Book Review: Dead Country by Max Gladstone

• Title: Dead Country
• Author: Max Gladstone
• Year: 2023
• Type: Fiction

This title had come up in some yearly “must read” roundup, a few of which I used to populate my to-read list at the library. I knew almost nothing about Gladstone’s work before picking up this book, aside from having read This Is How You Lose the Time War when it first came out.

Therefore I had no idea that this book was the first in a new trilogy, but based in a universe that’s been around and popular for quite a while. The main protagonist has even appeared in those earlier books. Despite this, Dead Country is readable on its own without all that backstory. Mind you, that backstory would’ve been helpful, but it wasn’t necessary.

Perhaps I’d have enjoyed this book more if I’d read the earlier works, though. It never seemed to click for me, and I always felt like I was playing catchup but not knowing on what or why. The characters didn’t especially call to me, and I found my eyes glossing over descriptions of scenery or battles.

So it was fine, but this first experience with the Craft Sequence universe didn’t convince me I need to run out and read the others any time soon. There are plenty of other books on that to-read list.