Last year I read Max Gladstone’s debut, Three Parts Dead. I’ve finally seen an accurate description of his genre: “a combination of legal thriller and steam-powered fantasy”. Whatever you want to call it, I enjoyed it enough to pick up his second book, Two Serpents Rise, which is set in the same world, but different characters, different city, different gods, same great combo of tight plotting and, well, legal thriller and fantasy. Less steam this time around, though, and a lot more human sacrifice, since the cultures he’s drawing on are those of the indigenous peoples of Mexico. Read More →