Three Parts Dead Virtual Tour and Guest Blog

A tale of intrigue, a murdered god, and the business of necromancy,

THREE PARTS DEAD by Max Gladstone

is an intriguing urban fantasy set in a phenomenally built alternate reality!

“The combination of legal thriller and steam-powered fantasy may seem improbable, but Gladstone makes it work with an appealing cast and a setting rich

with imaginative details…. the story remains suspenseful and fast-paced throughout, and the diverse, female-led cast is a joy

to follow through the fascinating and unusual landscape.”

-- Publishers Weekly «starred review«

“Sci-fi, fantasy and a murder mystery all rolled in one…really exciting and fast paced with unexpected twists and turns. It culminates in a big surprise ending.”

—RT Book Reviews

A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

ZombieGirl Shambling Guest blog

Dead Gods

By Max Gladstone

      How does a god die?  And what happens afterward?

      We don’t think of gods as mortal, but they do perish.  Dead gods litter history.  Some of their names we know, like Mithras; some we only call “God A,” or “the Staff God,” deities robbed of everything but symbol.

Some even die before history crushes them, inside their own myths or those of others.  Baldur dies, stabbed by mistletoe, robbed of resurrection.  Cronos dies at his children’s hands.  The various waves of gods that settled Ireland die, killed and displaced by their successors, until a final truce allows the Tuatha De Danaan to dwindle away in relative peace, reduced to “fair folk.”  Some think these myths record movements of history: tribes displaced, one group of conquerors giving way to the next.  Maybe so, maybe not—it’s a cool thesis, though, and gods, especially old-model gods, do seem tied to a certain people, a certain way of life and a certain time.

And as times (and ways of life) change, gods change in response to them.  Older gods are displaced by younger.  Apollo becomes god of prophecy in addition to plague by killing the Pythia—another dead god for our list—and assumes her powers.

So gods change.  They grow with their nations, and they die with them.

Our modern world might not be ruled by gods in the ancient Greek model, but impersonal, immaterial, and fickle forces do shape our destiny.  Back in 2008 when the recession started, people looked around as if the sky were falling.  Immaterial calamity had a dramatic, and direct, impact on the world we inhabit.

Three Parts Dead takes that image and runs with it.  What if the passing of gods caused the passing of nations, not the other way around?  A god’s death would lead to a crisis—institutions failing, people rioting in the streets.  New gods might rise in the vacuum, of course, or other powers step forth to take their place.  But there would be parties anxious to stem the tide of social unrest, to preserve the status quo, by bringing the dead god back to life.

Of course, these parties would have their own agenda.  Not everyone would want the god returning from death to be the same one who died.  Those arguments would play out at the highest levels of power, politics, and religion, down to the streetcorner prophet.  Death and resurrection become the subject of courtroom drama and political scheming.

My main character, Tara, stands in the middle this chaos: a young necromancer trying to make her way in the world independent of gods, she’s nevertheless tasked with bringing a god back to life.

And when she starts to ask the question of how this god died, and why, the answers she finds will shake the foundations of the city she’s come to save.

Blog: http://www.maxgladstone.com

Twitter: @maxgladstone

Bio:  Max has taught in southern Anhui, wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia. Max graduated from Yale University, where he studied Chinese.