Full Fathom Five is the third book of Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence, and it’s definitely my favorite, partly but not entirely because it features repeat characters from the first two books in addition to entirely new ones. I like that each book so far has been set in a different place in the world Gladstone has created: this one takes place on Kavekana, a Hawaii-like volcanic island. Kai Pohala, one of the protagonists, is a priest in an order that builds and maintains idols, rather than worshipping a god. (Kavekana’s gods left to fight in a war and, the story has it, never returned; foreign gods are banned on the island, but idols work as an investment strategy. In the world of these books, gods gain power from being worshipped and lend that power to others through legal/magical contracts; idols work the same way but for people who would rather not do business with gods.)
When the book opens, Kai learns that one of the idols her order has created is about to die; she tries to save the idol and is badly injured in the process, and transferred to a sales job while she recovers. She’s shaken by the fact that she heard the idol speak before it died: idols aren’t meant to be sentient, shouldn’t be able to talk. Meanwhile, Izza, a fifteen-year old street kid/refugee from elsewhere, is introduced to us as she’s buying incense to mourn the death of a goddess she and other street kids have worshipped, a goddess they call the Blue Lady. Izza and Kai’s stories intertwine, of course, and their paths cross. There is lots of plot in this book, and it doesn’t feel useful to try to summarize it, but it’s great: Kai’s story and Izza’s mostly alternate, in well-paced chapters, with Kai trying to figure out what’s going on in the pool where idols are made, and Izza making plans to leave Kavekana, because there’s nothing for her to stay for, except then there is.
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