The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Max Gladstone

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-20

Max Gladstone was born on May 28, 1984. He graduated from Yale University, where he studied Chinese, and subsequently worked in China as a teacher and translator from 2006 to 2008. An American fantasy novelist, he began his professional writing career in 2012 and has remained a prolific and influential voice in the genre, working primarily with Tor Books and Tor.com and specializing in urban and secondary-world fantasy grounded in legal and economic systems. His breakthrough came with Three Parts Dead (2012), the first novel in The Craft Sequence, a series exploring a world where magic operates like corporate law after the death of the gods; it continued with Two Serpents Rise (2013), Full Fathom Five (2014), Four Roads Cross (2016), and other volumes, along with the standalone Empress of Forever (2019). He also co-created the serialized fiction project Bookburners and co-wrote the acclaimed novella This Is How You Lose the Time War with Amal El-Mohtar. Gladstone was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2013. This Is How You Lose the Time War went on to win the 2019 BSFA Award and Nebula Award for Best Novella, as well as the 2020 Hugo Award, Aurora Award, Locus Award, and Ignyte Award.

Universe(s)

The Craft Sequence

  • Core Canon books: 9
  • Current rank: #330 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.04
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Books

Aggregate across all universes

← All authors