Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch

Read this ages ago, and really should have reviewed it when it was fresh, but...

Despite - again - being tricked into reading a book from a series before the series is finished, by obnoxious publishers who refuse to put any indication on a book that it might be part of a series... I really liked this book. It strays from the generic epic fantasy plot a bit; our main hero is a conman with no mysterious powers to speak of. The world has fantastic elements that more novel than usual, and in any case are mostly background to the story rather than the point. I very much enjoyed the characters and the tale.

The sequel, Red Seas Under red Skies, was also very good, though I guess not quite as compelling as the first just because it loses some of the novelty. Mr. Lynch is going to need to come up with a new trick though - the overarching plot of "badguys blackmail conmen into running a con not of their chosing" is essentially the same as the first. But overall, a good fun tale full of sneakiness, and Our Heroes definitely don't always get everything their way.