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Finally pulled the trigger on reading these now that we have a firm release date for the third book. Amazing read(s) but ,given that cliffhanger, glad I waited. What I liked about the books stylistically: 1) The author uses profanity well! It's not just excessive and it's not silly and it's not tryhard it's just done right. He manages to get one-liners in that don't sound like Arnold trying out his next Terminator one-liner. 2) Most caper fantasy suffers from predictability: if you get the plan for the caper described in advance, you know it's not going to work out; if you don't, you know it is. With this book you always get the plan as it unfolds and it still never quite works out right. It's really expertly done. Fargo Fukes posted:I loved Lies to pieces, but after Skies I don't know whether I'll read any further. That sounds fickle, but one of the things I adored about the first went all to poo poo in the second. Makes me think he doesn't really know what he's doing at all. I loved that the wizards were stone cold motherfuckers who you absolutely did not cross. And then in the second one within the first fifty pages or so they show up going "Woooo! We've found you and we're going to take our reveeeeenge! Eventually. At some point I guess, who knows? We're kinda busy right now so whatevs. Cya!". I could've vomited chunky disappointment all down the page. Bhodi posted:Seriously. The way they are written, they may as well be gods. Magicians in that world seem to be basically unstoppable - omniscient, invisible at will, and can attack from distance. The impression I have is that the Bondsmagi have a lot of power but also have a lot of limitations that they don't advertise. They obviously put a LOT of work into putting up a terrifying front; they must have some weaknesses behind that front, or they wouldn't bother to be so terrifying. My guess is that the Bondsmagi's ability to strike at Locke and Jean is more limited than the Bondsmagi are letting on. You might also be right that Locke & Jean are facing more a few random mages taking a few easy steps at perfunctory vengeance rather than the collective organized might of all Bondsmagi. The mage in the first book seems to need blood or hair or a name to really, really gently caress with someone, and they may not have that. It may be that all they were able to do was some general long-range harassment. I suspect there are a lot of other limitations on their abilities -- maybe their spells actually consume reagents that cost the thousands of crowns they charge; maybe there are limitations on how far they can go from certain locations for certain durations, etc. Maybe there's a lot of political infighting and the Falconer didn't have any particularly good friends, or maybe since the payment never came through he got written off, so he's only getting on-the-cheap vengeance. The woo-woo chorus in Book 2 did say it was personal, so maybe it's just one dude, not the whole club. Anyway, my guess as to the plot of the next book: They must be going after a bezoar. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 17, 2013 22:03
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Ghetto Prince posted:I think he should have stopped with Lies. Red Seas face planted, and he's been delaying this third book for about 7 years now. The hate for Red Seas seems weird to me. It's not an amazing book like the first one -- mostly because the characters spend too much time stuck in boats -- but it's not bad. It's still a far better book than 90% of the fantasy and SF that I've read lately. Why do you think it "faceplanted" ? Book 3 will be telling. If it's as good as the early reviews are indicating this will be a series to hunt up early printings of. If the writing declines further then Lies will fall into the same category of one-hit wonders as Bridge of Birds. Anway, neat quote from an interview: quote:Some characters do force themselves into broadened or adjusted roles; Zamira Drakasha, for example. And the Falconer's mother, Lady Patience of Karthain. Originally she was a very minor character in The Republic of Thieves. She's since come to loom over nearly every aspect of the plot. http://www.sffworld.com/interview/241p1.html So that explains what was going on in Book 2 -- it's not the universal might of the Bondsmagi Collective tracking him down, it's the dude's mom. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 15:10
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Squinty posted:(sorry Jean, clock's ticking). Yeah, that's the biggest thing I'm worried about. I hope we get at least a couple more books with Jean, their dynamic is great. The payoff for Salon Corbeau is the pirates later go back and sack the whole town in payback. It demonstrates Locke's devotion to the Crooked Warden -- he's exacting revenge for the weak and making sure the "rich remember." (why are we putting events from a book published five years ago in spoilers) I'd like to know a lot more about the deities in Locke's world (does the whole world have a name? Lockeland?) -- how "real" they are, do they manifest specific miracles, etc. I'd also like to know more about Locke's father. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 20:53
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I'm going back through and re-reading Red Skies and when you view the pirate section in light of this it's a lot more entertaining:quote:Q: I know that you're a big fan of Patrick O'Brian. Could the entire"piracy on the high seas" story arc of this book be considered somekind of homage to his work? [url]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.sffworld.com/interview/241p1.html[/url] If you read all of Locke and Jean's griping about learning nautical terms etc. as an extended riff on / parody of the nautical language of the Aubrey/Maturin books and of the reader's experience trying to learn how to read the Aubrey/Maturin books it's screamingly funny. My favorite bit in that regard is probably when Locke and Jean are in the boat, the pirate ship comes up to them, and Locke shouts out "you must perceive we hold the weather gauge, and you are luffed up with no hope of escape!" -- Lookit Locke finally using the nautical terms correctly, if sarcastically! And note how that marks the point at which his fortunes turn! Basically Lynch is taking a few hundred pages out of the middle of his book to run his characters through a homage /light satire of a 2,000-page nautical series. It's funny but somewhat niche I guess. You can really tell that Lynch did his nautical/pirate research. The whole "mock court" thing is historical -- that's something real pirates did and we have records of from contemporary accounts. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 18:57
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There's a third excerpt from Republic of Thieves available on Camorr.com (a fan forum) -- actually two separate versions of what looks like the first chapter set in the present. The first is like four years old and the second is from 2010. Lynch has apparently asked they not be posted/hosted outside Camorr.com but I can't imagine that linking to the Camorr.com threads would be objectionable. http://camorr.com/content/new-republic-thieves-excerpt http://www.camorr.com/content/exclusive-trot-excerpt
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Aug 30, 2013 10:43
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uh zip zoom posted:Perhaps, then, you should avoid that prequel about how they acquired that bottle of superexpensive brandy that they used in that con to make the Salvaras believe that said brandy was even more expensive than it actually was. Nah, prequels aren't happening. quote:
http://scottlynch.us/blog/2013/03/18/the-republic-of-thieves/
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Aug 30, 2013 15:32
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Ingram posted:Heads up for kindle owners. The first book is currently .99 cents. At that price, it's a steal!
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Sep 17, 2013 04:24
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uh zip zoom posted:Say what you want about Red Seas, The scene with the jeremite redeemers is positively amazing. Lynch has the amazingly rare ability to write good profanity. Profanity in fantasy almost always comes across as the author trying too hard. In Lynch it works, which is really impressive.
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Sep 17, 2013 16:50
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Most of the advance reviews seem to be congregating around "four stars" -- not as amazing as Lies but still quite solid.
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Sep 26, 2013 03:57
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Ok, I've read it. I liked it. It's not as good as the first one but more entertaining overall than the second, or at least I thought so. I think the negative reviews must be more a function of the seven year wait than the book itself. Having only read the first two books for the first time last month this seemed like a good companion piece. The only downside is that the early to middle portion of the book kinda lacks tension; it's fun to read but there's no driving compulsion or sense of horrible danger like with the others. The writing is just as wry and funny and sharp as in any of the others though.
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Oct 9, 2013 01:43
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Whalley posted:The thing with world building is that you have absolute control over every detail, and one detail Lynch thought would be appropriate, and in fact, plot-appropriate, was raping gingers to death. I don't think this is a valid criticism (maybe I'm misunderstanding you?). You can't and shouldn't expect authors to make fantasy settings devoid of all evil or suffering, and it's not valid to criticize authors for simply including the existing of rape (even systematized rape) in their world. I'll agree with you to the extent that authors shouldn't fetishize rape or include voyeuristic scenes and descriptions -- "rapey" is a pejorative for a reason, and it's a reason that's caused me to throw away several books unfinished (Ken Follett, looking at you). But It seems like you're criticizing Lynch for merely including systematic rape in his setting, but that's something that existed to one degree or another in all medieval societies (through feudal serfdom and/or slavery if nothing else).
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Jan 9, 2014 16:16
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BananaNutkins posted:Actually, the thing that made it jarring was that it came out of left field. Before Sabetha tells us about it, we had no reason to believe that such a thing exists in this world. It was poor worldbuilding because of that. I think because the thief maker exists we'd need at some point to broach the subject of child rape. Lynch's world is gritty and dark as hell, and we've got characters who ruthlessly exploit children, but sexual exploitation is never even mentioned. At some point that probably needs to be explained, to explain why it isn't happening or indicate how the characters dealt with it when it did, and now that we're in a book focusing on the adventures of female child thieves that's especially pressing.
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Jan 9, 2014 18:18
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coyo7e posted:That's definitely a valid point and it does add some darker tones to what's otherwise a fairly glossy version of medieval slumland however, there were not really any other mentions of this kind of thing going on, and having Sabetha immediately attack Locke with it because of a single line from when he was 5 years old, seems to come from way out of left field and feels like poor writing or a forced crisis. Yeah, that I'll agree with. I think it's just Lynch being really bad at writing romance and women, though, rather than goonish rape-fascination or whatever.
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Jan 9, 2014 19:48
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