Book Review: Last First Snow

Title: Last First Snow

Author: Max Gladstone

Genre: Fantasy

Page #s: 385

Publication Date: 2015

Location in Series: 4^th book in the Craft Sequence

Summary: It has been 40 years since the God Wars rocked Dresediel Lex, 40 years since the gods they had worshipped for who knows how long were broken on their own alter. The King in Red now begins an audacious plan to renovate the Skittersill, the poorest district in the city but in order for the work to be approved he must wrangle an agreement from the Skittersill’s population.

Good Points:

• Wow. WOW. Just. Fucking wow.
• Simple things first, everyone but Elayne is a character of color. Dresediel Lex is a fictitious Aztec city, everyone but Elayne is a denizen of that city.
• Badass older female character.
• While I don’t remember Three Parts Dead focusing much on Elayne’s age this one mentions several times how old she is and how old she feels.
• Badass females all around.
• Elayne, Chell, Mina, for the major ones, a ton of minor ones as well.
• Women from different walks of life all proving how badass they can be.
• Badass transmale character.
• I’m assuming here, since when it is revealed that the character’s body does not match the image they have presented there isn’t much time to talk about how they identify BUT since Full Fathom Five had a transwoman protagonist I’m going to assume that the character mentioned is trans.
• Of course, the King in Red has to be mentioned as he’s a gay sorcerous skeleton and I love him.
• Even if he was a dickweasel the entire book.
• Temoc!
• I did not go into this book expecting to like Temoc. After the events of Two Serpents Rise… well. Let’s just say when I heard this book was going to feature Temoc I was disappointed. I did not expect anything good to come of it. BUT WOW! Surprise!
• Loved his relationship with Caleb and Mina. Love how it had to change as the book went on and things went to shit. Loved it.
• Interesting, twisty plot.
• While one plot twist kind of becomes obvious the moment it happens it’s still a great twisty plot. And I loved how every character failed. Like, the whole mess couldn’t be traced directly to one person (although, fuck you Kopil) and instead each character has to shoulder the blame of the complete CLUSTERFUCK that comes around.
• Except Caleb and Mina.
• Great action scenes! Fascinating world! Great magic! Flawed characters! READ IT.

Bad Points:

• WOW was this book a fucking downer. Like. Wow. Like, it’s so good, but totally a downer!
• I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the Red King’s characterization in this book. Like, because, he’s a total DICKWEASEL the entire book and I really do remember loving him in Two Serpents Rise.
• I have to wonder if that says more about Caleb and his PoV than anything else.

Triggers:

This book is about a civil protest gone horribly wrong with a magically powered dictator who hates the religion the protestors practice.

It’s not pretty.

• Child Abuse
• Religious Persecution
• Mentions of past mind control

Rating: 5/5