Wicked Problems: Save the world, or fix the world?

Wicked Problems by Max Gladstone

Save the world, or fix the world? Can we do either? These questions underlie the second book in Max Gladstone’s CRAFT WARS series, Wicked Problems. Other things are happening in this 2024 installment, too, and the ending, while anticipated, is a gamechanger for everyone involved.

In Book One, Dead Country, Craftswoman Tara Abernathy took on a student, the orphaned and traumatized Dawn. (Mild spoilers ahead.) While Tara tried to teach her about the Craft, she couldn’t keep her own doubts (and self-doubts) out of her lessons, and Dawn took away a very different understanding of magic, power and responsibility. When Dawn merged with an imprisoned entity of the Craft, she became frighteningly powerful—and she’s not done yet.

Tara needs to stop her, but there are other problems facing the world. Namely, the stars are going out, devoured by the skazzerai, a race that feeds on suns and planets. Both Dawn and Tara want to stop the skazzerai; their methods are completely different. In Wicked Problems, Gladstone draws together characters from the previous Craft books. To simplify a bit, there’s Team Tara, which includes priestess Kai, the gambler Caleb, and Abelard, saint of the  fire god Kos the Everlasting. Team Dawn includes Temoch, the last Eagle Knight, who is also Caleb’s father; Malina, the woman who tried to awaken two demi-gods in Two Serpents Rise; a dead god Dawn resurrected, and a group of former mercenaries. Readers are quickly reminded that when Caleb was a boy, Temoch carved the sacred marks of the Knighthood into his arms, without Caleb’s consent. Kai, a corporate consultant (for lack of a better term) is also a formal priestess to one god and a hidden priestess to another. Tara is, in comparison, “simply” a Craftswoman, but she is unstoppable in her determination.

The story follows the various characters, weaving storylines together into a complex tangle (one definition of a “wicked problem”). Of course, the stories converge, with some resolutions that are expected, and some that are still surprising.

I’m going to detour a moment to fangirl over Gladstone’s worldbuilding and his wit. Part of the fun of the CRAFT series for me has always been the mixture of life in the world of the Craft. Corporate magic is nothing new now, but Gladstone has always created it on a large scale; the bodies of dead gods becoming water utilities, legal and magic briefs arguing the exact degree of contractual agreement between the mortals and the magic, the use of soulstuff as currency. The world is plainly not ours, and yet it is. You can catch a cab to the airport and sip a latte from Muerte Coffee (which is everywhere) before catching your dragon flight to a neighboring city—only your flight is powered by a dragon. You may be a powerful, well-established Craftswoman like Elayne Kevarian, but you can still wear fluffy bunny slippers in your own home. Magic is tracked and traded on various exchanges. On the other hand, no one would see the corporate ruler of the city of Dresediel Lex, a skeleton hovering in the sky, wreathed in crimson lightning bolts, and think, “Ho-hum, just another CEO.”

But what are the risks of corporate magic? This seemed to be the question in the first series, and Gladstone is digging deeper into the issue with the CRAFT WARS. In the wake of the Gods War, when the wielders of the Craft overthrew most of the deities, magic became democratized, or maybe I mean “democratized.” Almost immediately, it was corporatized. This system works for many, but not all, and it isn’t equitable. However, are the whims of the gods any better? Temoc, the last Eagle Knight, wants to bring back genuine human sacrifice and cut out people’s hearts, because that act was sacred, while routinely delivering a few drops of blood is bureaucratic. Does “saving the world” mean maintaining a status quo, and does “fixing the world” mean sacrificing millions of lives? Doesn’t the corporate world sacrifice lives, just more slowly? While our protagonists struggle with these very real questions, a truly world-ending danger glides closer and closer.

With Dead Country and Wicked Problems, I feel a change in the sensibility of the books. I’m not a close enough or astute enough reader to find the passages that support my theory, but my sense, especially with this book, is that the “save the world/fix the world” dilemma is now less abstract for the author. I very well may be projecting, since Gladstone has written elsewhere about how parenthood changes a person, but it seems like the urgency on the page here is more than fictional.

That said, Wicked Problems is an exciting, gripping read. Dawn’s journey held my interest, but I was glad to be back among familiar characters at times too. I identify with Tara’s mentor, Elayne Kevarian, who is functionally about my age—and by “identify” I mean I wish I was one-tenth as cool as she is. Saint Abelard, who has always been almost placid in his faith, shocked and startled me with a decision he makes near the end.

I don’t think anyone could start reading here without at least having read Dead Country. Dead Country was an excellent introduction to the Craft, but to truly appreciate this book, it helps to know the stories of the characters from the original series. If you are familiar with Gladstone’s world and its problems, this book will sweep you up in dragon’s wings.