Three Parts Dead<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0His first novel took place in Alt Coulomb, a city where at least one god is alive and when and living on the faith of his worshippers. \u00a0The new novel, set in\u00a0Dresediel Lex, is in a city where the gods have been replaced by something a good deal more industrial.<\/p>\nBefore the Dresediel Lex\u2019s gods had their place usurped, they were of the feathered serpents, sustained by sacrificed hearts on the top of pyramids variety. \u00a0The novel\u2019s protaganist, Caleb, is the son of the last high priest of their order, who is now an insurgent leading a rump caucus of worshippers. Caleb, meanwhile, works for the organization that supplanted his father and his father\u2019s faith. \u00a0Red King Consolidated uses Craft (magic powered by human souls \u2014 a fraction of your own or somebody else\u2019s) to run the city.<\/p>\n
The story is largely about the tension between the old ways and the new, and also a romance, a conspiracy, and some particularly horrifying demons. But it\u2019s mostly a story about relationships and sacrifice. \u00a0Craft is transactional, to do magic,\u00a0something<\/em> always changes hands. \u00a0Think of it as being like, at minimum, the dollar that has to be paid to make a sales contract real.<\/p>\nBut sacrifices are given freely, without thought of recompense. Only some<\/em> of the temple sacrifices under the old system were volunteers, but partisans of the old system say at least their sacrifices were felt as loss and were visible. \u00a0The new masters of Dresediel Lex have democratized sacrifice, and any drain on souls is more at the level of taxation in our world \u2013 a small to moderate inconvenience, but not painful. \u00a0Is it worse to be hurt so slowly and lengthily that you can\u2019t feel the ache? \u00a0Is there something more sublime<\/em> about making payment into sacrifice, instead of mere debt, and enshrining it in ritual?<\/p>\nIn our world, the closest analogy I can come up with is monks, friars, nuns, and sisters. \u00a0These are people wholly consecrated to religious life, whose devotion we cannot ignore. \u00a0For many orders, their habits mark them out as set apart, when we run into them on the street. \u00a0Of course, some cloistered nuns or monastics are nearly invisible to us, turning their lives over to prayer but separated from the world they pray for. \u00a0How do we stay conscious of their work, and remain startled by its intensity? \u00a0How do we keep manageable sacrifices and gifts of ourselves from feeling humdrum and dull?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I received a free copy of this book for review. \u00a0You can read parts one<\/a> and two<\/a> of my interview with the author, Max Gladstone, at the links. \u00a0He\u2019s also done another interview with Alyssa Rosenberg of ThinkProgress<\/a>, which I heartily recommend. \u00a0And you can follow Max on his own blog here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Gladstone\u2019s\u00a0Two Serpents Rise, is his second book in the Craft sequence and falls chronologically before his first book,\u00a0Three Parts Dead. \u00a0His first novel took place in Alt Coulomb, a city where at least one god is alive and when and living on the faith of his worshippers. \u00a0The new novel, set in\u00a0Dresediel Lex, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":8179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviewsrecommendations"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/84\/2013\/10\/two-serpents.jpg\" "\\"two")
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