He is known as The Thorn of Camorr, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. The Thorn is a master swordsman, a great romancer of women, and a ghost who walks through walls. The Thorn is a commoner’s tale. Locke Lamora is nothing more than a Gentleman Bastard, who has mastered the art of the carefully orchestrated con. 

In the city of Camorr, there are ample opportunities for such, and it is rife with gangs. There is only one rule; all must abide by the Secret Peace. The Duke’s man, Capa Barsavi has a hold over all the gangs in Camorr’s criminal world. All who break the Secret Peace must answer to the Capa. Of course, he gets a cut of all the profits too. 

Locke is joined in his criminal schemes by his fellow Bastards, Jean Tannen, twins Calo and Galdo Sanza, and their new apprentice, Bug. All except Bug grew up learning their art under the tutelage of old Father Chains. He bought them as street orphans and taught them to be thieves, con artists and masters of disguise. Locke was quite the enterprising student and he was constantly trying to outwit and outplay his master. 

Someday, Locke Lamora,” he said, “someday, you’re going to f*** up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will s**t comets with glee. And I just hope I’m still around to see it.”

“Oh please,” said Locke. “It’ll never happen.”

As the Bastards begin their latest caper, the city is sent into turmoil. Capa Barsavi’s rule is being threatened by a new and unknown killer, the Grey King. Locke Lamora and the Bastards become unwilling pawns in a deadly game and its winner take all.

This book falls together so well. The author uses a series of ‘Interludes’ to build the history of his world and characters. I like this style of revealing the past. The ancient city of Camorr is described in rich detail and I picture it my mind as being somewhat like Venice, although I’ve never had the pleasure of going there. I also love the interplay and bonds of friendship between the Bastards. They take what they have and make an adventure out of it. Locke is just a regular guy without any special strength or magic, getting by on wit alone.

Lies of Locke Lamora is grim, dark fantasy at its best. Heed my warning that there definitely are dark parts! There are also many playful quips along the way that help balance it out! This is an adult book and I feel compelled to add for the sake of some of my followers that there is profanity used, which may strike this off some of your TBR lists right away. Overall this is just a great book! I keep hearing that the series gets better and better from here on and I believe it. The end leaves us with a nice opening for future storylines with a simple statement.

“Old sins will never be buried so deep that they cannot rise again when least expected.”

Yeah, it's a little late, but these are my favorites of the books I  read last year. I'm only listing one per author/series, and I am not including short stories, but one novella did make the list, as did one graphic novel. So, in no particular order, my favorite books read in 2016

 

1.   Bone - Jeff Smith  

 

    Easily the longest book I read  last year, and the one I'd been wanting to read the longest. I remember reading an interview with Smith when this was first being serialized about twenty years ago. Basically, if Carl Barks (of the old Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge comics) had written LOTR... It's gorgeously drawn, and surprisingly deep, epic and hilarious in equal measure. Despite being over 1300 pages long, I read it in a day. It is truly that compelling.

 

2.   The Ballad of Black Tom - Victor LaValle 

 

    I read a lot of Lovecraftiana in 2016, but this was easily the best example. This novella is an inspired retelling of "The Horror at Red Hook," easily one of Lovecrafts most racist stories, that flips the whole thing on it's head. The main character goes down some dark paths, but you always understand why. This tale both celebrates and excoriates HPL while telling a great story in it's own right.

 

3.   The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch  

 

    The first, and easily best, of the Gentleman Bastards series, this introduces us to a spectacular crew of conn artists as they take on a huge job in a fantastic city reminiscent of Renaissance Venice. Told in both flashback and present day, with truly remarkable characters, this book should be read by any fantasy fan. The rest of the series thus far has been a case of diminishing returns, but still fun. Either way, I'm in it for the long haul.

 

4.   The Lions of al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay  

 

    Loosely based on Song of the Cid, this is a flat-out gorgeous novel that deals with heavy themes while still being very funny and entertaining. Thhis also may have been the best-written book I read last year.

 

5.   The Iron Jackal (Tales of the Ketty Jay Book 3) - Chris Wooding  

 

    I read and loved the entire Ketty Jay series in '16. Still, this penultimate volume was the most epic and exciting, while also having several of the best character moments. It is almost too easy to describe this series as a steampunk-fantasy Firefly... So that is exactly what I'll do.

 

6.   The Fear Institute - Jonathan L. Howard  

 

   Another great Lovecraftian piece, albeit one deeply involved with old HP's Dreamlands, an aspect of his work too often ignored in favor of his Mythos. This is the third in Howard's Johannes Cabal series, and the first to feel like a genuine horror novel. This is my favorite of the five books in the series thus far.

 

7.   The Fisherman - John Langan  

 

    True, there are other books I rated higher, but this one makes the list, if only for the novella that serves as the novel's centerpiece. The rest of the book is quite good, but Der Fischer is possibly the single greatest piece of cosmic horror I have yet to read. It is indebted to Lovecraft without using any of his actual narrative inventions, instead using Talmudic, Cabbalistic and Biblical sources for it's horrors. Truly amazing.

He is known as The Thorn of Camorr, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.  The Thorn is a master swordsman, a great romancer of women, and a ghost who walks through walls.  The Thorn is a commoner’s tale...Locke Lamora is nothing more than a Gentleman Bastard, who has mastered the art of the carefully orchestrated con. 

 

In the city of Camorr, there are ample opportunities for such, and it is rife with gangs.  There is only one rule; all must abide by the Secret Peace.   The Duke’s man, Capa Barsavi has a hold over all the gangs in Camorr’s criminal world.  All who break the Secret Peace must answer to the Capa.  Of course, he gets a cut of all the profits too.  

 

Locke is joined in his criminal schemes by his fellow Bastards, Jean Tannen, twins Calo and Galdo Sanza, and their new apprentice, Bug.  All except Bug grew up learning their art under the tutelage of old Father Chains.  He bought them as street orphans and taught them to be thieves, con artists and masters of disguise.  Locke was quite the enterprising student and he was constantly trying to outwit and outplay his master. 

  Someday, Locke Lamora,” he said, “someday, you’re going to f*** up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will s**t comets with glee.  And I just hope I’m still around to see it.”

 

“Oh please,” said Locke.  “It’ll never happen.”

As the Bastards begin their latest caper, the city is sent into turmoil.  Capa Barsavi’s rule is being threatened by a new and unknown killer, the Grey King.  Locke Lamora and the Bastards become unwilling pawns in a deadly game and its winner take all.

 

This book falls together so well.  The author uses a series of ‘Interludes’ to build the history of his world and characters.  I like this style of revealing the past.  The ancient city of Camorr is described in rich detail and I picture it my mind as being somewhat like Venice, although I’ve never had the pleasure of going there.  I also love the interplay and bonds of friendship between the Bastards.  They take what they have and make an adventure out of it.   Locke is just a regular guy without any special strength or magic, getting by on wit alone.

 

Lies of Locke Lamora is grim, dark fantasy at its best.  Heed my warning that there definitely are dark parts!  There are also many playful quips along the way that help balance it out!  This is an adult book and I feel compelled to add for the sake of some of my followers that there is profanity used, which may strike this off some of your TBR lists right away.  Overall this is just a great book!  I keep hearing that the series gets better and better from here on and I believe it.  The end leaves us with a nice opening for future storylines with a simple statement.

“Old sins will never be buried so deep that they cannot rise again when least expected.”

“This is a necessary nonsense.” One of those books the first page or two convinced me to try and while it took time to click when it did it clicked hard. Switching between back story, set-up and heist, Locke Lamora and his gang of thieving “Gentlemen Bastards” are a lot of fun to spend time with in a vividly described world and a plot of “Godfather” proportions. Nice to meet a bunch of blokes (and young Bug) riffing off each other and enjoying each other’s company; there’s lots of food throwing and sweary banter going on. Lynch takes pains to make his period fantasy world thoroughly violent and immoral (and richly described, bordering on overkill) so Locke’s thievery seems heroic but the title sounds like a Scottish romance and the quote on the cover fails to mention the two blazingly obvious USPs: the humour and the superb cussing. I’m quite surprised this hasn’t reached a mass audience yet, there’s real storytelling verve at work, knock-out developments around every corner. I reckon the best age to read this would be about 18 (lots of youthful vloggers have excitedly reviewed this one and I was put in mind of Asterix and Assassin’s Creed at times) but after a run of tough-guy fiction, to dive into something so utterly playful as this was bliss. A long read, at times exhausting, but it absolutely rewards your time.

The Lies of Locke Lamora

by Scott Lynch

 

**Disclaimer: I read this book several months ago, and no, I didn't reread it before writing this review, so the accuracy of my recollections are questionable. However, I want to jot down my feelings about the first book before starting the second.

 

Let's start with the positives: heists. I love heists. Heist stories are probably the only subgenre that I routinely forgive for otherwise unforgivable plotholes, leaps in logic, improbabilities, and general ridiculousness because these aspects are inherently part of heist stories. Heist stories ask us to suspend our disbelief and follow our grey-morality protagonists into insanely complex schemes that inevitably fall apart, leading to David-and-Goliath showdowns where the protagonist seems certain to fail. And then there's the reveal: actually, the apparent failure was all part of the plan, or at least part of Plan M. For me, much of the enjoyment of heist stories comes from trying to guess Plan M. Lynch goes one better: even though we're informed that Lamora is effectively a genius, his overconfidence repeatedly leads him to make actual irreparable mistakes that in turn give the story a real tang of suspense.

 

Heist stories pretty much inherently involve antiheroes, with an immoral-if-possibly-noble band risking all to take on the establishment for fame, fortune, and sometimes, justice. The leader of the gang tends to be neurotic, depressive, and unstable; apparently these traits, as well as a tendency towards heavy drinking, are a prerequisite for constructing Plan Ms. Despite my love of heists, I tend to have issues with effectively amoral protagonists, and Lamora and his gang are certainly no inhabitants of Sherwood Forest. However, their motivation doesn't stem from greed, either: Lamora and his gang are primarily motivated by the rush and joy of the exploit itself. It's hard not to be carried along with their enthusiasm.

 

While the characters and the structure were somewhat weak points for me--I rather loathe flashbacks, and about half the book is composed of "intersessions"--my biggest issue was due to disappointed and possibly unrealistic expectations. Lynch came to my attention several years ago, when he defended his choice of having a PoC single mother pirate as a main character of Red Seas Under Red Skies. Like many others who are attracted to diverse casts in books, I immediately put The Lies of Locke Lamora on my TBR. However, while I can't (yet) speak for Red, I found Lies an utter disappointment where diversity was concerned.

 

As far as I could determine, the protagonists follow a heterosexual, white, male default (I suppose the excuse is that they are in Italy?), while minor villains remain the only people of color. Far from providing a strong female cast, Lies struck me as well below average, even for the genre, in terms of its representation of female characters. From start to finish, I can remember only six female characters who even earned the distinction of a name. (If I'm wrong about this, I'm sure someone will be along to correct me soon.) We're told that they're all strong and dynamic and complex, but their actions in the narrative beg to differ. Of those characters, one of them exists solely as a The Girl That Got Away/Lost Lenore--sure, she's not actually dead, but she's definitely gone, and thus literally exists in the story only in terms of her effects on the male protagonist. The analysis of the other five is spoilery; read at your own risk:

 

Next is Nazca, who actually exists solely to be Stuffed in the Fridge. She is introduced to us, has a brief conversation with Locke, and promptly dies. She dies in a humiliating way, without dignity, without agency, without a last stand, without even a bit of pagetime. She is the quintessential victim: the sole purpose for her death is to infuriate the men around her. The entire purpose of her character is to die, and the entire purpose of her death is (from the killer's perspective) to hurt the capa, and (from the narrative's perspective) to hurt Locke.

 

Then we have the Berengia Sisters. While they manage to make it through much more of the book than Nazca, they don't actually have agency; at first, they're working for the capa, and then they're effectively tools of their brother. Oh, yeah: then they die, promptly providing revenge motivations for the new capa. Seeing a trend yet? Next, we have the Spider. Her main role is to exist as a "twist": despite Lynch's occasional attempts to create a more gender-balanced society (see the Berengia Sisters as Muscle), both the reader and Locke's gang are clearly supposed to be amazed at the twist. A woman and a mastermind? How can this be?!? What a shocking reveal!!! Yet apart from her amazing gender, the Spider's actual actions are pretty darned incompetent: her first major action is to get tricked and enslaved by the Falconer; her second is to briefly trick and then be outsmarted by Locke. That's about it.

 

The most interesting female in the book, by far, and the one with the most agency, is Doña Salvarra. I have no complaints against her. While her role is primarily as the dupe of Lamora, she shows intelligence and agency.

(spoiler show)

 

But to have only six named female characters and only one--or possibly one-and-a-half-- of those with a role external to the men around her? That's pretty damned sad. Again, I don't think Lynch is any more problematic than, say, Rothfuss. I suppose it's my fault for expecting something more.

 

While my feelings about the characters were decidedly mixed, and my impression of Lynch as standard-bearer for diversity in SpecFic was thoroughly deflated, I still quite enjoyed Locke Lamora. I found myself thoroughly immersed in the rich worldbuilding. I loved how Lamora's arrogance and risk-taking are repeatedly addressed within the novel itself. Most of all, of course, I loved the heists. Bring on Red.