What we learned about CRAFT SEQUENCE - Gladstone March AMA

Max GladstoneWorld of CraftThe Craft SequenceMajor Spoilers

3 Apr

Written By Lady K

Max Gladstone’s latest Reddit Ask Me Anything gave us a lot of information about the world of the Craft Sequence, Last Exit and other projects, his creative practice and thoughts on desserts.

This is the first of three posts looking at everything we learned from the AMA – this one focusing on the Craft Sequence because, well, that’s the reason this website exists. I tried to get everything but let me know if I missed anything!

The future of the Craft Sequence

Gladstone has mentioned the future of the Craft Sequence books a couple of times at events I attended, but this is the first time I’ve seen written confirmation that there are more books to come and Gladstone is actively “working in the world right now, and [is] excited to share more news when the time comes. Soonish!”

As the first books were published in such quick succession, there have been fears from fans that the gap between Ruin of Angels and now meant the series had attended. Gladstone said:

I'm not ready to say goodbye to that world either, and while Four Roads Cross [editor’s note: later corrected to Ruin of Angels] was a nice place to pause the series for a while, it was never intended as a final chapter.
Ruin is more of a transitional book; Four Roads Cross braids some of the central threads of the original books in the Sequence, but Ruin was a phase shift as the stories grew a bit bigger, a bit more geopolitical. (Thamaturgicopolitical? What am I, German or something?) After I wrote it I had to sit down and have a long think about how I wanted to tackle the next phase of the sequence, strategically. I did that... several years ago. And I've been working to plan ever since! More or less.

Someone with more inside knowledge than me asked whether the forthcoming seventh book would “still” explore Dhistra. Gladstone said that was the plan, but no longer - however he wants to explore that setting more, perhaps in a standalone.

On a similar note, I asked whether there were any locations that we haven’t seen and likely WON’T see, that he would like to explore. This was obviously a not-very-subtle attempt to try and work out where we MIGHT see in the next instalment(s). Gladstone answered:

There are many places I'd like to explore in a worked-through, standalone way--Dhisthra, Kho Katang, the Shining Empire, Zur--but I'm following the story right now. Perhaps I'll develop the others in a sort of omake kind of way, but at the moment I'm trying to gather the essentials into a single narrative.

Personally, I’m keen to see the Shining Empire in large part because, as Gladstone has lived in China and speaks Mandarin, I’d love to see the way he Craft-ifies it.

Given that we’ve already had two interactive games, there were also questions about non-novel future stories outwith the current arc - whether more games, novellas, graphic novels. The answer was generally that he’d like to “Both to move forward in time from the 'present', and to explore things that are happening in other parts of the world” but there are no current plans.

Whatever the future holds, I’m excited for more Craft Sequence in whatever form it comes in!

The world of Craft and how it works

This section was of particular interest to me, given some of the articles I want to write about how Craft itself works, and how the world more generally functions.

In the Craft Squence, the Craft covers a huge range of activities, and powers most of modern world in the way electricity and technology does in ours. However, few people can actually wield Craft itself and few are actually considered Craftsfolk in their own right. Gladstone answered the deceptively simple question ‘how does this work?:

There are a couple different answers here. On the one hand: lots of people use computers but most don't know how they work--and even most people who will say they know how they work, don't really know how they work, if we're talking from-the-metal-on-up. On the other hand, when it comes to someone like Ley: the Craft is a powerful system for saying what the world is--but there are other techniques.

The last sentence particularly intrigues me… I guess we might find out more in the next book!

In terms of a potential map of the Craftworld, Gladstone said that there has been “some noodling” in the direction of a professionally-drawn map and he hopes that it comes to fruition. A long lost notebook contains a map he drew to work out the geopolitics of the world; however, he “grew up loving that note in the back of the Discworld books: there is no map of the Disc. You can't map a sense of humor.”

Speaking of geopolitics, I asked whether there were any democracies in the Craft world. As I have a background in international relations, this side of worldbuilding always fascinates me. If you’re also interested, there are articles in the pipeline about this…

Gladstone answered:

Big question! Short form: maybe? The aggregate-populace aspect of divine power means that societies like Alt Coulumb feel a bit more like democracies than, say, Dresediel Lex, but then, DL's consumer culture civil society probably feels a bit more recognizable to most inhabitants of modern democracies than Alt Coulumb does. I'd love to explore what a real democracy would look like.

We also got a question about the name of the planet and star where the Sequence is set, which gave us this intriguing response:

I don't think it's ever established affirmatively in the books what's the name of the Craft Sequence planet, let alone its star. I tried to be careful not to use 'earth' to describe the dirt of the world itself, though I know I've slipped up once or twice (however, I do quite like the term 'necromantic earths' being a weird industry phrase in-world). I believe that if you take a particular conversation path in the Choice of the Deathless visit to R'ok's demon world--I think the dependencies are, you don't help him escape his family, but you do have a good relationship with him, and decide to talk politics & metaphysics at the appropriate moment, R'ok mentions that the demons refer to the Craft planet as "Domain," and that's stuck in my head ever since.

So there we have it: the Craftworld is ‘Domain’ from here forward.

Writing the Craft Sequence

There were a handful of questions about how he writes the Craft Sequence and some of his inspiration. On whether he would change anything from the earlier Craft Sequence books:

I've tried to build each book on the ones that came before, so there isn't much I did intentionally that I regret. Some choices I made about how soulstuff works make it harder to talk about some interesting (from the perspective of a series invested in faith and confidence) aspects of how money works... but enable other important aspects of the story and setting. I might write Two Serpents a bit differently now--I think I understand what was going on in Caleb's and Mal's heads better than I did then--but then, if I hadn't written it that way then, I wouldn't understand it now!

That latter point particularly intrigues me, as someone who doesn’t especially enjoy Two Serpents Rise. If you’re reading this, Max, I’d love to hear more!

Asked about some of his writing process and decisions – why he chose to incorporate critiques of current society into his writing, and whether he knew how interlinked the stories would become – Gladstone said that this all happened fairly naturally. With the characters, he knew he wanted to explore different perspectives but didn’t realise how quickly they would entwine. “The characters had their own gravity, and wanted to talk to one another.” For the critiques, he has questions that drive him to the page and develop into the world and story.

Related to that, Gladstone was asked about any economic developments he would like to include that he hadn’t already. Three Parts Dead was, of course, published a decade ago and the world has changed significantly since then.

Gladstone said:

I'd love to explore a developed 2020ish internet in the Craft universe... it's lurking in the logistical and thaumaturgical background, but it hasn't shaken Craft society yet as it has society in our own world, in part because there's no clear analogue for the popularly available smartphone. (Though in some ways the social reality of the Sequence is 'smart', which allows for some treatment of the same topics.) That's not quite an element of modern economics, but more of a portal through which many interesting aspects of modern economics can enter.
It would also be interesting, if challenging given the way soulstuff works in the universe, to explore the intersection of faith and currency, and faith (and perception) and value. That might require a new approach, though... and perhaps new rules of play. Notes for future work!

Having read LAST EXIT, I’m sure he’ll find a way to talk about all of this in other works if not in Craft.

Characters, timelines, reading order

Five out of the seven questions covered here were asked by me, so I might be the only one interested… but including nonetheless!

Starting with this (excellent) question not by me, shared in full:

Your characters are wonderfully nuanced. Is there any you have written over the years that you're most proud, either by your own assessment or fan response?
I'm probably most chuffed by readers' reaction to / acceptance of / recognition of themselves in Kai. Whenever someone reaches out to tell me they felt particularly seen reading Full Fathom Five--it's happened a few times now and there's no feeling quite like it. Gratitude for being allowed, by the universe, to be part of someone else's journey.

Gladstone was then asked about reading order – publication or title. I have my own thoughts on this here, but for Gladstone’s answer:

I've tried to make either order work. I suspect the pace of information release is better if you read them in title order, but readers comfortable with the "just dive into the deep end" school of science fiction and fantasy should be fine starting with Last First Snow.
Another good angle might be: if you don't like knowing the effects of things before you know the causes, start with LFS.

The recently published German edition of Three Parts Dead includes a world timeline on the inside covers; Max said he isn’t aware of an online version in English but he would post it at some point.

I then asked the highly pedantic timeline question about how long Tara spent at the Hidden Schools. In my far-too-detailed note taking for this website, I saw that Tara left home at 16 and returned at 24 (eight years), but she says she spent seven years travelling and teaching herself Craft; however, it seems quite clear she spent more than a year at the Hidden Schools. My handwave theory is some sort of time compression at the Hidden Schools.

It seems I am indeed the only one who noticed this as Gladstone seemed quite surprised…

Really! Your compressed-time idea is a great one here--No-Prize worthy. Tara was also under Denovo's influence for a chunk of her time at the Schools, which adjusted her own personal perception of time, not unlike how depression can seem to eat years. But she was, at least subjectively, at the Schools for several years.

This doesn’t quite fit the 16-24 thing but I’ll claim the time compression until proven otherwise in text!

Let’s end on some quickfire character questions (answers in italics):

Are there any Craft characters you’d like to see interact with Last Exit characters? This may be kind of a cop-out answer, but it would be so much fun to see the Last Exit gang hitch into Alt Coulumb at some point. They would be so confused!
Will we Zack the golem [from Last First Snow] again? He’s great, isn’t he? You may be pleasantly surprised!
And Mina? Mina’s great! I bet she’ll show up again
Dessert orders for Craft characters? Tara can't say no to a tiramisu. Kai, I think, for some reason--maybe the same reason, i.e. its coming from 100 percent outside her home experience--has a strange fascination with the whole apple pie / cheddar cheese thing. Caleb and Ms. Kevarian both really like street cart churros. Temoc's an ice cream guy. Kopil's favorite desert is anything you can set on fire.