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UBC #19: The Lies of Locke Lamora
UBC #19
Lynch, Scott. The Lies of Locke Lamora. New York: Bantam Spectra-Bantam Books, 2006.
Let us say, first off, that this is a very good book that has happened to come along at exactly the right time. Richard Morgan's blurb compares it to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest coming out in a couple days, the moment could not be better for a clever, piratical, funny caper novel to debut on the shelves.
This is felicitous serendipity and has nothing to do with the story qua story.
(See also, Hal Duncan on hype.)
The novel is clever, piratical (though actual pirates won't show up until the sequel), funny and heart-wrenching--sometimes almost simultaneously--and once it gets rolling, a mad page-turner. (I was up until two last night because I was too close to the end to stop.) It's an Errol Flynn/Basil Rathbone sort of vehicle, with the Errol Flynnity cleverly and perceptively sabotaged in certain ways.
It's also ambitious, which I like in a novel.
Flaws? Yes. I found the interleaved storylines irritating, partly because that's a structural trick that has to be done exceedingly well for it not to irritate me (a personal failing of my own), and partly because for the first half of the book nothing was happening in one, and then for the second half of the book, when the first storyline belted on its dramatic tension and got to work, the second storyline fell into disjointed essaylets. Which I have nothing against (some of them were brilliant), except that they were GETTING IN THE WAY of the story I was interested in. And they weren't congruent with the connected story being told in the first half.
Corrolary to this--yes, pacing problems. See above re: the first half of the book. It was entertaining and well-written throughout, but the difference between the early chapters, when the Gentlemen Bastards are essentially marking time until the plot is ready to pick them up, and the later chapters, when we are at red alert and generating the 1.21 jiggawatts that can make a DeLorean into a time machine ... is like Mark Twain's difference between lightning and a lightning bug. The first chapters are pretty and charming; the later chapters are incandescent.
(There are other, more minor things, but those are Writer's Backbite--like Housemaid's Knee--rather than things that detract from the story.)
But the caper set pieces are brilliant, the world-building gives excellent sense of wonder, the dialogue has sparkle and verve (I only wish I could write dialogue like this), and I very much enjoyed spending time with Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen.
Which is all to say: it's an excellent first novel. And I am looking forward very very much to the second one.
Lynch, Scott. The Lies of Locke Lamora. New York: Bantam Spectra-Bantam Books, 2006.
Let us say, first off, that this is a very good book that has happened to come along at exactly the right time. Richard Morgan's blurb compares it to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest coming out in a couple days, the moment could not be better for a clever, piratical, funny caper novel to debut on the shelves.
This is felicitous serendipity and has nothing to do with the story qua story.
(See also, Hal Duncan on hype.)
The novel is clever, piratical (though actual pirates won't show up until the sequel), funny and heart-wrenching--sometimes almost simultaneously--and once it gets rolling, a mad page-turner. (I was up until two last night because I was too close to the end to stop.) It's an Errol Flynn/Basil Rathbone sort of vehicle, with the Errol Flynnity cleverly and perceptively sabotaged in certain ways.
It's also ambitious, which I like in a novel.
Flaws? Yes. I found the interleaved storylines irritating, partly because that's a structural trick that has to be done exceedingly well for it not to irritate me (a personal failing of my own), and partly because for the first half of the book nothing was happening in one, and then for the second half of the book, when the first storyline belted on its dramatic tension and got to work, the second storyline fell into disjointed essaylets. Which I have nothing against (some of them were brilliant), except that they were GETTING IN THE WAY of the story I was interested in. And they weren't congruent with the connected story being told in the first half.
Corrolary to this--yes, pacing problems. See above re: the first half of the book. It was entertaining and well-written throughout, but the difference between the early chapters, when the Gentlemen Bastards are essentially marking time until the plot is ready to pick them up, and the later chapters, when we are at red alert and generating the 1.21 jiggawatts that can make a DeLorean into a time machine ... is like Mark Twain's difference between lightning and a lightning bug. The first chapters are pretty and charming; the later chapters are incandescent.
(There are other, more minor things, but those are Writer's Backbite--like Housemaid's Knee--rather than things that detract from the story.)
But the caper set pieces are brilliant, the world-building gives excellent sense of wonder, the dialogue has sparkle and verve (I only wish I could write dialogue like this), and I very much enjoyed spending time with Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen.
Which is all to say: it's an excellent first novel. And I am looking forward very very much to the second one.
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*glares at Amazon shipping system*
Sounds like a winner
***I found the interleaved storylines irritating, partly because that's a structural trick that has to be done exceedingly well for it not to irritate me (a personal failing of my own)***
If I could only figure this technique out, I would finish my novel.
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(Unfortunately, it was useful in the "I would not like this book" way, because interleaved storylines just don't hold my attention--they don't annoy me, but I always end up reading only one, which is not productive.)
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Still at the beginning
The interleaved stories don't bother me, per se, except for the above, the backstory being more entertaining than the current.
I agree on the great dialogue, and great characters. Characters behaving badly. My favorite kind. :)
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