Last First Reviews & Updates
Hi friends! The book launch went really well! We had an amazing crowd at Harvard Book Store last night—and we didn’t even boil anyone for their skin!
Yesterday was pretty wild: four excellent reviews of Last First Snow hit at once, all glowing—and that’s not even counting Seth Dickinson’s Goodreads review, posted earlier (and if you don’t know Seth’s work yet, go forth and preorder a copy of his debut novel The Traitor Baru Cormorant—it’s an awesome book).
From Liz Bourke on Tor.com: “In his Craft sequence, Gladstone is writing a fantasy of modernity, deeply engaged with the issues of our time: the power of capital, the potential tyranny of corporations, the value of the individual, the tension between romanticised pasts and lived-in presents, and the aftermaths of conflict. Last First Snow epitomises his approach. It’s the kind of book that inclines me to use phrases like tour de force.
Max Gladstone just keeps getting better. It doesn’t quite seem fair. If you’re not reading his Craft sequence? Start.
Read Last First Snow. Seriously. Read it.”
From Paul Weimer on SF Signal: “The Craft Sequence novels are ultimately about people and how they strive for change in their world, but the actual plot and themes of the novel, which revolve around the redevelopment project, are a twisting labyrinth of ideas and concepts. We see the consequences of power, the stirring of old ideas and resistance to new ones, and how class distinctions can lead to disproportionate effects of change. All of these come through clearly in the Gladstone’s writing, which is the best in the series so far. It shows multiple sides and viewpoints of the characters and lets readers judge them by their beliefs and actions.”
From Reading Reality: “The Craft Sequence is an urban fantasy series that is guaranteed to leave readers with a terrible book hangover. Each volume immerses you further into this world, and makes it that much more difficult to let go.”
From Rob Bedford at SFFWorld.com: “If Max Gladstone gave readers a story whose strength was the nuanced characters he created and developed, Last First Snow would be a perfectly acceptable novel. If he simply did half of the world-building in the Craft Sequence and featured it as the backdrop for those aforementioned nuanced characters, then Last First Snow would be more than that, an excellent novel. Those elements, combined with the twisty plot and balanced tension make Last First Snow a gem of a novel. If you’ve read previous novels in the Craft Sequence and can’t wait for the next one, then you should be very satisfied with Last First Snow as it features Max’s strengths and provides some added depth to both the world and characters who are familiar. If you haven’t read anything by Max Gladstone, then Last First Snow is a great place to jump into his fictional world and discover a smart, engaging, captivating, and imaginative storyteller.”
Oh, and I wrote a Guest Post for SF Signal, which went live yesterday as well!: “But the public story isn’t always the true one. Memories distort and spin. What seems a grim inevitability twenty years later, at the time, looked anything but. The layers of myth painted over the actual events of the Skittersill Rising tell a story the people who were there, then, would recognize as a distortion. The original protests of the Rising protected their homes, their jobs, their families; religion was involved involved but was not a central issue. Cultures clashed. Negotiations succeeded and failed. People tried, desperately, to hold their lives together.”
I’m sprinting around like the proverbial headless chicken for the next twenty-four hours until the FURY ROAD adventure starts in earnest, but I wanted to check in to wave and thank you all for your support and help and good wishes in this very exciting time. If you read the book and like it, please do drop a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or one of the related sites—and if you don’t have a copy, the hardcover discount’s almost 50% on some e-retailers!
That order of business aside, though—thank you.
Rock on, people. You’re excellent.
