[review] Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
And now that I've blown off some steam, some indulgent writing I meant to post two weeks ago because life got in the way, lol.
Red Seas Under Red Skies is the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, which is a book I read two years ago. I actually did buy the second right after but I didn’t have a whole lot interest in actually reading it because a) spoiler for LLL: EVERY CHARACTER I EVER LIKED DIED HORRIBLY WITH THE EXCEPTION OF TWO, b) the 2nd book opens up with Jean about to betray Locke, which conflicts terribly with my first point, and c) Temeraire happened and everything fell by the wayside, lol.
I’m not overly fond of reading about heist plots in books. I prefer watching them via something like Ocean’s 11 where everyone is charming and pretty. And, to be honest, there’s not a whole lot you can do without breaking for formulaic mold. Inception was no different, other than changing the scenery and adding dreams.
But, there was one advantage RSURS had-characters, background, and established character relationships without molding them into easy caricatures for the benefit of keeping things into a tidy two-hour timeframe. I get a full prequel and 760+ pages of story to become invested in characters that are fully fleshed out. As much as I love Inception and the Ocean series, it’s one of the reasons why I turn to fanfic-to get more out of the characters.
The levels of ‘heists’ portrayed in the book would probably equal that of Inception’s complexity-maybe even more so; a heist within a heist, plus three more other heists, blossoming out of another heist. Something like that. The only difference is the medieval-steam punk setting, magic, and no dreams. OH LORD. My mind, my poor mind.
It didn’t help that I decided to jump right in instead of rereading the first book and it was like OH GOD I’VE FORGOTTEN WHAT BLUNDERING THROUGH MYTHICAL, MADE UP WORDS FELT LIKE. It doesn’t feel good, especially for a heist novel. But whatever, I clung on.
ANYWAY. Let’s talk about the actual book.
Prologue; JEAN IS IN THE MIDDLE OF BETRAYING LOCKE. I am like what the fuck is happening, these two are bffs and Jean wouldn’t do that-and then Jean aims the crossbow at Locke’s head and that’s where the chapter ends and you find out that it was a forward-flash.
And I was stuck worrying about what the hell happened for it to become so bad. :|
Chapter one rolls in with Jean and Locke in the middle of a heist and okay. I don’t know what’s going on, but stuff happens; the evil bondsmagi are after them because the Falconer back in book one is still butthurt.
Suddenly, there is a second chapter one with the title “Reminiscence” and I remembered the bit about alternating time-skip chapters Mr. Lynch likes to write. I am mildly annoyed until I find out it’s about Locke and how he and Jean are coping with the aftermath of the event in Camorr. In my review of the first book, I complained that Locke wasn’t angsting enough about the slaughter of his whole family.
Now he is angsting. Too much. Jean is fed up and brings up a good point that he’s been through the SAME thing Locke has and isn’t being a drunken emo head for it. I really love Jean. I really love it when he provokes Locke into stupid things.
So, really, I believe the whole book was about Locke and Jean’s friendship and how Locke, specifically, is dependent on Jean and not only for his heists. Jean, on the other hand, is wholly loyal to Locke’s well-being and friendship, but the best thing is that he ain’t taking crap from Locke when Locke is being a prissy asshole.
By the way, I love Locke. Didn’t like him in the first book for some reason, but in RSURS, he shows a little more emotion that focuses on other people besides himself.
Lynch handles the females of his world extremely well compared to other fantasy authors. In his book, it is the social norm for women to be anything they damn well please, whether they are knights, assassins, waitresses, whores, garistas, or, my personal favorite, mafia bosses. (Nazca. /sob)
Also! Ezri is only picked on because she is short, not because she is a woman. Also, no one picks on Ezri that much either because she is the lieutenant of a goddamn pirate ship.
The captain is, in fact, a mother of two, who basically burns Locke for getting on her case about “oooh I can’t believe you bought your own children with you-“ Pfft.
As for sexuality portrayed in this world, well, there have been hints and characters that are publically out, and no one is shown giving a care. It doesn’t define Lynch’s characters, though there is one instance when Locke wakes up next to a naked Jabril, and Jabril is like “dude, I just had the most incredible orgy with the guys on blue watch-“ And Locke is mildly surprised, “I didn’t know you swung that way.”
Jabril just shrugs, “man, just wanna try everything just once.”
And it’s just kind of obvious that hetero relationships are more common. Idk, it’s not a big part of the plot, but it’s nice to see an author at least try to create something different instead of just slapping the same traditional issues from our world into his.
ANYWAY. Blah blah bah, plot happens, Jean becomes a wreck after losing Ezri (;A;), things become epic, and then we go back to that betrayal scene with Locke-
AND I’M LIKE OH MY GOD, YES.
It literally comes out of nowhere, the way Jean turns around and aims the crossbow at Locke, because they are surrounded by two other guys with crossbows too, so Jean takes a gamble (but we don’t know that!!).
THIS WHOLE SCENE, GUYS:
Feeling the hot sting of sudden tears in his eyes, Locke slipped his finger away from the trigger of the alley-piece and slowly put it up in the air.
“Will you at least tell me why?” he said.
“Later.” Jean didn’t lower his own weapon. “Give me the crossbow. Slowly. Slowly!”
Locke’s arm was shaking; the nervous reaction had lent an unwanted jerkiness to his movements. Concentrating, trying to keep his emotions under control, Locke passed the bow over to Jean.
As a reader, I knew that there was NO WAY Jean could have betrayed Locke; he just didn’t have the time to, especially not with all the shit they’ve been through together. Logically, you should know that Jean was playing a trick, except there’s a little narration technique called 3RD PERSON LIMITED, so Locke actually misses the hand cue Jean gives during the “betrayal” speech.
Locke didn’t break down, really, except for the SHAKING AND CRYING part and, after killing the assassins, Jean being all YOU IDIOT HOW COULD I BETRAY YOU WHY WOULD YOU BELIEVE THAT DDD:
And, still shaken, Locke is like “DUDE, IT WAS DARK AND THERE WERE CROSSBOWS EVERYWHERE. I PANICKED.”
And I am having hearts in eyes.
Because Jean is really all he has at that point in the face of THIS HORRID WEB OF LIES. It just shows how thrown he would be if he lost Jean-his calm and logic goes all out the window.
At this point, I really, really love Locke right now. He is such a badass in his own right, but would be TOTALLY LOST if he didn’t have certain people in his life.
So it’s not all that surprising, really, that he tricks Jean into drinking the only antidote they have, though I feel horrible for Jean since he had just lost his lover, I think it’s pretty obvious if Locke had taken the antidote and Jean died, he would have followed right after or go into the same state he was at the beginning of the book.
And just like that, the book ends. DUN DUN DUN. Third book is coming out in 2011 and we’ll see where this takes us.
PS: I feel like I should talk about Sabetha and that I’m really annoyed by her, despite not ever appearing in person in the books. (She does in the third book preview though, and I am, like, whatever. Plucky girl thief, so what.) I mean, Sabetha has to be pretty darn special for Locke to be PINING FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER for her. I’m not a fan of CHILDHOOD CRUSHES THAT LAST FOREVER. And, look, I just think it’s annoying. Even Jean thinks it’s annoying, so I rest my case.