The Lies of Locke Lamora

Very satisfying. Nothing new, but everything was sustained high quality. In particular, I liked how romance was mostly absent and how there was little attempt to justify Locke's violence. He is ultimately moral enough to be likable, but he is also a violent criminal and acts like it. Definitely worth reading for anyone slightly interested in the premise.

This is a difficult one to review. The things I liked were in the four-star range, whereas the things I didn't like so much weren't actively negative, but rather just kind of blah.

What I liked:

- An interesting fantasy world that assertively rejects the hobbits-and-elves framework. This goes for more realism - many of the elements could have taken place in a non-magical Renaissance Venice. But this version of Venice is built on the remnants of a technologically advanced, long-vanished civilization, and uses alchemy as its technological driver the way steampunk uses Victorian brass-and-steam.

- An intriguing underworld society that has its own government and even its own secret priesthood.

- A likable band of rogues pulling off heists and confidence games.

- A conflict that mines revenge as a motivator (eventually)

- Some textured and interesting supporting characters (eventually)

- A lot of the themes do come together by the end of the book, in a pretty satisfying way

What I didn't like:

- Most of all, this is SLOW to start. You have to get through half of the book before the main conflict emerges at all. A neat setting and charming characters pulling off capers only maintains interest for so long, unless an actual plot is in evidence. And when the book is 500+ pages, waiting till the halfway point to engage the main narrative is particularly problematic.

- Coming a close second, Locke and his band of merry men are so talented and well-funded that they basically start the story with Story-Breaker Power, which then requires the villain to be nigh-omnipotent to pose a threat, which for me makes things kind of boring. It means either the bad guy will win (usually not allowed, and if allowed, rather a downer), or the good guys will have preposterously good luck to overcome him.

This is a shame, because the backstory does give younger Locke some flaws that could have fueled a more believable challenge for him.

Upshot:

Check this out if world-building is your jam, and you don't mind a leisurely interval where the author introduces background information and you get to know the main characters.

Overall, I think I might check out the next book, because now that the setting and characters are established, it could hook me earlier. And the setting is truly fascinating, plus the first story leaves some characters set up in a really intriguing way for further adventures!

I had so much fun reading this book. The characters, the descriptions, and the subtle lessons are taught toward the end.
I hope many come around to enjoy this book as much as myself.
Locke Lamora is an amazing character with so much growth, I'm excited to see where the second and third books head toward.

Well all of my GR people have enjoyed this book and I can see why, but the part most people seem to love (slippery people successfully being slippery through an ever-worsening series of events) is the part I found tedious. The rest, the standard - if well written - fantasy fare, I liked just fine.

So, I could probably go on to the rest, but not in a hurry.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is part fantasy, part mystery, and part heist. Locke Lamora has been trained since his youth to run the city's high class gang of thieves, The Gentleman Bastards. He is in the middle of a particularly well thought-out plan when the natural order of the city is disrupted by the arrival of the mysterious Grey King. Locke and his friends must solve the mystery in the attempt to prevent total chaos from descending on the city of Camorr.

I have to say I am not entirely sure how much I really liked this book. Perhaps it was my flu-induced ADD, but I found myself oscillating between being thoroughly entertained and mildly bored. Normally I am one who loves descriptive passages, and the world of Camorr is wonderfully different from so many other fantasy realms, yet by the end of the story I was getting tired of what I felt were repetitive explanations. I will say that I did love the interactions between the Gentleman Bastards - my only complaint is that there weren't enough of them! Perhaps I am just a sucker for the large group of friends working to pull off a bit of sneakery, but I really wish we had gotten to see more interactions of the team plotting, planning, and working together.

The tone of the story runs from good-natured jesting between the Gentleman Bastards to rather explicit violence between mortal enemies. I have to say I am not one to be put off by violence or offensive language in books, but for some reason I didn't feel like they naturally flowed in this story. I found the tone of the characters to change too often at odd times. Granted, as con artists, that should be something they are quite skilled at, but the timing of it made the main characters feel too inconsistent. Their use of language kept throwing me out of the story and into modern day. Well, that and everyone's need to give lengthy exposition on their terrible sad childhood. I mean, giving people terrible sad childhood stories is a great way to build a character - but I don't necessarily believe they are all going to sit around and actually talk about it after beating the crap out of each other.

I will say that the end of the story was quite exciting though - which conflicts my feelings even more. With about a hundred pages to go I was reading just to finish it, but with about sixty left I was reading because I wanted to know what was going to happen. The conclusion was satisfying, though this story did leave several important things unanswered (well, really, barely touched upon them at all), which I suppose is a good way to convince us to read more of the series.

There has been talk on the internets about the possibility of this becoming a movie. I have to say I actually think it would make a much better TV show than a full length film. Partially because I feel like it would be difficult to reduce all of the nuances of the plot to only a few hours, but also because the way Scott Lynch breaks down the chapters feels very episodic and almost soap-opera-esque in style. Also, I think the “mystery” portion of the story would play up better over the course of a season rather than in the time constraints of a film. I don't know if it would be possible to retain quite the... flavor... of the characters in a TV series, but I think it would be better for developing the overall mystery and plot. Especially if it were taken on by a network like HBO. Normally I am on team “The Book is Better,” but in this case I might actually be more excited by a well done television series than I am by the novels. I would definitely love to see the world of Camorr on screen though - be it big or small.

So, I don't know how I feel about the first book of the Gentleman Bastards series. I suppose I did enjoy it, off an on, but I also didn't feel like the story was quite as tight as I wanted it to be. I liked the characters, but I never really fell in love with any of them. I still have a lot of questions about their pasts, but I am not sure how much time I want to put into finding out the answers. Also, I can't be entirely sure how much my hesitation comes from having to read the book in pieces, how much from having the flu, and how much from the writing of the book itself. This might be another book I have to file under the “written for dudes” category. Certainly a lot of things I can see some of my male friends getting really excited about that sort of left me disinterested. I mean, I think there is enough interest for me to pick up the second book in the series, Red Seas Under Red Skies, but probably not right away. Definitely want to give the series another shot, but I am going to wait until I am no longer suffering from flu-induced ADD brain fog, and until I have time to sit down and read it without lengthy interruptions.

The first two-thirds of this book are absolutely fantastic - it's a character-driven heist story with a group of witty, likable characters that truly are gentlemen as much as they are bastards. The book takes a sharp turn after that, though - enough of one that I would classify the rest as a completely different genre - and it never quite regains the energy it had in the first part. Overall, though, it provides a nice story set in a fantasy world that manages to avoid the trappings of a “fantasy novel”.

A lot of fantasy books are written with tons of ambition. It’s a genre that very much lends itself to it, as there aren’t really any limits within the genre itself. The only barriers are created by the author themselves. However i do think that some authors would be served well by tempering their ambitions, and Lynch is one of them. With that said I enjoyed most of my experience reading The Lies of Locke Lamora. It has a fun premise, the main characters have a lot of charm and the basic narrative is very satisfying to follow up until the final act. I think this book is a ton of fun when it’s only focusing on the adventures of Locke and the rest of the Gentlemen Bastards. Where this book loses me is when it tries to expand its scope. One minute you’re reading about Locke coming up with a scheme, the next you’re reading about the economic system of the entire city. One moment you’re reading a cool action sequence, the next you’re reading about some random diplomatic relationships. It takes a very skilled writer to blend the micro with the macro and unfortunately I just don’t think Lynch is quite at that level. I don’t want to come across as too harsh on Lynch as I do like a lot of the ideas he has here and I think the core story of this book is a really good one. But not every fantasy book needs multiple countries, nor does it need to be over 700 pages. A version of this book that trims down some of the excess worldbuilding would probably land around 500 pages and I would be singing its praises. Alas, I am not reviewing that version, I am reviewing this one and this one is a flawed book with some great sections.

I liked this book, it surely had its exciting moments. Nevertheless, I felt it was too slow to build up the emotion and connection to the story. I struggled to maintain my interest during the first half of the book at least (it felt like years), although it quickly grew during the final chapters. I guess I was expecting too much of it reading all the 5 star reviews? I certainly enjoyed the wit of Locke and his friends during the story, but I just could't get the same sense of anticipation as I have felt with other characters in fantasy novels.

This book is beautifully written, made me laugh out loud and sob like a baby, kept me engaged the whole way through and had me entirely fall in love with the world and the characters, especially the protagonist.
Like, seriously, I'd die for Locke. What a lovable a-hole.
From now on The Lies of Locke Lamora is definitely up there as one of my favorite books of all time!

The novel has 2 timelines: a past one, fast, entertaining and witty, a 4/5. And a present one that tries too hard to be entertaining and witty and is just boring and overburdened with uninteresting, unoriginal worldbuilding, yet not enough characters' building. And definitely not believable at all in its schemes. A 2/5 at most. The average would be 3, but i'll lower it further not because of the author, but of the many reviews pretending this is another “Name of the Wind”. No, not even nearly, and that comparison set my expectations too high and the dissappointment was sharper. I will not read the rest of the trilogy, though I already got them.

This was a champion wee read. Great plot, cons within cons within cons. It got me out on longer dog walks just to get more of the story into me on the headphones. The pacing was just right, the characters — superb, and the moving around of the timeline for maximum surprise effect was deftly done. The performance of Michael Page in the @audibleuk audiobook was really well done too - great use of voices. Highly recommended. Thank you to the @theincomparable for the rec!

This is a good book, but let me put a couple warnings out there. This book is very dark and can be pretty gruesome (gory) and explicit in places. There is also a lot of profanity, in the prologue especially. I am used to the made up cuss words in a lot of fantasy, so this was a little jarring. I understand that this sets the mood for the world, but I just wanted to let others know that if this were a movie, it would be rated R.

I had trouble getting into this book. It is split into 4 parts and goes back and forth in time with “interludes” throughout the book, those are little snippets of what happened with Locke and his crew as they grew up, or sometimes events that are outside of the main plot. I enjoyed the interludes, especially the parts about Locke and his friends growing up. What I had trouble with was “Part I's” tendency to go back and forth between what Locke et al. were doing in the present and what they were doing earlier to get ready for their undertakings. It was like one of those retrospective episodes of Bones or NCIS. It completely broke the flow, and it took my brain a minute to catch up. It took me forever to get through that part, and I was afraid that it would continue in the same vein. Thankfully after the first part ended, the back and forth calms down and you really get the meat of the story.

For me, once the story picked up, it was very good. It keeps you on edge and wanting to know how/if the gang is going to get out of situation.


Also in regards to the prologue, was anyone else picturing Fagin every time the Theifmaker spoke?


Just me?