the lies of locke lamora by scott lynch.
you guys, THIS BOOK. a book has not filled me with this much glee and rage since the lioness quartet. (or maybe tigana. the last line of that fills me with an awful lot of rage.)
the world lynch creates is gorgeously rich and complex, with such a thought-out and well-used history that i am shocked this is his first novel. his characters are all stunningly real, and the writing is superb.
it is set in camorr, a city made up of interconnected islands. in camorr, orphans have two possible fates: slaves, or thieves. this is a story about the latter, although they are not just any thieves. they are the ocean's 11 to the rest of the city's petty thieves. they are the gentlemen bastards.
Bug stepped forward and cleared his throat.
"I'm only doing this, he said, "because I really love hiding in haunted Eldren buildings on dark and creepy nights."
"You're a liar," said Jean, slowly. "I'm only doing this because I've always wanted to see Bug get eaten by an Eldren ghost."
"Liar," said Calo. "I'm only doing this because I fucking love hauling half a ton of bloody coins up out of a vault and packing them away on a cart."
"Liar!" Galdo chuckled. "I'm only doing this because while you're all busy elsewhere, I'm going to go pawn all the furniture in the burrow at No-Hope Harza's."
"You're all liars," said Locke as their eyes turned expectantly to him. "We're only doing this because nobody else in Camorr is good enough to pull this off, and nobody else is dumb enough to get stuck doing it in the first place."
"Bastard!" They shouted in unison, forgetting their surroundings for a bare moment.
-The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
with that said, there were some problems.
first of all, the next thing i read that has a gun in the first act and a distinct lack of bullet holes by the end is going to die in a motherfucking fire. i am not even kidding- this is the most unsatisfying thing you can do you your story, and i am sick of reading otherwise excellently researched, plotted, and written stories that have this gaping hole where foreshadowing dropped dead. in this story, that gaping hole was sabetha. where the fuck is she? WHO the fuck is she? she is a gentleman bastard, she is apparently the love of locke's life, and she's "the born queen of all the charmers that ever lived." and despite the fact that she is often talked about, she never appears in the book, not even in the (many) flashbacks. the first time she is seriously discussed, locke is basically cursing her fucking name! so where is she? i thought she was the bad guy, or helping the bad guy, or kidnapped by the bad guy, or SOMETHING. but did she make a dramatic entrance at the end? nope. did she make ANY entrance at the end? nope. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
(on top of that, when the bad guy's true identity is kept hidden until very close the end, it is EXTREMELY bad form to have a character like sabetha running around, where we know a name and connections to other characters and nothing else. URGH. (i mean, if she's supposed to be a red herring, that's fine, but then you need to ACKNOWLEDGE THE RED HERRING, ASSHOLES. (this is leftover rage from a fic i read, sorry.)))
and, okay, i try really hard not to be this girl. i like reading stories about boys. it doesn't bother me AT ALL to read/watch things about boys, where there are no major female characters. it bothers me more to listen to bands that have no female members than it does to read books with no female characters, for real. the only time it really DOES bother me is when the few females in the book (or whatever) are incredibly sexist caricatures, and even then i can overlook it if it's not pretending to be a feminist book. WITH THAT SAID. this story had 6+ incredibly bad-ass chicks, and we did not get much depth for any of them, and that made me really said. sabetha! nazka! the sisters! the dona! the spider! i think it's especially bothersome because the two who are peers of the main characters (nazka and sabetha) have extremely little depth even though they are in reality friends of the boys. in fact, i would say we see the LEAST of them. fucking lame.
the other main problem is that there is too much story to this story. while i found the snippets of how their society came together and the boys' training and whatnot interesting, it was definitely not all necessary and often left me saying "that's...nice. can we get back to the task at hand?"
otherwise though, this was a really enjoyable read and i will not be surprised at all if it stays lodged in my brain for a good long while.
the world lynch creates is gorgeously rich and complex, with such a thought-out and well-used history that i am shocked this is his first novel. his characters are all stunningly real, and the writing is superb.
it is set in camorr, a city made up of interconnected islands. in camorr, orphans have two possible fates: slaves, or thieves. this is a story about the latter, although they are not just any thieves. they are the ocean's 11 to the rest of the city's petty thieves. they are the gentlemen bastards.
Bug stepped forward and cleared his throat.
"I'm only doing this, he said, "because I really love hiding in haunted Eldren buildings on dark and creepy nights."
"You're a liar," said Jean, slowly. "I'm only doing this because I've always wanted to see Bug get eaten by an Eldren ghost."
"Liar," said Calo. "I'm only doing this because I fucking love hauling half a ton of bloody coins up out of a vault and packing them away on a cart."
"Liar!" Galdo chuckled. "I'm only doing this because while you're all busy elsewhere, I'm going to go pawn all the furniture in the burrow at No-Hope Harza's."
"You're all liars," said Locke as their eyes turned expectantly to him. "We're only doing this because nobody else in Camorr is good enough to pull this off, and nobody else is dumb enough to get stuck doing it in the first place."
"Bastard!" They shouted in unison, forgetting their surroundings for a bare moment.
-The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
with that said, there were some problems.
first of all, the next thing i read that has a gun in the first act and a distinct lack of bullet holes by the end is going to die in a motherfucking fire. i am not even kidding- this is the most unsatisfying thing you can do you your story, and i am sick of reading otherwise excellently researched, plotted, and written stories that have this gaping hole where foreshadowing dropped dead. in this story, that gaping hole was sabetha. where the fuck is she? WHO the fuck is she? she is a gentleman bastard, she is apparently the love of locke's life, and she's "the born queen of all the charmers that ever lived." and despite the fact that she is often talked about, she never appears in the book, not even in the (many) flashbacks. the first time she is seriously discussed, locke is basically cursing her fucking name! so where is she? i thought she was the bad guy, or helping the bad guy, or kidnapped by the bad guy, or SOMETHING. but did she make a dramatic entrance at the end? nope. did she make ANY entrance at the end? nope. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
(on top of that, when the bad guy's true identity is kept hidden until very close the end, it is EXTREMELY bad form to have a character like sabetha running around, where we know a name and connections to other characters and nothing else. URGH. (i mean, if she's supposed to be a red herring, that's fine, but then you need to ACKNOWLEDGE THE RED HERRING, ASSHOLES. (this is leftover rage from a fic i read, sorry.)))
and, okay, i try really hard not to be this girl. i like reading stories about boys. it doesn't bother me AT ALL to read/watch things about boys, where there are no major female characters. it bothers me more to listen to bands that have no female members than it does to read books with no female characters, for real. the only time it really DOES bother me is when the few females in the book (or whatever) are incredibly sexist caricatures, and even then i can overlook it if it's not pretending to be a feminist book. WITH THAT SAID. this story had 6+ incredibly bad-ass chicks, and we did not get much depth for any of them, and that made me really said. sabetha! nazka! the sisters! the dona! the spider! i think it's especially bothersome because the two who are peers of the main characters (nazka and sabetha) have extremely little depth even though they are in reality friends of the boys. in fact, i would say we see the LEAST of them. fucking lame.
the other main problem is that there is too much story to this story. while i found the snippets of how their society came together and the boys' training and whatnot interesting, it was definitely not all necessary and often left me saying "that's...nice. can we get back to the task at hand?"
otherwise though, this was a really enjoyable read and i will not be surprised at all if it stays lodged in my brain for a good long while.