Dead Hand Rule

The Craft Wars #3

by Max Gladstone

From the co-author of the viral New York Times bestseller This is How You Lose the Time War....
Great powers clash and epic action unfolds in book three of the Craft Wars series.

The time until the endtimes is ticking away. If the world has any hope to survive, it must come together now.

The foundations of the world are quaking. Markets crash and cities burn as a new god struggles to be born. Ancient hunters skitter across space, eager and hungry. Dark forces conspire to undermine that could stand in their way. Divided, the world of the craft is certain to fall.

In Alt Coulomb, the great powers of the world gather in conference. Empires, divinities, and corporate concerns take seats at the table. Untold wealth and inexhaustible might is on offer, but coalition will not come easily. Can these forces come together to save the world? And if they do, what parts of it will they choose to save, and for whom?

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Horror, Queer

432 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2025

About the author

Max Gladstone is the author of the Craft Sequence: THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO SERPENTS RISE, FULL FATHOM FIVE, and most recently, LAST FIRST SNOW. He's been twice nominated for the John W Campbell Best New Writer award, and nominated for the XYZZY and Lambda Awards.

Max has taught in southern Anhui, wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia. Max graduated from Yale University, where he studied Chinese.

Reviews

[Promiscuous Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Третья часть серии оказалась по большей части character-driven, потому что весь экшн начался к концу, но это и прекрасно (и очень интересно, какую роль в финале сыграют Гэв и Донни, потому что просто так Гладстон персонажей не вводит).

[Dustin George-Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a long-time admirer of Max Gladstone's The Craft sequence, though I confess his melding of magical fantasy with corporate law at times leaves me a bit bewildered. But nobody has as of yet come up with a magic system that is quite so novel.

This third book in his new Craft Wars series continues what has been more or less a madcap non-stop race towards a universe-destroying convergence. I'll admit that while I loved Dead Country, Tara's return and a fleshing out of her backstory on a smaller stage, book two nearly lost me with what felt like an overly convoluted plot. As much as I loved seeing my favorite characters from the original series finally start to come together, Wicked Problems never hooked me.

Dead Hand Rule changed that trajectory for me. This book is equal parts Lovecraft, Conclave, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with all of the major magical powers in the region coming together to talk, and hopefully find a way to work together towards the mutual benefit of human? post-human? magical? -kind before the universe is devoured by titanic cosmic spiders from another dimension.

The book is more of an advance-the-series-plot kind of book, a middle novel that doesn't bring any major revelations but does push the pieces into the right spots on the board for use later. There are plenty of excellent magical battles and set pieces, and a lot of angst between the main characters. I especially appreciate the character work, though there are so many characters returning in this series that I frequently have to remind myself who they are and why they're important.

The peace talks are fascinating in a political theater kind of way, but this being Gladstone, things rarely proceed according to plan and that leaves lots of room for s--t going all explodey and wild displays of magical power. I know there's at least one more book in the series, and honestly I'm not sure yet where and how Gladstone will wrap things up, only that there's definitely a confrontation with the Skazzerai in the future... and that's gonna rule. Five stars.

[William Kalb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The specters that haunt our pasts don't leave us alone just because we've studied them, confronted them, and dissected them. This series is about a lot of things, but that's the one that resonates the most with me today. Five stars.

Also, using "Anton Levay" as the name of a clothing label with "design influences that go fifty-fifty on bondage gear and religious regalia" is very funny.

[Venneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

And now it all falls apart, in the best and most delicious ways. I thought this was going to be a peace talk book when this started out, but the way that the last third of the book ends up exploding and exposing the big threat that's been lying underneath is truly exquisite. (A small note - we are now at book 9, and soon to be book 10 of this series, can we please consider a dramatis personae list, I've read all nine books in the series and there are still some characters who show up here who I forgot!!). We get a fantastic blend of our old hands and a few new characters while we're at it, and the legal item that Gladstone uses to title this book may give you a hint of where it goes, but that's not for me to tell you yet. This feels like the middle movie of a trilogy - shit fucking sucks at the end of this book, and it looks fucking bad for our mains, but I am absolutely fascinated to see where this ends up going. Five stars, pick this up this fall, and fuck me up.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

After finishing this book the first thing I had to do was catch my breath. Once I had it, I needed to let out a scream of frustrated rage that I don’t have book 4.

I will avoid spoilers as best I can, beyond what can be found on the back of the book.

Things are coming full circle; this book takes place entirely within Alt Coulomb. The King in Red has convened his conference of the Powers That Be (and the Powers That Do Not Be are invited too, of course) to plan an alliance to deal with the coming threat from beyond the stars. Only through unity, Craftsmen and Pantheons working together, is there any hope of surviving what’s coming.

Of course the flaw in this is that literally everyone who has enough power for a seat at the table got there by fighting each other for it, and maneuvering for power and position between the fights. Tara and company are asking them to change the habits of a lifetime, or lifetimes for many of them. It’s not at all clear that they are capable of this; a leopard cannot change his spots. Even if they are, it’s certainly clear that they’re more concerned about each other, and making sure when the crisis is passed they are the ones to come out of it in the best position.

Meanwhile everyone smiles, attends presentations, complains about the length of the line at Muerte Coffee, and the actual work takes place in backrooms and informal settings.

But all of that is background. I was here for the people. Tara, and Caleb, and Abelard, and Kai, and Izza, and Mal, and Dawn (yes, definitely including Dawn) and all the rest we’ve collected over the books. As far as they’re concerned, this book was very, very frustrating, but in a good way. I care about them all; they generally care about each other (some don’t really know each other, like, say, Abelard and Mal, but still). And it’s frustrating when them being true to themselves and their convictions leads to them being on different sides, despite their mutual respect and common goals.

It all works. It all makes sense for the characters. It’s upsetting and frustrating to read.

And, as before, damn it Tara you don’t have to do everything yourself. Yes, that is still a character flaw. No, I did not expect otherwise.

So yeah. Frustrating, but the frustration of a well-crafted novel and well-realized characters coming into necessary conflict.

Fair warning: I am extremely un-satisfied with the ending, because it ends on a cliffhanger. Everything is coming to the end, one way or another. Extremely impatient for book 4.

My blog

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Max Gladstone's writing is a head above almost any other in terms of sheer creativity. I hate to say that, because it makes everyone else look rather dull or usual or understated or just plain. Boring, even. :)

The Craft Wars jump up to a lot of politicking in this one. Dead gods, agents of the Craft, ancient deadly spiders from across the stars--all of it business as usual. Or rather, impossible business--as usual.

I love it. Line by line it's overwhelming with implications, colorful ideas, and a wild, fantastic, magical world. The new book seems primed for something even larger to come. I'm not complaining. I'm stoked.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews is be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm open to requests.

Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com

[Henry Lazarus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Max Gladstone’s Craft war series takes place after the war that destroyed most of the gods. Craftsmen manipulate reality with artificial gods and there is a stock market of souls . In this penultimate book of the series, the movers and shakers of the world gather at Alt Coulomb for a convention to work out how to survive the coming apocalypse. Dead Hand Rule (hard from Tor) resembles every bad convention, until the bad guys attack and every plan goes out the window. I look forward to the end of this complicated and fun series.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this Kindle eBook is great. I like the descriptions, most of the dialogue, most of the plot, most of the characters, and the pace in this novel. Seventeen of the sentences in this novel aren’t grammatically correct. The author misspelled two of the words in this novel. The author typed a lower case e with an accent that he didn’t need to type in two of the sentences in this novel. I rate this novel four out of five stars.

[Trey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

That was a ride.

With the opening, I thought it was going to be a talky book, with lots of intrigue, skullduggery, covert ops, black magic and dark miracles. It is all that. Then the wheels come off...

Threads from earlier books are picked back up and woven into the story. Established characters have bad things happen to them character growth. Lots of crackling dialog and oneliners.

And when is book 4 coming out again? Soon I hope.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these books so much. This is very much a middle novel and — even though I knew this going in — I am not happy that I have to wait for book 4 to find out what happens to, well, everyone. I love how these capstone books bring together different characters; for example, watching Abelard build a friendship with Caleb and a — working relationship? — with the King in Red is amazing.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrical and intense

This is the best book yet — I laughed out loud in places, and forgot to breathe in others. Gladstone has a truly amazing command of language and imagery, and writes incredibly intricate books where the pieces all come together.

[Michael Rhode · Rating 4 out of 5]

not the last book of a trilogy! darn it.

[Aleksandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

so, so good but so frustrating too, I need book 4 immediately pls

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

*copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review*

Dead Hand Rule is the third entry in Max Gladstone's Craft Wars series, itself a sequel of sorts to his larger Craft Sequence novels. I've had a soft spot for Gladstone for years; his blend of fantasy and business-modern, where management consultants gripe about doing TPS reports while using arcane magic and divine will to do things like set up water treatment corporations has always been a delight. The idea that the heads of the largest corporations are, broadly speaking, all powerful undead necromancers...well, that also has its appeal, shall we say.
So anyway, the Craft Wars. This series drew together protagonists from the previous sequence, then set them up on opposite sides - sort of like Marvel's Civil War only there were fewer superheroes, and more chic business suits. And roughly the same amount of mayhem and world-ending stakes. The close of book two left everything on rather a cliff-hanger, and the question of whether our heroes (on either side) could save the world was...well, quite pressing. Because while they've been fighting each other, there's a larger menace setting itself up to make all of their concerns moot.

The cast is sprawling, probably too much so to get into here. But as always, there's some standouts. Tara Abernathy, who once fell out of the sky, hit the ground, and walked it off, is back. She's struggling with becoming who she thinks she has to be in order to thwart the (possibly problematic?) designs of her one-time protégé, Dawn. Who does Tara think she has to be? Someone harder, sharper, less forgiving, less human than the person she is now, perhaps. Someone a bit more like the skeletal mage-lords on their pyramids, who run the larger magicla firms, and a bit less like Tara, who is sometimes falling in a little bit of love with one of her frienbds. But definitely the same Tara with a tendency to push her friends away, to try and limit them from getting hurt, to try and carry everything on her shoulders in order to spare everyone else. That Tara, and her hang ups and her anxieties, as well as her deep friendships, affections and genuine heroism, is someone struggling with not just who they want to be, but who the situation they're in requires in order for things not to end in total disaster.

Ironically of course, the same applies to Dawn, once the survivor of a decimated village, then a student of Tara's, and now a part-time goddess with her own incipient hero complex. She's less burdened by the past than Tara is, less a prisoner of her own mistakes - but also less experienced, prone to seeing a straightforward answer where one may not yet exist. Or where it might have rather sharp edges.

They're joined by, well, everyone. If you've touched a Craft book, there's a good chance your favourite character is in here somewhere, and props to Gladstone for making them all feel entertaining and real and human. Or inhuman, as the case may be. I don't want to talk villains, because some of them are a surprise, but oooooh some of them are deeply loathsome. Well drawn, yes, complex, yes, awful people who made my skin crawl to read whenever they rolled onto the page...oh, my, yes. That's the thing though, this is a story that you can feel is true in your bones. It has the pyramids and the monsters and the magic and that certainly gives it a flavour and a spice that keeps the pages turning, but it's also a deeply human story of loss and learning and friendship and absolutely fucking up and also absolutely trying to fuck up that bad guy over there, possibly with a fireball. Gladstone can make the familiar strange, and have you experience it for the first time all over again, and the emotional weight hits like a truck. This is a book with power, and you may well leave it shaking your head, thinking things through, and knowing you're just a little different to the person who went in.

This is the end of one part of the story, but it's also, I hope, the start of something even better. And it's also, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody fantastic. Go give it a read.