Broad speculative fiction featuring necromantic corporate law, temporal warfare, and cosmic space opera has established a distinctive presence in modern fantasy. Max Gladstone is a Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning author best known for creating the Craft Sequence fantasy series, starting with his 2012 debut novel Three parts dead, and co-writing the bestselling epistolary novella This Is How You Lose the Time War with Amal El-Mohtar. Along with his standalone novels such as Empress of Forever, his real-life adventures have included being thrown from a horse in Mongolia and wrecking a bicycle at Angkor Wat, though his dreams are much nicer than you would expect.
Career & Background
Born Max Walker Gladstone on May 28, 1984, in Concord, Massachusetts, he grew up primarily in Ohio and Tennessee. He attended Yale University, where he studied Chinese literature. Following his graduation, he lived in China from 2006 to 2008 as a Yale-China Fellow, teaching students in rural Anhui province and later working as a translator for an automotive magazine. Upon returning to the United States during the 2008 global economic crisis, he drew directly from the social and financial turmoil around him to craft his debut novel. Gladstone was named a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in both 2013 and 2014. In addition to his prose novels, he has created interactive games and worked as a serial fiction writer, including co-creating the urban fantasy serial Bookburners.
Writing Style & Themes
Gladstone's work frequently blends urban fantasy, legal procedural mechanics, social economics, and theology. In his worldbuilding, magic operates much like corporate finance, contract law, and institutional power, turning legal disputes and board meetings into high-stakes sorcerous conflicts. His narratives explore how human beings navigate massive, entrenched systems, balancing individual agency against structural power, economic ruin, and divine authority. His prose ranges from sharp dialogue to expansive, mythic imagery across fantasy, science fiction, and time-travel narratives.
Major Works
- Three parts dead — Debut novel published in 2012 that launched the Craft Sequence, introducing a fantasy universe where corporate necromancers, gods with shareholders' committees, and legal operatives manage divine power and civic infrastructure.
- This Is How You Lose the Time War — A Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning novella co-authored with Amal El-Mohtar, written as an epistolary romance between two rival agents fighting across altered timelines.
- Wicked Problems — A fantasy novel continuing Gladstone's exploration of complex systems, social upheaval, and high-stakes supernatural drama within the Craft Sequence universe.
- Empress of Forever — A standalone cosmic space opera novel that reimagines epic journey themes through a modern techno-fantasy lens.
