Free Copies of The Lies of Locke Lamora

Waterstone's is offering a huge giveaway of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - they are giving away 1000 copies! The information and entry form is here - I don't really see any fine print, so as far I can tell it's open to anybody and you aren't signing up for a credit card or anything. If you don't have this book, now is the time.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

The Lies of Locke Lamora set the SFF world abuzz last year as a strong debut about lovable scoundrels taking lots of money from rich people in a fantastically dangerous setting. Red Seas Under Red Skies follows as the second book of the planned seven book Gentlemen Bastards Sequence and fans will not be disappointed with this superior follow-up.

The first half of Red Seas Under Red Skies is structured in much the same way as The Lies of Locke Lamora with alternating views of past and present. The present finds Locke and company in the middle of another grand scheme two years later – a scheme more grandiose and treacherous than ever before – this time in the island city-state of Tel Verrar. The past takes us back to events immediately following events in The Lies of Locke Lamora where recovery and loss strains previously unbreakable bonds.

Look, to avoid spoilers for the first book and appropriately keep you guessing for this one, I’m not going to say much more than these next few hints. We see towering houses of decadent gaming and yes, there are pirates – lots of pirates, maybe even Locke and Jean. The plot twists and turns, death happens and is narrowly avoided, love is found, old love hinted, and bondsmages make their power known while that fight is for a later book – and this barely touches on main storyline where a wannabe tyrant clashes with a merchant guild and underworld kingpin, throws pirates in the mix and places Locke and company in the bloody middle of it all. Locke just may be in over his head this time, and it’s a long, deadly swim in these waters.

The often light and fun, raw and witty Robin Hood meets Ocean’s 11 feel from the first book takes a more strained, forced, and altogether darker hue in Red Seas Under Red Skies. At first this may feel like a failing, but rather this is Lynch being true to his fully realized main cast – past events have taken their toll and some scars never fully heal. This is not to say that the witty humor is lacking, it’s just not at the glib forefront that it was for much of the first book.

Where The Lies of Locke Lamora suffers from occasional first-novel jitters, Red Seas Under Red Skies shows the improvement of Lynch gaining his sea-legs. Supporting characters are still a bit too often paper-machete thin, but Locke and Jean in particular shine even brighter than before. While we learn little new about their past, we see clear character growth, particularly with Locke, and a few hints of what’s to come.

Things start out a bit slow and tedious, but quickly heat up to an all-out gale as Locke’s machinations spin out of control. One the greatest strengths of Lynch is the ability to carefully balance the predictable with the not-so predictable and to get the reader so wrapped up in the story that implications of long forgotten earlier events hit with full force at just the right moment. Any yes, he keeps you guessing. When I was at a point about 100 pages from the end, my thought was ‘how can he possibly wrap things up in a satisfying way in only 100 pages’ – well, Lynch answered with the force of a hurricane. Sure a couple of things may have been a bit too convenient, but high entertainment value cancels such issues out. I once again challenge you to put down the book in the final 100 pages – I sure couldn’t.

Fans have waited a year to see if Lynch will sink or swim after his successful debut. From the card tables to the high seas, assassins in the dark to out-right mutiny, Red Seas Under Red Skies is the real deal – a sequel showing growth and improvement, and offering all the fun a book can. Fans can rejoice while the un-initiated need to join the club and we all anxiously await The Republic of Thieves. 7.5-8/10

Related Posts: Review of The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Hype – it invokes both eagerness and dread, and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch has certainly had its fair share of hype over the last year. Rumblings began in 2005 with a few lone voices like Jay Tomio exclaiming excellence. It peaked in 2006 when and unimpressed reviewer stepped over that invisible line and actually accused other reviewers of taking bribes, invoking a virtual firestorm across the net. Since then, the book has topped many best-of lists of fanboys/girls and bloggers. All the while I’m sure Lynch can barely contain his excitement of the attention his debut has received.

So, does The Lies of Locke Lamora live up to the hype? Was my bribe big enough to make me sing its praises? The short answer is yes to the former and that I’m still waiting for that mythological big payout I’m sure to receive for all the positive reviews I write.

Everybody loves a good story about con artists – and this is a very good story about the Gentlemen Bastards, con artists extraordinaire. We meet the young orphan Locke Lamora and follow him though moments in his childhood as he is trained to become the infamous Thorn of Camorr. In parallel we follow an older Locke, leading the Gentlemen Bastards in a grand scheme as he relieves a noble family of disgustingly large sums of money. As we expect, things get complicated on a number of fronts – a power grab for the rule of Camorr’s underworld and the secret police manage to snare Locke and his brilliantly mischievous gang.

The Lies of Locke Lamora delivers in spite of the hype because it succeeds exactly as advertised – this book is just plain fun. The writing flows decently well for a first novel and the plot grips you early. Lynch taps into that unexplainable sympathy and magnetism we all feel for that loveable rogue – the guy we know is bad, a bastard, but secretly are convinced is actually a nice guy – that guy that the women hate to love and men love to hate. The witty dialogue, while overdone at times, captures that ideal and genuine like for a merry band of thieves sticking it the upper class.

Characterization is present, but to be honest, only one or two characters really come off greater than some paper-machete cliché. It’s the plot that succeeds here. The story that’s told is fun, contains numerous twists that are both anticipated and not, while not being too perfect and wrapping everything up in a neat ‘happily ever after’ ending.

Now, this book is far from perfect – it suffers, greatly at times, from the inconsistency of a first-time novel. The dialogue ranges from witty and realistic to silly and awful – the first time I read the word ‘savvy’, a clear copy right out of Pirates of the Caribbean, I had to put the book down for a while. I could have screamed at a few oversights that were made by a supposedly brilliant gang of con artists that could keep their secret so well and fool everyone. There are also at least one too many instances of survival in a situation of certain death.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is not a book offering new and wondering insights to the human condition. No political statement is made. It is simply a great story – action packed, full of humor, hate and revenge. I couldn’t have put the book down during the final hundred pages if…(fill in the blank with something good).

The Lies of Locke Lamora earns a solid 7.5/10 – the plot should pull it even higher, but the minor annoyances of the first-time novel keep slightly lower. This book is easy to recommend to nearly anyone. As you may expect with such a successful debut, a sequel (actually 6 of them) is in the works (Red Seas Under Red Skies is due out in July ’07), but this book stands on its own for those of us not looking to invest in yet another unfinished series – don’t let the fear of a series stop you from reading this one.