Book Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch (or scott_lynch)
Grade: B
This book should have gotten an A out of me. I am absolutely the target audience. I love stories of clever people being clever, and if they’re rogues in a well-created fantasy setting, so much the better. However, it has several unforgivable flaws, which bring it from a great book to a merely enjoyable one.
I’ll start with the bits that didn’t please me, and work my way to the good.
The first thing that bugged me is perhaps attributable to me being a writer. I speak of the writerly stuff that’s going on in the first several chapters; I don’t know if a non-writer would notice and be bothered by it.
What sort of writerly stuff, you ask?
By page 30 I wanted to revoke Lynch’s licence to use adjectives. I also wanted to stick a chopstick into the part of his brain responsible for long lists of items. Yes, this all went a long way towards creating the mood and feeling of the city of Camorr. Unfortunately, I kept noticing it.
The other thing I kept noticing was the way the chapters broke from the present story to the past story. Now, far be it from me to frown on that particular technique, having used it myself. But the first several were all done in such a way as to create frustration in the reader by breaking just as a question or complication was raised. The practical effect of this was, of course, to make me keep reading. However, I could see the puppetmaster yanking on my curiosity chain, most unsubtly. I wanted to say to the author, “Quit manipulating me and let me just enjoy the book.”
All of this calmed down somewhat around page 120 (of the mass market edition). Whether it’s because Lynch did less of it, or I finally settled into the rhythm, I leave to the reader to ponder. I will note, though, that the one thing that didn’t settle down was the slight toss out of the book that I got every time the time frame changed. Forcing the reader to switch gears every 20 to 50 pages like that was risky. It made it very easy for me to put the book down rather than stay up late reading (“Oh, well, since I’m going to have my answers delayed anyway, I may as well go to sleep”).
It says something very good about Lynch’s plotting that I kept picking the book back up.
The other minor irritation is Lynch’s habit of italics. I’ve read advice about not using lots of italics for dialogue emphasis, and discarded it, because sometimes a sentence will change meaning depending on where the reader puts the emphasis; a writer who cares about specific meaning should use italics to his advantage.
Lynch, however, demonstrated to me why that advice is so often given. Words were italicized when it was obvious that’s where the stress would go, and I found this distracting. It speaks of lack of confidence in the rhythm of the prose, and in Lynch’s case, there’s no cause for it. (How’s that for a left-handed compliment: “stop acting as if you don’t know how to write, because you do.”)
All that “writerly” stuff I could forgive, and blame myself for not being an ideal reader. The italics thing I could blame on this being a first novel, and hope that Lynch will grow out of it. But the real thing that keeps this book from an A are a couple of moments of wild character stupidity.
Locke agrees to play the part of the Gray King at a meeting with Capa Barsavi. I had no problem with Locke agreeing to this--it was impossible for him to refuse outright without being killed on the spot. The legendary powers of the Bondsmagi also made it believeable that Locke wouldn’t just run for his life.
But.
Locke walks into the meeting never expecting that oh, hey, he’s been set up and the Gray King means for Locke to be killed by Capa Barsavi! I, meanwhile, thought that was bleeding obvious. “The shit will hit the fan and he will have some daring counter-plan,” I thought.
Unfortunately, no. He’s been established as a clever con artist, but the best he had was that two of his friends were hiding in proximity? Moreover, their assistance only works because of the particular fate Capa Barsavi chooses, but which Locke, again, doesn’t specificially anticipate. In short, Locke displays utter idiocy and only avoids death by happy coincidence.
Capa Barsavi’s method of murder is the other moment of character stupidity, and feels extra contrived because it’s the lucky break that rescues Locke’s ass. It’s perfectly logical for Capa Barsavi to try to drown him in a cask of horse piss. It’s not perfectly logical for Capa Barsavi to immediately thereafter toss the cask down under the building where he has no idea what might be there. Hell, there could have been a rock or piling that broke open the cask; never mind two cohorts, one armed with axes.
"No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?" --Dr. Evil
Lynch distracts us from this by sheer verve. He throws the reader immediately into a highly entertaining flashback chapter, then a short present-time chapter dealing with characters other than Locke and his crew, then another short flashback chapter. By the time we get back to the main story to learn how Locke doesn’t die, we’re no longer worrying about those two moments of character stupidity.
That energy is one of the strong points of the book. I once observed that it’s not enough for a plot to keep moving forward, it must also accellerate, and Lynch creates this pacing very well. The book starts slowly, deliberately, with a gradual introduction of the main character and the city of Camorr.
[Sidebar: I want to note how much I love the name Camorr for the setting. I assume Lynch knows the word “Camorra,” an Italian criminal organization dating from the early 1800s, and a precursor of the mafia.]
If the characterization is not deep, at least it is efficient. Lynch doesn’t commit the sin of constantly re-telling the reader what drives each character. He does tell at points, but that doesn’t bother me a whit when it’s done economically. Lynch’s primary method of characterization is a one-two punch: a bit from the POV of the character in question, and a bit from the POV of another character who is dealing with him.
For each of the members of the Gentleman Bastards, we get a short vignette or two of their education as criminals, and then additional observations by Father Chains. The number of such scenes is directly proportional to the importance of the character; we therefore get a quick impression of Calo and Galdo as the clever-and-merry interchangeable twins (who are easily predicted to end just as dead as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern). Bug is largely undeveloped, perhaps because he came on the scene after Father Chains is dead. He’s established early as “old enough to know better, but too young to care,” as the saying goes to describe the adolescent mindset of invincibility and unquestioning loyalty to one’s friends.
Locke himself is not clearly limned, but this doesn’t seem a flaw to me: the man is a con artist, a professional cypher, and if his true feelings are a bit fuzzy to the reader, that’s appropriate. There are many scenes from Locke’s POV but none of them are very close in. We don’t get inside his skin, but rather ride around on his shoulder. The primary impression I get of Locke is that he’s clever in a very specific and rare way: he has the ability to read people, coupled with the creativity to think of ways to use this knowledge against them. When he fails, it’s because he has failed to correctly read someone.
The additional layer of characterization on Locke is his determination. He’s smaller than the other kids (and adults), but he can take a beating. He just does not give up, outlasting his opponents by sheer stubbornness. It’s the kind of stubbornness that rarely comes coupled with creativity, but when it does, it’s very effective. Locke doesn’t merely create plans, he follows through on them no matter what.
There is one futher aspect to Locke that is not relevant to the plot, but additional layers are always good: he has loved and lost. Unfortunately, Lynch brings up Sabetha just a little too often. Because we know she’s still alive, I kept expecting her to show up in the book. Hell, I’d have been happy if we just saw her in a flashback. But no, that particular gun sits unfired on the mantel, and totally, totally proves Chekhov right. It’s annoying, and materially contributes to a feeling of dissatisfaction at the end. (Rumor has it that she doesn’t turn up in the sequel either. This has greatly dampened my desire to read it.)
The most well-rounded character is Jean Tannen, and perhaps this is because Jean also has the most varied life experience. He grew up the son of a merchant, educated and priviledged, then orphaned. Father Chains takes him in, sees the anger Jean has at the loss of his parents and station, and has him trained, channelling his anger into useful violence.
Furthermore, Jean is not a leader, and he knows it. He’s smart enough to know when to follow someone cleverer; in this case, Locke. In addition, the Gentlemen Bastards are a family, and Jean, having experienced what a real family can be, works as hard as Father Chains at maintaining his new family. In the current-time storyline, Father Chains is dead; Locke is the new father of the gang, but Jean is their mother.
(Yeah, Jean is my favorite character. What geek doesn’t love a fat, nerdy kid who grows up to be an asskicking thug?)
The really great aspect of the book is the worldbuilding. Lynch shorted on characterization at times, but he lavished those words on the environment. Camorr rests on the site of an ancient alien--or something--city. Some critters in the forgotten past built things of Elderglass, a super-durable material that glows at dusk. Random buildings in Camorr are made from it, as are the Five Towers, immense structures where the nobility live. The canals of the city are crossed by skinny arches of the stuff, footbridges without railings. (It reminded me of the description of the alien ruins in Total Recall--yes, I read the movie novelization; no, I’m not proud of it--and so I envision the aliens as insect-like, and Elderglass as a secreted resin.)
The other creepy bit of worldbuilding is the Gentled animals. The alchemists of this world have developed a chemical that turns animals into docile, vacant zombies. It also does this to humans, and the ultimate drama of the book rests on this threat.
The overall feel of the worldbuilding is very tip-of-the-iceberg. I hope that’s not just an impression, and that Lynch does indeed have much larger plans that will continue to unfold from it.
My summary reaction? A lot of fun, marred by a couple of large, but not fatal, flaws.