Four Roads Cross Is a Fantasy That Puts Women in the Driver’s Seat

There are great and numerous praises to be sung about the novels of Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence, intricate works of imagination slung across an expansive world that turns necromancers into lawyers and transforms unsexy matters like zoning disputes and corporate tax incentives into edge-of-your-seat fantasy plot points.
But more than anything, the Craft Sequence does justice by its female characters. It lets them be people: flawed, feisty, dynamic, and distinct. It’s a trait worth celebrating again with the release of Four Roads Cross, the fifth (and, at least for now, final) novel in the asynchronous series of magic and magistrates.
(It’s important to note that you’re welcome to start anywhere in the series; as Gladstone has explained, though the numbers in the titles indicate a timeline of sorts, they were published out of order and the stories largely stand alone. However, some backstory may be helpful with this volume, as the action picks up where Three Parts Dead—the first published—left off.)

In a genre that has historically been dominated by male characters and points of view, there’s been a concerted effort over the years to introduce broader diversity among both characters and authors. At the same time, the introduction of more female characters hasn’t always yielded actual diversity. Instead, “strong female character” became synonymous with “kick-ass fighter.” That’s great, and we need those types of representations of women. What we also need, and what the Craft Sequence provides, are other kinds of women. The chief protagonists of Four Roads Cross are women, and no two of them are alike.
Craftswoman (human sorcerer) Tara Abernathy, who we met in Three Parts Dead, returns with her characteristic level head, courtroom grit, and continuing student loan worries intact. Her bravery comes in the form of sacrifice that is not physical; she’s given up her high-paying private sector job to serve as in-house counsel for the Church of Kos Everburning. As a craftswoman in a god’s house, Tara is a fish out of water, but she is nonetheless called upon once again to preserve the great city of Alt Coulumb as it tumbles into crisis.

The moon goddess Seril, whose perceived fragility is the focus of much of the plot, is fueled by the collective distaste for her emotional responses to conflict and to her faithful. Presumed dead after the god wars, reports of Seril’s demise were greatly exaggerated, and it’s up to Tara to navigate the consequences of her return, as well as the ongoing financial instability of the Church of Kos Everburning—Alt Coulumb’s recently resurrected god and Seril’s longtime love.
Seril’s weakness in her nascent return presents a liability for Kos and his followers—she’s gone off the rails before (oh, that pesky female hysteria); should Kos swoop to her rescue, his city’s stakeholders would be on the hook for whatever financial damage occurrs. As the city braces for a hostile takeover, Tara must work with Seril both to strengthen the goddess’s standing and demonstrate the separation of the two deities’ holdings.

In her corner are a number of returning characters, including Abelard, the chain-smoking priest of Kos; and Cat, a police officer (more or less) working in tandem with vampire Raz to break up a smuggling operation that hints at a larger conspiracy. Cat is as close to the ass-kicking lady trope as Four Roads Cross gets, but her narrative arc exposes her inner strength, too, as she struggles with what allows her to be as reckless as she often is.
Cat shares tender moments with Aev, one of Seril’s gargoyle servants, a stone woman possessed of great stores of compassion. (To a physically and emotionally injured Cat: “I’m here,” Aev said, soft as an avalanche.) Seril’s gargoyles—Aev and the young firebrand Shale among them—are exemplars of how strength can exist within the soft. These creatures, fearsome in folklore because of their monstrous appearance, were created by Seril as her helpers, to be saviors of her faithful when in danger.

Whether it’s that unconventional compassion or Tara’s soft-skilled intellect, this is a novel that finds value in more than brute force, except for moments when it’s absolutely necessary, as when Tara must escape from a hospital: “They probably aren’t used to patients who turn into eight-foot-tall shadow monsters and jump out a window,” Shale remarks.
Instead, battles are fought through legal arguments and contract negotiations, grand shows of faith sparked by the simplest of kindnesses, and heralds who care more about the truth than their headlines. Here, three common, resilient daughters of an abusive tradesman have as much chance of saving a city as the well-armed blacksuits like Cat.
That many of the movers and shakers of this novel and series are women isn’t a coincidence, or even so much a statement. It is an acknowledgement that, like men, women exist in infinite varieties. Not every strong woman is Lara Croft, and courage takes many forms—and yes, of course, that includes necromancy and financial regulation.