Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone, Final Instalment
23 March 2015
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Max Gladstone, Readalong week 3, Three Parts Dead
Wow, I don’t know how it came around so fast as I feel like time has simply flown by, but here we are at the end of our readalong for Max Gladstone’s excellent Three Parts Dead.
This week the lovely Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow is our wonderful host so please stop by and check out all the other participants answers.
If you’re reading this now, then yes, obviously, you’re too late to join the readalong but I strongly recommend you give this book a shot – it’s very entertaining and I found the setting and concept quite unique.
To the Q&A with the customary reminder that if you haven’t read this already you might want to look away about now:
1. So we finally got all the facts behind whodunit – and how, and why… What did you think of the epic(sized) reveal scene?
I enjoyed the final reveal – mostly because I hadn’t managed to second guess everything that was going on. I was just enjoying reading and finding out the answers. I’d put together that the Professor was basically not a nice guy and I kind of suspected he was trying to use God’s powers – however, I hadn’t realised the full extent of his machinations. I also suspected that the Stone Men were being used as a set up and I had inner nigglings about the survival of their God but not to the extent that was finally revealed – and it was like an epic romance wasn’t it! Well, not a romance, but you know what I mean! And I never, for one second, realised what was going on with Abelard and his cigarettes – if that’s not the most unusual hiding place ever then I don’t know what is!
Surprise! We found Kos. You’ll never believe where he was… Or did you?
Haha, no I didn’t guess – see above. So unusual. I didn’t see that coming at all.
Elayne Kevarian proved to be even more devious than we suspected. What do you think of this Craftswoman now that the dust is settling? Sympathy for Denovo, or victorious fist-pump?
No sympathy for Denovo at all. Not even a speck. He was so horrible that I can’t even go there and in fact I think the ending he received was almost too good for him. And Kevarian – she was something of a cool character. That whole scene where she reduced the shadow monster to a pill sized blot and then swallowed it – I was like ‘what’? What just happened. That was such a great idea for the finale.
I did a little checking and the second book in this series seems to feature a whole new cast, though it’s still set in the same world. Do you think this one wrapped things up for Tara, Abelard and company well enough, or are you wishing for more? For that matter, will you read on?
Yeah, I’d also heard that the other books are more like companion novels not follow ons. I do feel like this wrapped things up fairly cleanly for the characters plus- even though the future books are not the same characters there’s always the possibility of hearing news in a second hand fashion??
I really enjoyed this – it was a very unusual concept and I will definitely continue with the series.
Thanks everyone for taking part – as usual this big jumble of ideas and questions has been really entertaining and thought provoking which is why I love readalongs – so many ideas chucked into the mix that make your brain go off on tangents that it probably wouldn’t have done so by itself – well, mine wouldn’t have anyway.
Books and travelling with Lynn 
Reblogged this on Book Reviews and Author Interviews.
I would have liked to spend a bit more time on this, reading through my highlights and re-reading bits and pieces to figure out what was going on, but eventually I just sat back and waited for the big reveal. There was so much to take in! It’s a bit of an infodump, but I needed all the info laid out nice and neat before me.
I loved that thing with Elayne and the monster… So cool. Is it bad that I kind of want to be her?
Not bad at all – she’s pretty awesome to a large extent – just casually strolls into the middle of a bunch of chaos and sorts it out, calmly and precisely – plus you have to love the foresight!
I would also have liked to have spent a bit more time thinking things through and you’re right about the ending having a bit of an infodump feel – but not in a bad way, I really did need everything laying out for me and I quite like these type of plots where the baddie is unveiled for all to see.
Lynn 😀
I really enjoyed this read. It felt very original, although that may be because I’m mostly unfamiliar with urban fantasy (though-is it even considered urban fantasy? That seems the marker closest to fitting it, but I’m bad at subgenres). I’m interested in the idea that the series is connected by the world but not necessarily the characters—but I’m also a bit disappointed. I feel like in the end I just did not get enough Tara. I did not get enough of her backstory, I did not get enough of her internal life, and while I enjoyed all the secondary characters I feel like they started to take center stage towards the end and now a new book will feature new characters without giving Tara sufficient development. I hope to see her again in some fashion!
It did feel very original and yes, I would probably say it’s urban fantasy. I know what you mean, I think the ending did a good job of tying up the story but I would certainly not have objected to spending more time with some of these characters. I can see why an author might be interested in moving on – you never know, the future books might make reference to some of these characters in some way?? That could be very interesting.
Lynn 😀
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Yep – there was an epic romance feel to the ending – for the gods involved. How it must be big and glorious for them, even though us puny mortals only get a tiny glimpse of what their lives are like. Except maybe Abelard – the gods might let him in on a bit more since he kept Kos the Ever Burning burning.
Yeah- immortal love – difficult to imagine heh!
Lynn 😀
I never thought I’d applaud smoking cigarettes, but Abelard’s bad habit really saved the day in this one! I think Elayne is a secondary character in one (or maybe both?) of the companion novels. Hopefully we’ll see more of her because I thought she was seriously badass. Very intrigued about the whole skeleton thing as well…fingers crossed we get more info. on that guy!
That’s really good to know – I liked Elayne so I’m glad we’ll be getting more.
Lynn 😀