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An orphan's life is harsh—and often short—in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains—a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected "family" of orphans—a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting. Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld's most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful—and more ambitious—than Locke has yet imagined. Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi's most trusted men—and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr's underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game—or die trying.… (more)
User reviews
This book is so good on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. The author tosses in descriptions of fantastical things and places here and there until he has built this wonderful medieval fantasy city of Camorr in which to grow his story. The story is interesting, varied, fun and exciting. Full of intricate plots and unforeseen happenings, sometimes we are in the present, and sometimes he takes us into the past of the main characters so we can see for ourselves how Locke came to be the master thief and ringleader of The Gentlemen Bastards. One of many gangs in the underworld of this city, The Gentlemen Bastards live on the edge as they deceive everyone including their underworld boss up to the very heights of society. Their loyalty is only to each other.
A fantasy book quite unlike any other I have read, the author has used many fantasy principles like brotherhood, intrigue, magic and revenge but stamped these plot devices with his own mark. A very creative, humorous, adventuresome book with an edge. Some violence and gore which is only to be expected given the drift of the story. My only minor complaint would be perhaps the lack of a strong female lead, although the book definitely supplies us with a few strong females in lesser roles, but this is the first book, and, this is a character development that could be revealed in a later book. For a fresh look at fantasy, I highly recommend The Lies of Locke LaMorra.
The plot, let's be clear - it's a heist movie. Locke Lamora is a thief, his gang of Gentleman Bastards are thieves. They steal from the rich and they don't give to the poor. Their schemes to get rich are complex confidence tricks, and the joy the author must have taken in thinking them up shines through the pages, and rollicks the story through the first few hundred pages - after that the novel darkens and the body count rises, and it becomes less likeable, but no less good a novel. The main plot is interspersed with interludes from the main characters' backstories and details about the world in which they live, and while I think the placement and distribution of these is clumsy, they're enjoyable for all that.
There are the usual first-novel flaws - sometimes the prose is too flowery, sometimes the dialogue is wooden or could be easily elided - but in my mind, the greatest issue with this book is its distinct lack of female characters. There basically aren't any of note - there is a woman who never appears but conveniently exists for Locke to pine over, there is another woman who makes a couple of token appearances before being summarily killed in aid of male character development, there's another who is the usual fantasy-world prostitute. The situation improves slightly as the novel progresses - it even passes the Bechdel test, a mere ten pages from the end - but generally it does read a little like boys' own fantasy in this regard, which is offputting.
But - it's fun. And I shall read the next one with interest.
Review: I’d heard a lot of good reviews for this book but I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it as much as everyone seemed to think I would. The thieves and rogues genre isn’t one that I normally enjoy. I tend to find overly clever characters insufferable in their arrogance. Yet after finishing the first chapter of The Lies of Locke Lamora, I changed my mind. I do enjoy this because Scott Lynch makes it impossible not to. The man is a golden storyteller. He could probably write a story about accountants and it would still be rollicking, witty, and creative.
Thankfully, this is not a story about accountants. It’s a story of cunning, brotherhood, revenge, and growing up. It’s dark when it needs to be dark — and it has a high body count, higher than I expected — and it’s funny when it needs to be funny. Lynch writes with a grim, tongue-in-cheek humour that perfectly suits the kind of people Locke hangs out with.
The characters were all compelling, each and every one of them. The interludes to the past were integrated smoothly with the present-day plot, allowing you to get a glimpse of who Locke was without disturbing the adventure of who Locke is. The dashes of creativity and culture fleshed out the world of Camorr. The little mysteries — the mention of Sabetha, Locke’s real name — were left to whet your appetite for the books to follow.
This is a real swashbuckler, the kind I haven’t read in a long time. It breathes life into the tired thieves and rogues genre, and if this is the future I’m glad to be clinging on to the ship.
Conclusion: Top-notch fun.
This time around, the grand Marshall of the hype parade is Scott Lynch’s “The Lies of Locke Lamora”. Extremely positive early reviews of Lynch’s debut novel had quickened my enthusiasm. How can one ignore a book that is receiving proclamations of awesomeness from the fantasy literati? Would it live up to its own hype? Could it live up to its own hype, or would my expectations doom it?
So tempering my enthusiasm with a healthy does of scepticism, I was greatly pleased that “The Lies of Locke Lamora” was even better than I had anticipated. Oh yes, there is joy in Lockeville. Much joy!
In fact, the novel’s greatest strength is the joie de vivre that continuously bubbles through to the reader. Try to not smile, have fun and root for Locke Lamora, Lynch dares you. It is at these moments that the story becomes charming and magical. And when the latter half of the novel turns suddenly dark, the sharp contrast gives the conclusion even more gravitas.
Set exclusively in the Venetian-inspired city-state of Camorr, where a grid work of canals differentiates the city’s diverse districts, “The Lies of Locke Lamora” follows, not surprisingly, Locke Lamora, orphan, con-artist, rapscallion, and the reputed ‘Thorn of Camorr’. And with a moniker comes expectations. Only characters who are legendary and ooze with flair and style, may earn them. And Locke does not disappoint. Locke is the leader of a young band of grifters called the Gentlemen Bastards, who through elaborate schemes and deceptions target the Camorr upper class. The Gentlemen Bastards criminal misdeeds have earned them a place among the vast Camorrian criminal underworld headed by Capa Barvasi. Before you can say ‘Mafioso’, Locke and the Gentlemen Bastards find themselves embroiled in a gang war between Capa Barvasi and a mysterious newcomer, the Grey King. All the while, the Camorrian authorities, no longer willing to tolerate Locke’s deceptions, are spinning a tight web around Locke. Embattled from within and without, Locke must struggle to save himself and the Gentlemen Bastards. And he must do it with style. Pesky moniker!
Lynch’s strengths revolve around his vivid characterizations, particularly of the main characters, Locke and his best friend Jean, and his storytelling tendencies. The banter between the characters, which is heavily infused with a male-posturing and sarcasm similar in style to that found in movies like Ocean’s Eleven or Reservoir Dogs, serves as Lynch’s primary means of in-depth characterization. It is dialogue clearly written with an eye cast toward the coolness factor. If this strikes you as too testosterone intensive or you are allergic to anything snarky, you may wish to look for greener pastures, elsewhere.
The main storytelling is straightforward, for the most part, following a three act narrative structure. Interludes, which fill in background information on the characters, come between the chapters dedicated to the overall plot. These interludes are slightly jarring and seem more appropriate to film, where the narrative is more linearly constrained, than in a novel, where mental asides convey thought in a character. This is a minor quibble, though, and does no real harm to the novel. In the light of awesomeness, flaws become transparent.
Last Word:
The Lies of Locke Lamora is an auspicious debut by Scott Lynch and a very promising start to a new fantasy series. Infused with an infectious joie de vivre, the novel transcends into the magical, charming you to the very end. And leaving you to eagerly anticipate the next volume. Let the hype begin!
Lynch does several things very well in this book; he is very technically proficient and his descriptions and dialogue sparkle with polish. His world has a good balance of the familiar and the fantastic. I loved Camorr, his take on Venice, and his additions to make a unique culture fit in well. He has the skill to make you see, and enjoy, a city that is not "nice", and he doesn't cover the ugliness, but he also does a good job making you care about people who aren't very nice. There's a way to tell this story so the Thorn of Camorr is the villain, or at least a villain, and if you are like me you may feel somewhat ambivalent about Locke and his Gentleman Bastards. It takes time to get into them, to see who they are and how they are an inescapable product of the environment. They are sometimes hilarious and, as we find out, not such bad guys after all. Lynch also has a knack for female characters- I liked all the women in this book, which is rare, and although none of them are main characters there are a couple important support roles. I will be interested to see what he does with Locke's love interest, the oft-mentioned but never seen Sabetha.
My only problems with the book did not merit removing stars, but here they are- the beginning of the book switches from young Locke to current Locke, alternating chapters. This was annoying sometimes as it would interrupt the flow of one story to go back to another, and at first the flashbacks are more compelling than the set up for the con. If you don't like it, be patient; as the main storyline gets rolling the interludes get shorter and almost disappear, and I found after the fact I liked it as a way to get in the critical back story without holding off on the main action. I was also vaguely dissatisfied with the ending, but I can't put my finger on it. Something I wanted did not materialize, but perhaps it will resolve in future books, as he seems to have great plans for the sequence. (More of the Salvarras would make me happy, but it doesn't sound like they are in the second book.)
Anyway, this is a fun book- slick, witty, funny, sometimes brutal, and a set up for a long and involved series. I liked it and would recommend it to others.
Lynch draws a fantastic world filled with fantastic characters. His setting is fully-realized and absolutely engrossing - it's the sort of place that you can not only picture, but also smell and taste and touch and /feel/ when you close your eyes. The politics of the place are foreign, but human, and even bit characters have so much life to them that they feel full and fantastic.
Lynch's main bunch, the Gentlemen Bastards, are aptly named. You love them, you hate them, you love to hate them and hate to love them. They occasionally do horrid things - they're thieves, after all - but it's hard to blame them for much, in the world they live in. There's not a single one in the batch who I didn't love as a character, including one who is drawn quite well even in her continued absence.
The plot is intriguing and twisting, filled with surprises (this book made me gasp aloud in horror and shock at least twice, quite possibly more) and all sorts of fun details about the capering life of con artists and thieves and villains that make me wriggle with the joy of it. This book is /fun/.
The timeshifts are a bit cumbersome at the start, until one gets the hang of them, but they get easier as you go, and soon there's a very fun back-and-forth, a backstory and a forestory tied together in interesting ways. If they put you off at first, stick with it - the book is worth it!
This is a book where the world and characters and exploits stay with you after you've turned the last page - which is a relief, because I hardly wanted to leave them! It's the most fun I've had in a pair of weekend afternoons in a very long time.
This book, the first of a promised 7 book series, is a pretty masterful display of how it works. You've got the super-tricky and stylish lead, his smart and muscular sidekick, the tight gang, and the array of opposing forces and marks. There's a lot of backstory for the main character, and it helps a lot. The characters are really sharp, and easy to believe as part of their world.
This is a book that really does come across as well crafted; little bits of info and plot points crop up later in a well-planned way, and that makes the whole thing that much more enjoyable. The characters use other people, get used, and it's all very entertaining. It also stands by itself quite well; you could stop after his one and still feel satisfied if you don't want to read the next book in the series. If you're in the mood for some slick crime, this is a good way to go.
Locke is a Gentleman Bastard, a thief of incredible skill and audacity with the ability to get into the deepest sorts of trouble. That's where his lies come into play, he needs them to get himself back out. Though his deepest problems where never solved with lies which is very interesting thing to pay attention to.
Lots of audacity, lots of hints and clues, deceptions and double crossings and that is just in the first chapter! Great book and I highly recommend.
I enjoyed this book so much that I’m not too sure where I want to begin, so let’s start with a simple declaration: this was bloody f*****g brilliant. (Yes, the profanity is necessary… and oddly appropriate, here). It’s
Before the story even got going, the writing drew me right in. Lynch’s narrative weaves in and out, zipping back and forth through time in the most beguiling ways. I found it absolutely fascinating. Lynch has style, and he uses it to great effect. There’s some fantastic sarcasm and more than a little humour to balance out all the dark, gruesome stuff. I loved the book from page one; I think I would’ve been thrilled with it even had nothing much happened.
But damn, does stuff happen! The story races along, with periodic pit stops for some backstory and world building. The cons are gorgeously plotted, and Lynch’s pacing is such that each piece of the puzzle falls into place with a satisfying click. The dialogue works to move the story along and develop these characters to the utmost. The complex, carefully presented world provides the perfect setting for this intricate, clever, extremely enjoyable tale.
The book does have a few faults. There were a couple of places where I wished things were fleshed out a bit more, and I was quite disappointed with how one particular character ended up. (Read some of the other reviews for specifics; I don’t want to give spoilers here).
Overall, though, it was bloody amazing. I mean, the damned thing made me laugh, cry, gasp, whisper profanities to myself, bounce up and down in my seat, grin with delight, scowl and growl... the works.
You need to read it. Now.
For those who don't know what the book is about, Locke Lamora is a thief and leader(garrista) of a little band of thieves who call themselves the Gentlemen Bastards. Locke inadvertently gets tangled up in a conspiracy much larger than himself and much to his surprise, he finds himself playing the unwilling hero to those who wish him dead for all the gold he's stolen.
While I don't really think this is fantasy, nor would I consider it sci-fi, it's definitely reminiscent of the two genres. The Lies of Locke Lamora is a fresh, very new take on the whole hero-must-save-the-world spiel. If you enjoy fantasy and adventure, this is must read (and then a reread, and then another reread...)
The first few time-jumping chapter changes were disconcerting, but in time I found that they actually began to improve the pacing and ratchet up the tension level in a way that most flashbacks utterly fail to do. The worldbuilding was excellent, and I enjoyed the bits we got to see of applied and theoretical alchemy in particular.
The mood moves from humor to high melodrama to tragedy with ease, and rarely hits a sour note, which is to my mind especially vital in a story that uses a convention like the Rogue With a Heart of Gold. Locke Lamora is everything you would expect from such a character, with his humble (but mysterious!) origins, his strict but idiosyncratic code of ethics instilled by a beloved mentor, his gift of gab, and his avarice and hedonism nicely offset by the fact that everyone else around him, from the lowest thug to the nobility, is equally bad. The real joy is in the secondary characters, though. I adored Jean, the literate brawler, and I really appreciated that Locke's victims were portrayed, not as one-dimensional rubes, but as genuinely interesting humans who just happened to have a whole assload of money that the protagonist wished to separate them from.
I do have a bone to pick in this regard, however. Nacza Barsavi was a fucking brilliant character, and we got what, five or six pages of her? I, personally, was convinced that she was the Gray King and had faked her own death up until Capa Barsavi was killed, and even then intermittently afterward until all hope was gone. Instead, we got a Gray King whose existence was previously unsuspected, whose motivation was, well, a little commonplace, and who was someone that Locke could unreservedly hate. The only really interesting thread I can imagine carrying through the series from this antagonist is the apparent, as-yet-unremarked unity of his despised goals with those of Locke's beloved Father Chains. (And, well, I suppose that there will be pesky Bondmages who don't see the finer technical point in 'But we didn't actually kill him!' But the Bondsmage is a separate issue.) If one wanted to look for the omelet here, it's a sign of the well-balanced character building that I actually wanted to see a character get resurrected, instead of actually seeing one resurrected and rolling my eyes, as generally happens with fantasy these days.
At any rate, I'm looking forward to the next one, and I highly recommend that those of you who are fantasy-inclined get out and give this a try.
Locke Lamora is the leader of a gang of thieves,
For a first novel Lynch has delivered a remarkably well polished work. The style is nicely suited to the work, not too serious, but still capable of packing a punch. There were one or two passages that made me laugh out loud, but this book is clever, rather than slapstick. Characters are well rounded, albeit in the "lovable rogue" mould. Lynch is not afraid to kill them off, either, and twists and turns in plot took me by surprise. There's barely a wasted moment in the book, and although the interspaced flashbacks to Locke's earlier life sometimes feel a little clumsy, the pace easily carried me through 300 pages in one sitting.
This is not great literature, but it's highly entertaining, and reasonably original, at least for a fantasy novel. I just hope Lynch manages to maintain the tone for the rest of the series, a predicted 7 books. I'm already looking forward to the second. Five stars.
The world Mr. Lynch created is fantastic. The characters range from good to OK--some are a bit flat. The plot exposition was great. The resolution of the plot a bit of an anti-climax. So much
However, I'm there for the sequel.
Seriously, I don’t even want to look at another book about Thieves, Thieves Guilds, Seafaring Thieves of any variety, Canal Dwelling Thieves, or any permutation thereof. Pirates and magical mystical tomes are likewise straight out. That being said, I give Scott Lynch’s debut novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, two hesitant thumbs up. Maybe a thumb and a half. I lost the other half of the thumb in a bar brawl with pirates while bingeing on heroin. I sound convincing, don’t I? I’m practicing for my turn on Oprah.
It’s true that all stories have been told before and there is nothing new under the sun, etc etc, but Lynch’s story often reads like a formulaic RPG campaign companion, combining elements of countless other books: the alien forerunners, with their bequest of mysterious technology, the Venice-like setting, the guild of con artists, and more. Locke Lamora makes up in wit what it lacks in originality, however, and his characters have an appealing freshness to them. He has a nice eye for descriptive detail, and the city he creates is vivid and believable. This deftness with the background, however, highlights the deficits in the plot and characterization. It’s like seeing a play in which all the effort has gone into the sets, and the lines have been thrown in as an afterthought.
It’s certainly an entertaining read, and definitely the standout in this year’s crop of thieves’ tales. I predict good things to come from Scott Lynch. They just haven’t come quite yet. If this were a report card, it would read ‘does not live up to his potential’. I think that when he does, the results will be very exciting.
The Lies of Locke Lamora is set in a dark, urban fantasy world. It is a tale of thievery, double-crossing, and magic. It reminded me of a dark Dickensian London with imagery alluding
If you are looking for a great story about thieves, burglars, and confidence men, this is definitely right up your alley. If one were going to run a thieves campaign in D&D, this is how you would want to do it!
Also, very soon into the thing, I was a little fed up with Fakey Venice. Have it be Venice, or have it be somewhere else.
So those are all my complaints, but wow, the writing, the characters and complexity of the story were amazing. It's the kind of book where I developed a deep emotional bond with the main characters. A lot of the dialogue had me howling -- it was sharp and funny and usually hit exactly the right tone. The general set-up (for anyone still reading my comments) involves a gang of con artists/thieves living in a fictionalized Renaissancey, Venice-esque dramatic type of city, and a lot of story involves figuring out who is conning whom. It is the first what seems to be planned as a rather long series, which might be either a blessing or a curse.
In particular, I was surprised at how much I liked Locke. He's a thief on a grand scale, a murderer, and in many ways, not a pleasant fellow. But against a cast of murderers and schemers, Locke is definitely a good guy--not as bad as the rest, and he does have something of a moral compass, even if it's a bit skewed.
I'm continuing with the second book next.
Best of all, the entire book is full of humor, even when Locke and co. get themselves in the worst of situations. The balance between nail biting and laughter was perfect for me; I never got too worried and when I was about to, Locke would say something that made me giggle.
Lynch's world-building is similarly superb, and in this sense it's easy to see why he's compared to Mieville. This tale is considerably less, well, thick and dark, though, and I think a comparison between Lynch and Pratchett would be more apt, for their humor. They are certainly not the same, but that is who came to my mind as I was reading. The society is believable and the world fits very well, full of multiple dimensions. I can't wait to discover more of them as the series goes along.
Overall, very highly recommended. Even the villains are complex, with hidden motives. Great book.