up something she never expected: an apprentice. She comes across a small town that’s been attacked by the same raiders who have been attacking her hometown and killed her father (people living in the Badlands, twisted by the leftover energies from the God Wars) and is able to rescue a girl before she is taken. The girl, Dawn, has some native abilities in using the Craft, and Tara reluctantly takes her on as a student.

There are three threads woven together in this book. The primary one is a journey of self-discovery on Tara’s part. She’s returning to the hometown that she ran away from as a girl, and that drove her out when she returned after attending, and being cast out of, the Hidden Schools. Who she was and who she is are a challenge to reconcile, made more so by Dawn, who reminds Tara of herself in ways she is distinctly uncomfortable with. Dawn makes Tara confront not only her childhood and her present, but her own training. The abuse, trauma, and eventual revolt that got Tara expelled. I love a journey of self-discovery, and this is an excellent one.

The secondary thread, though the one with most of the “plot,” as it were, is Tara working to defend her town against the raiders. There’s a lot of influence here from stories like the Seven Samurai/the Magnificent Seven.

The third thread is almost a background, but it’s got a lot of weight to it. Tara has learned, over the course of the Craft Sequence proper, that … *something* … is coming. Something(s) big, alien, and very hungry are making their slow way towards her world, crossing the vast distances between the stars. Tara doesn’t know what they are, or when they’re going to get there, but she knows it’ll be bad, and that the world isn’t ready. Nothing like a pending eldritch horror-induced apocalypse to focus the mind.

I do not have a single criticism about this book, with the possible exception of this: it’s been long enough since I read the Craft Sequence proper that I think I’m going to give them a re-read. I’m thinking I’ll do so in chronological order, rather than publication order, just for a change. I am extremely eager for the next book, and I want to be prepared.

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Dead Country by Max Gladstone is the newest book set in the world of the Craft. Tara is returning to her hometown to attend her father’s funeral and we watch her struggle through grief, anger, and fear along the way. Spoilers - I can’t recommend it enough.

Tara, a familiar face for returning readers, is complicated. She’s strong but simultaneously afraid and grappling with the loss of her father. We follow along, living in her head through this, experiencing the complications of these emotions. It is a testament to Mr. Gladstone’s writing that he’s able to do this in such a powerful way that left me on the edge of tears after certain passages. We are also introduced to a new character Dawn who is leaving behind what seems to have been a deeply abusive and traumatic life on a homestead. She takes the role of a type of student to Tara and through this tie we see the two women break and heal. The idea of trauma passed down between teacher/students is explored. Tara’s teachers at the Hidden Schools were of the worst kind and she is working to be better teacher than what she experienced.

The plot itself is masterfully woven. Max Gladstone manages to tie Tara’s history into the weave of her home town, her actions so many years in the past still having living ramifications in ways you will not expect in the present. Then he manages to take our characters to their limits and nearly remake them for the fight ahead. I was constantly impressed with the way he knit all this together. For new readers and returning ones I feel this is a great jumping in point.

My only caveat for this book is that new readers may take some time to get used to the world and magic. The contract based magic that deals heavily in Necromancy can be difficult to follow at first. But if you stick through it new readers will definitely find a lot to love here. Returning readers as well will love this story, and the setup to follow the ending of the Craft Sequence. This is a huge recommendation from me for fans of the genre.

5 out of 5 Glyph Tattoos

I really enjoyed this one. I’ve liked all of Gladstone’s books that I’ve read – he has a turn for a literary style and an intelligent presentation of ideas in his work that I find very appealing. In some ways this was ‘cosy Gladstone’ and that was fine with me. That said, I have not read the Craft Sequence yet so you might want to find a better informed reviewer on that score! Overall a great fantasy story.

Leave it to Gladstone to make a liar out of me. I've been saying for a few years now that "I don't really read fantasy anymore," and honestly, it's pretty true, but then I went and finished Dead Country in two sittings. Maybe Gladstone shouldn't count either, because I'm a fan of his Craft series, although I feel he should, because still being totally honest here, I could not get into anything he's done since then. In other words, there's some reviewer bias here, but it might be a wash. This, though; this was lovely, just absolutely satisfying.

Dead Country doesn't have the frenetic pace or sarcastic banter of many urban fantasies; it's more like a book you cozy up with on a rainy day. Full of reflection, it feels a little like an old person's book (thinking of both readers and authors), although apparently, it's the first in a new trilogy in the Craft universe, so I'm not entirely sure where this contemplative tone comes from. Well, I have my suspicions: the pandemic, of course; Gladstone becoming a new father; his return to writing with pen and paper; and no doubt, being in his thirties all absolutely have something to do with it.

"There, on the sidewalk, in her small apartment, in boardrooms and at cocktail bars, the memories felt safe, like a story that was over."

If there was one theme this book has, its that you can't go home again, even when you do. Since Tara, the protagonist, literally left as a teen with a mob and pitchforks behind her, it is actually a good thing that she's not going home to the same overt hostility. It is hard for her or anyone else to see it in that light, however, as she is home for a funeral.

"Her memories of Edgemont were memories of distance, difference of being what she, a kid without much experience of hate, thought was hated. They sensed her as a thing apart, and they'd had two options, as any body has for a splinter lodged so deep: to consume the outsider, or reject it."

I loved the plotting, the inversion of the hero's quest. The action is slow in building, and I think for those who are looking for action-adventure, this will be a disappointment. This is deeply introspective narration, and every conflict, every encounter, every person brings back echoes of feelings and memories.

"Emotions formed like rocks, by layers, under pressure. On top of the first giddy flash of purpose she had felt when she took up the Craft, as a girl, she'd pressed years of work, sweat, mastery, joy, exhaustion, heartbreak and defeat, subversion, success, despair, self0hatred, all lithified into something she'd call love."

But she doesn't have the luxury of time. On the way to her hometown, she rescues a woman from an attack, and then discovers her village home is fortifying itself against the same raiders. Will she aid the people that cast her out?

The tone is fascinatingly philosophical, and when I say that its an 'old man's book,' I say it with a nod to the old man within me as well. I feel like Gladstone's been peeking at my reading list, looking at my readings on mindfulness, theories of the mind and existentialism.

"You can see which ball they're going to grab before they know they've decided. We think we know our mind. But we're just riding on a raft in an ocean in a storm, arguing which way the waves should take us."

For those new to the Craft series, I thought that more than all the other books, this lays out the theory of Craft, gods and the ordering of soul-stuff, so I don't think this is a bad place to begin at all. In fact, it may be the most comprehensible place to begin.

It's a sneaky, thoughtful, deeply satisfying book. I can absolutely see where it won't work for people. Read if you want some emotionally complex, person-centered fantasy (as opposed to a cluster of narratives, such a distressing phenomenon) with a really intriguing world view. I read it in two days. Honestly, I would have tried for one day, but I have this job situation...

Well. Now I'm all excited about fantasy again. Or at least re-reading The Craft sequence.



Many thanks to Netgalley and to Tor/Forge for the advance reader copy. My own opinions, naturally. You think these are the opinions of someone who is paid? And you know, advance copy, quotes may change and all that. But now you get the flavor of the writing.

This was not for me, too slow for it's page count and I didn't realize it was an urban/modern fantasy as opposed to a more traditional one, which is on me, but I can think of a LOT of people that will love this, I just wasn't one of them.

I love the Craft series, and this is a really, really good Craft story.

It's also quite unlike any of the other Craft books... although I should add that it's been long enough since I actually read the first books that I had to go double-check that "Tara Abernathy" was actually a name I recognised. Which tells us two things:
a) sometimes I have a bad memory, but actually that can be good with things like this because it means I get to enjoy them in a different way, and
b) it means that you can definitely read this without having read the other books. The facts around what the Craft is (a variation on magic) and what the world is like (frankly a bit screwy) are all obvious enough from the get-go, as is Tara's personality and general background.

Having said that it's a really good Craft story, it's actually quite different from the other books (ok, maybe from what I remember...). They are set in cities, and with high stakes in play, and quite an assortment of characters, as well as a fair bit of politics/ legal wrangling. This, though... the setting here is super compressed. Tara has come home, to the small and suspicious town she got away from on the edge of the Badlands. And pretty much the entire story is set right there, in that town: there's Tara's arrival on foot, and then an excursion into the Badlands, and that's it. No bright lights. No 'I'm the ruler and I say so'. There's a threat to her town, and even though most of them don't really know what to think of her and some have treated her badly, that's not something Tara is going to put up with.

Gladstone's sense of place is wonderful, and makes me wonder whether he's spent some time in a small town himself. There's all the cliches, of course, about small towns and the lack of privacy, the suspicion of difference and outsiders - my Nan moved to her husband's small town when they married, at about age 19, and 60 years later there were still some people who regarded her as an incomer. And Gladstone uses some of those tropes, but not at all in a mean way. He shows it as the reality it is: that those aspects can be both damaging and comforting. That secrets can still exist, for good or ill, and that outsiders can still find a place - but it might have a cost. So yeah, I loved that aspect of the story a lot.

In fact, I really liked this whole novel. Tara is complex and conflicted and also highly competent. The other characters are distinct and generally interesting - I'm intrigued to see what happens next with Dawn, Tara's maybe-protege, in particular. For all that it's set in a small town, and there's no suggestion that the events here will have a significant impact on the major centres of power (well... mostly...), there's also no suggestion that it's not important to deal with the raiders and secure the town's safety. Too often big stories ignore towns like this one.

Think I'm going to go back and read the Craft again now.

Tara Abernathy is back in Dead Country, a new Craft Sequence book that starts the Craft Wars trilogy. She’s returning home to bury her father she hasn’t seen since she was driven away from her village with pitchforks. It’s not a happy homecoming, but she’s not planning to stay.

Fate has other plans. The village is in Badlands and under siege by undead people affected by a curse. Half out of duty, half out of defiance, Tara decides to save the village. It would be easier if she weren’t affected by the curse herself.

Helping her are her new apprentice, Dawn, whom she’s saved from the cursed raiders, and Connor, a childhood friend who might become more. Dawn is talented, filled with the need to learn, and infinitely angry. Not a good combination when they face an enemy neither them had believed possible.

This was an excellent start for a trilogy that will take the series to a new direction. It’s not like the previous books in the series, which had a complicated mystery at their core that were solved with Craft. This is about family, trauma and forgiveness. It’s not quite as exciting or mind-boggling as the original series, but enjoyable. The Craft isn’t very complicated, so people new to the series might be able to enjoy the book too, but it’s best read after the original series.

Dead Country by Max Gladstone

Pros: interesting characters, some good fight scenes, great magic system

Cons:

Tara Abernathy never intended to return to the town that ran her out as a teenager. But she can’t miss her father’s funeral. Nor can she turn away the young, untrained woman with craft abilities. Nor can she leave her old hometown at the mercy of Raiders and the curse that drives them.

This is the first book of the Craft Wars series. While it comes after the 6 books of the Craft Sequence, and focuses on Tara Abernathy (who features in several of the Sequence books), it’s designed as a new entry point and gives you all the background you need in order to enjoy this book.

It’s a much smaller book in scope than the Sequence books, dealing with a small cast as it takes place in a small town in the middle of a desert. Tara’s forced to revisit her past, not just the town and its antagonism towards her, but also her time at school to know how to teach and what information to give.

The craft is always a delight, with its mix of occultism and the arguments of law. There are some good fight scenes.

This is a book about coming to terms with your past and deciding who you want to be going forward. If you haven’t read Max Gladstone, this is a good place to start.

I have not read the Craft Sequence series by Max Gladstone and still absolutely loved this novel as a new reader. This is the first volume in a new trilogy and I cannot wait for the next books! The magic system in this book is one of the most unique and thought-provoking ideas I’ve ever read. And I have read A LOT of fantasy books. The writing style was fantastic, with just the right amount of opacity and exposition to keep me guessing as to how the story was going to come together. I loved the small town feel of the setting - it was refreshing to have a conflict so central to the main character. Then the ending beautifully set up the premise for a cosmic conflict to carry us over the next couple books. The only critique I had for this novel was that the beginning was a little slow-paced for my liking. Definitely will be taking a look at Max Gladstone’s other works!

I made it all the way to 81% with this one. 81%! When my usual cut-off point is 20%! At that point, I really could have finished it. It would have taken me an hour or two, tops. I might as well have.

But I didn’t want to. Don’t want to.

I reread Three Parts Dead before starting this, and the difference between the two is like whiplash. Dead Country is slow and introspective in a way that deadens the mind, makes me feel heavy and tired, and I’m inclined to think that Gladstone deliberately shifted tone for this book, wanted it to be small-scale and intimate and thoughtful. (I think so because he wrote in his newsletter recently about the theme of coming home after the adventure is over, which in a lot of ways describes Dead Country to a t.) And it is those things, so he succeeded, if that was the goal.

But the result is so boring, mind-numbing, in the same way that Last Exit was (which I also DNF-ed, for the record). There’s no sense of urgency or passion, and no amount of banal detail could make me care about the small town – village, really – where Tara was born. There’s no electricity, no thrill, no wonder, and what’s especially frustrating is that we have this suggestion of a Big Bad coming, a potential apocalypse – but that’s a Bigger Picture problem that’s apparently going to wait until Tara heads back to the big city! It’s mentioned here and there in passing, only to be set aside because the right-now issue is the town.

That makes me care about all the small-town stuff even less! It feels like such a tease, like this entire book is pointless because the ‘real’ plot won’t start until the sequel.

Or possibly the last 20% of this book, but I am so Done that I don’t care even about the Big Picture plot any more, and am not going to force my way to the finish line just in the hopes of being thrown some scraps of actual story.

(On the other hand, I would absolutely read a prequel about Tara’s mom, who is amazing. Just saying!)

Fast times in the Badlands for Tara Abernathy in the first installment of this Craft universe trilogy where you can always come home— but what you're running from will always come with you.