[Perry] Three Parts Dead

Three Parts Dead is a book of speculative fiction, written by Max Gladstone.

While this novel has elements of fantasy, I’d find it hard to classify it as straight fantasy.

The novel also feels a lot like urban fantasy…but I’d hesitate to dump it into that category as well.

In all honesty, Three Parts Dead sits very comfortably right in between fantasy and urban fantasy and has decided that it just isn’t budging.

This novel was recommended to me by Tami and was described to me as a legal fantasy thriller.

Suffice to say, my initial reaction to it was along the lines of, “blargle?”

What in the hell could a book with that kind of description be about?

“Your honor? My client, Mfawny the Keebler elf, submits to the court that the point of his hat followed regulation guidelines on elf workplace safety and therefore, I move that all charges of his being negligent with regard to his elf fashion be dismissed.”

That’s what I had going on in my head so you can understand that I was a little hesitant when I picked up the book to give it a try.

…And holy crap.

You know that feeling when you walk into something and you’ve almost sort of made up your mind that you’re going to hate it? Like best intentions of your friends who recommended it aside, from what you’ve heard of it, you figure that there’s no way that it’s going to be your thing.

But you give it a go anyway, just to be nice or just to humor them.

That’s when it hits you. When you read through the first couple chapters and you realize that you’re just not going to be able to put this thing down.

Every now and then, I run into a book that changes the way I think about a genre.

Books like World War Z, In the Night’s Garden, or The Name of the Wind opened my eyes to just how hard stories can hit you when they do it with with something unexpected.

Three Parts Dead is no different.

Now there were some criticisms leveled against this book, some of them were pretty valid and I agreed with them to an extent.

At the same time, to me, the novel stands as a testament to the fact that the spark of an idea can make an old thing new again.

There are many familiar elements in Three Parts Dead. There are gods, vampires, gargoyles and magic users (of a sort) and none of those will throw you for a loop. But the magic is all in how Gladstone pulls together these familiar elements in a new and wonderful way.

If you enjoy fantasy, have a bit of time free and feel like trying something a little off the beaten path, I absolutely cannot recommend this book enough.

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