Recent Reading

[drcpunk]

I've started Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora. I've got mixed feeling about it, but I'm enjoying it thus far.



So, first I read the prologue. That hooked me nicely. Shades of Mieville's Perdido Street Station, as the story is also very much about the city it's set in, but without the sense of too much gratuitous grime. Also, there's a single protagonist,

The protagonist isn't especially likable. But, he is larger than life. Not just a thief, but a superb thief. Not just a superb thief, at age 6, but one whose schemes keep getting out of hand.

The first chapter almost lost me. So, we're setting up for a grand con game, some twenty years later. And the scene is an alley, where we're waiting for Things to Happen.

Cut to earlier that day, part of the set up, lots of slow description.

Back to the alley. Still nothing. What can the matter be?

Cut to earlier that day.

Repeat once or twice more, in a clear maneuver to Build the Tension. Trouble is, I'm bored. Get to the con game, already. Stop padding.

Once the con game finally began in earnest, I was interested again. And, the first interlude cleared up the mystery left by the prologue. Cool.

The second chapter continued the con game. I like it -- but. Basically, there's two ways one can do this sort of story, a con game set in a fantasy world the author created.

One way is to introduce the elements of the world as you're introducing the relevant part of the con. This is what Lynch is doing. It's not a bad way to do things. But, it does mean that the author really can just make anything up on the fly.

Well, okay, not anything. And, while Lynch is a little slower with description than I'd like, he's doing world creation, and I expect he's being careful and consistent.

But, in my arrogant opinion, the second way to do this would be so much cooler. That's to introduce all of the elements well before they come into play, without the reader recognizing the Checkhovian Guns until they are duly fired. This is much trickier, especially as one has to keep the reader's attention, so stuff has to be happening at the same time. But, for just that reason, it's great when an author can do it.

Now, it's possible this will turn out to be what's been going on. I'm at the next installment of Child Locke's story, and I suspect the interweaving is Meaningful.

It's just that saying, "And then, the con man showed his marks a cask of wine that said '559' on it, and they were so astonished that Slapstick Things happened" followed by "Now, here is why this cask with that year on it is so significant" is far less impressive than subtly introducing the concept of the Special Wine early on so that when the cask is shown, the reader is as impressed as the marks.

Comments

[avram]

1) There's an additional layer to the con that you haven't encountered yet.
2) And actually the con is not the main storyline. When you do get to the main storyline, you'll recognize that Lynch has already introduced you to its important elements. (Remember the bird-like shape that Bug glimpsed as he jumped off the building? That's one.)

Oh, and I noticed that a lot of the flashbacks to Locke's youth are set up to reflect on the material just before or after. For example, just after a chapter in which Adult Locke is talking big about hundreds of thousands of crowns, we get the chapter with Young Locke learning how much a crown is worth.

[drivingblind.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm reading what you're saying and I want to tell you that you're moseying around on the tip of the iceberg complaining about how what you can see isn't nearly big enough to sink that boat you had in mind to sink.

Stay with it.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Got to the first obvious twist, the Midnighters. The only reason I didn't know for sure what was up was the way the scenes were crosscut, and I would have preferred the timing to have been more linear here. This isn't a judgment on the story, as I know this is still only the set up, but I don't love the pacing.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I am wondering, though, about the part you'd mentioned, where you said there was nothing we'd seen to indicate Locke would choose to set aside his vengeance rather than let a lot of people die. I've just gotten to the part where Chains is telling him about all the death offerings he'll have to make. Perhaps his later decision (whatever's going on there) is based not on the moral growth you didn't see, but on this early principle. If a lot of folks die because of him, he'll owe a lot of death offerings.

[avram]

Hm. Perhaps.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Good to know. I do wish the descriptivy bits weren't so... I dunno. There are writers who do it more sprightly, is all. But I do plan to finish the book. I get the feeling that even if it were worse than it is, it's a "keeping up with the jones" sort of book, like the Harry Potter books, but, thankfully, better written.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid, though I wanted to like this book, that I didn't care much for it. It was readable, but a little self-consciously silly for me. The story, a romp about thieves set in a city-state where who you know and who you are and who your daddy was are all important things, is touted as being totally original. That made me laugh; much of the books contrived humour did not.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Humor? Oh, yeah, I guess there's supposed to be some. Well, I did find the prologue funny, what with Locke just making trouble being too good at what he does. Currently, it seems relatively straightforward and serious.

Originality? Well, in terms of being about a con game, no. In terms of who you are, who you know, and who your daddy is? Heck, no.

In terms of being a fantasy novel about con games? Well, is there anything like it in fantasy or sf?

My current suspicion is that it could have been shorter and would have been a better book for it. I won't know that until I finish the book, though.

Other books that would have been better for being shorter include at least two of the Harry Potter books, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell even though I very much liked that one. I'm getting fond of YA books that aren't afraid to be no longer than the need to be, and no shorter, either. I'm also wondering when the heck Garth Nix's Lady Friday will be out in paperback.