Reseña: Three Parts Dead (Craft Sequence#1)

Three Parts Dead (Craft Sequence #1)

by 

Max Gladstone

336 pages

Published October 2nd 2012 by Tor Books (first published January 1st 2012)

ISBN:0765333104 (ISBN13: 9780765333100)

Edition Language:English

URL:http://us.macmillan.com/threepartsdead/MaxGladstone

 

BLURB: 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.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mis etiquetas: alternate-reality, deidades-y-dioses, fantasy, gargolas, magical-practitioners, multiple-pov, necromancy, vampiros

{bilingual review}

What we did, what was done to us, was not war. The sky opened and the earth rose. Water burned and fire flowed. The dead became weapons. The weapons came alive.

En este mundo, los dioses existen y estuvieron a punto de destruir todo con sus guerras. Como poderosas entidades, se encuentran atados a contratos, subsisten con sacrificios y adoradores. Un balance obtenido con almas, sangre y donde el poder se transa todos los dias con reyes inmortales, sacerdotes, jueces y abogados magicos contractuales.

Theologians centuries back had developed a faster method. One god gave of his power to another, or to a group of worshipers, on a promise of repayment in kind, and of more soulstuff than had been initially lent. Gods grew knit to gods, pantheons to pantheons, expecting, and indeed requiring, their services to be returned. Power flowed, and divine might increased beyond measure. There were risks, though.

Tara es una Craftwoman, recien graduada y expulsada en medio de problemas de la Escuela Escondida (de magia), nigromante y experta en contratos y hechizos del oficio , se siente sorprendida al ser llamada por una prominente Ms. Kevarian para atender a un cliente en la ciudad de Alt Coulumb.

Lo más sorpresivo podria parecer es que en medio de tanta deidad y tautologia taumaturgia, estan los ingenieros, los maquinistas que encuentran un modo de usar el poder divino o en su defecto la magia con sus enormes reglas terrorificas para hacer funcionar cosas tan pedestres como luces, trenes, calderas y mover cosas.

[...]cities alone are the product of human hands and human tools, human blood and human will. They come into being through worship, or not at all.

O

The Court chambers were smaller than the immensity of the black pyramid led one to believe. Most of the extra space was packed with the machines required to support human beings who dared meddle in the affairs of gods.

A Algunos les recuerda a Zelazny por el tema de los dioses, yo le encuentro más aire a Tad Williams. Al principio el tono de la historia es bastante más irónico, a la Douglas Adams- Of all the screams cataloged in the encyclopedic audio library of the Hidden Schools, Tara’s bore the closest resemblance to the scream of a man whose abdomen was being devoured by a jagged-clawed insect that wore a child’s face.

-pero termina siendo bastante más serio.

Lo cierto es que todos los personajes , (que cada uno casi tiene su decir aqui con el multiple POV), son seres vulgarmente conocidos como 'grises'. No hay heroes en esta historia. Cada uno tiene fallas, ambiciones desmedidas de esas que sacrifican cualquier cosa, y se ven impulsados por llenar sus necesidades en forma egoista.

Over the years a Craftswoman comes to have more in common with sky and stone than with the race to which she was born. Life seeps from her body, replaced with something else.”
“What?”
“Power.”

La construccion de mundo resulta original en cualquier caso.

A veces el ritmo falla, pero te lleva a un buen desenlace.

-----------------------------------

n this world, the gods exist and were about to destroy everything with their wars. As powerful entities, they are bound to contracts, subsist with sacrifices and worshipers. A balance obtained with souls, blood and where the power is engaged every day with immortal kings, priests, judges and contractual magic lawyers.

Tara is a Craftwoman, newly graduated and expelled in the middle of problems of the Hidden Schools (of magic), necromancer and expert in contracts and spells of the trade, she is surprised to be called by a prominent Ms. Kevarian to attend a client in the city of Alt Coulumb.

The most surprising thing would seem to be that amidst so much deity and thaumaturgy, there are engineers, machinists who find a way to use divine power or in their absence magic with their terrifying rules to make things as pedestrian as lights, trains, boilers and move things. I'm really not seeing that as 'steampunk' as others, because one thing this world is faulty is presented in it lack of scientific explanations.

To some reminds Zelazny for the gods, but I find it more air to Tad Williams. At first the tone of the story is rather more ironic, Douglas Adams style - Of all the screams cataloged in the encyclopedic audio library of the Hidden Schools, Tara's bore the closest resemblance to the scream of a man whose abdomen was being Devoured by a jagged-clawed insect that wore a child's face.

...but ends up being rather more serious.

The truth is that all the characters, (where almost each have his say here with the multiple POV), are commonly known as 'gray'. There is no hero in this story. Each has flaws, unreasonable ambitions of those who sacrifice anything, and are driven by filling their needs in a selfish way.

The construction of world is original in any case.

Sometimes the rhythm fails, but it leads to a good outcome.