The Lies of Locke Lamora is hands down one of the best books I've read in the last five years. And I've read a LOT of books in the last five years, lol. The only thing wrong with it is that it only has one sequel so far, not two. ;) So don't feel bad if you can't put it down. I couldn't either. And the others will wait. :D (Best Served Cold was...pretty good, I thought. Not great, but pretty good. Not that you asked or anything, lol.)
lol i just came in here to say this (resolutely skipping over all your sookie stackhouse summaries, no spoilers for lya no siree), but james is apparently psychic so i'm just going to second what he said.
i ... have maybe more reservations about locke lamora than he does, but it's coming up on my 30 days of books meme so i'll talk about it there? though i totally agree, best served cold - while a solid read - wasn't OMGamazing or anything.
i think that my problem with locke lamora is that it could have been better than it was. bigger than it was maybe. i think that he could have written a flawed but ambitious debut rather than an undoubtedly entertaining but safe one. i dunno, some people might say that the book wasn't intended to be epic, it's not supposed to be ambitious, but i dunno. anyway the sequel was not as good imo.
i think that he could have written a flawed but ambitious debut rather than an undoubtedly entertaining but safe one
Interesting! I think I in general tend to prefer entertaining and safe to ambitious but flawed, though I can admire the reach of the ambitious and flawed ones.
Anyway, we'll see what I think of the actual book.
Let me put it this way. Locke Lamora was entertaining and safe (as well as epic, see below) and I absolutely loved it. Best Served Cold was flawed and ambitious (as was pretty much everything else from Abercrombie's pen) and I only found it decent. You make the call. ;)
Ambitious but flawed is definitely the way I feel about The Blade Itself. I don't know about epicness -- LotR definitely qualifies, and so does ASOIAF, but I actually think EPIC is pretty hard to do well, and not being epic is not necessarily a flaw at all.
I don't know, Lya, I found both Locke Lamora books to be pretty damn epic. Maybe not on an LOTR or Inda or Acts of Caine scale, but for what they are they are some of the best I've read. Maybe it wasn't ambitious (I disagree), but it was AWESOME. I have read very few books that made me sit up and go "whoa! no effing way!" as much as those two have. And for me that's a pretty good way to judge epicness. ;)
ah i see. i think that while i like to be entertained - when it comes down to it i'd rather be entertained than intellectually challenged by a book - i have these weird standards that when it comes to reccing stuff i cannot in good conscience rec something that's too ... insubstantial, does that make sense? not saying that locke lamora is on par with, say, twilight - it's obviously miles better - just that it seems closer to junk food than vegetables, i don't know.
i wish i didn't operate this way, honestly. not everything we read is going to be dostoevsky, but it's like i've internalized the idea that only things that are sufficiently ~literary have merit. so basically 60% of the sci-fi/fantasy i read is a bad habit lol.
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i ... have maybe more reservations about locke lamora than he does, but it's coming up on my 30 days of books meme so i'll talk about it there? though i totally agree, best served cold - while a solid read - wasn't OMGamazing or anything.
i think that my problem with locke lamora is that it could have been better than it was. bigger than it was maybe. i think that he could have written a flawed but ambitious debut rather than an undoubtedly entertaining but safe one. i dunno, some people might say that the book wasn't intended to be epic, it's not supposed to be ambitious, but i dunno. anyway the sequel was not as good imo.
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Interesting! I think I in general tend to prefer entertaining and safe to ambitious but flawed, though I can admire the reach of the ambitious and flawed ones.
Anyway, we'll see what I think of the actual book.
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i wish i didn't operate this way, honestly. not everything we read is going to be dostoevsky, but it's like i've internalized the idea that only things that are sufficiently ~literary have merit. so basically 60% of the sci-fi/fantasy i read is a bad habit lol.
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I did start Best Served Cold and am enjoying it so far. More than I did The First Law trilogy, at the start, so I guess that's a good sign.
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