[amphibian]

Why did the Ocean's Eleven movies get two sequels (I think)? Because people really like George Clooney. They want to see this debonair trickster go do stuff with style - and encounter problems that he overcomes with his skills, courage and friends.

The building elaborate robberies around Locke and Jean is more about seeing Locke and Jean do the same stuff that Clooney does. So Lynch realized that Locke and Jean were more interesting than the robberies and that they could go on to do more things than just steal stuff. What's more, they, as characters, actually wanted to go out and do more than just steal stuff.

So he took everything away from them in painful fashion during RSURS and then made them scramble here, which is why the backstory scrambling is somewhat fun to read - although it gets rather into the theater dynamic in a way that suggests long-time involvement in such in a way that I'm not familiar with - Locke as a teenager had to scramble and that won Sabetha's respect. The addition of Locke's back-backstory is bonkers for what it does to Locke and Sabetha, but kind of cheesy because it's Locke getting the back-backstory, until we find out it's not cheesy because it's Locke and only Locke. (Those who've read the book will understand that last sentence)

Add in the whole "doomed love" thing, which I'm actually kind of empathetic with due to recent experiences, and you get a pretty good book that spits out Locke and Jean into a wholly new situation where they have to do anything they want to entirely by themselves. There's no money, there's no friends, there's not even the familiarity with the cities/political situations.

I'm not going to call this book a top 5 of the year or anything like that. It's good though. Lynch has a future.

I might start a thread about getting a forum survey of "best 5 books published this year or last year".

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 07 November 2013 - 05:13 AM, said:

I'm not going to call this book a top 5 of the year or anything like that. It's good though. Lynch has a future.

I might start a thread about getting a forum survey of "best 5 books published this year or last year".

Indeed, easily in the top books I've read this year. And I have faith that the overall arc is headed somewhere.

[Werthead]

Quote

The building elaborate robberies around Locke and Jean is more about seeing Locke and Jean do the same stuff that Clooney does. So Lynch realized that Locke and Jean were more interesting than the robberies and that they could go on to do more things than just steal stuff. What's more, they, as characters, actually wanted to go out and do more than just steal stuff.

Not really. The series actually started in a completely different place, and much later. Lynch started writing a series about:

(minor spoilers for Book 4)

Spoiler

The spymaster of a city in a kingdom riven by civil war. Basically, more Glokta than what we got. This spymaster - Locke - would have a long and complex backstory that would gradually be revealed in flashback. However, Lynch found writing this was impractical, with too many flashbacks. So he went back and wrote the backstory in-situ, as it were.

So Books 1-3 never existed in the original plan for the series. The story, that will drive the rest of this series and provide backstory for the second series, begins in The Thorn of Emberlain. What we've got in Books 1-3 are context designed to remove too much exposition from later volumes in the series. The series was never meant to be 'The Adventures of Locke and Jean Stealing Stuff', as entertaining as that has been.

[QuickTidal]

Huh, I didn't know that.

And it sounds very compelling as a place for the story to go.

Thanks for that info Wert!

[Eddie Dean]

:Rubs non-existent mustache thought-provokingly:

Interesting........I'm intrigued Wert. Intrigued.

[D'rek]

Finished it today. I'll agree that the pacing or structure doesn't seem to be quite as good here as it was in LoLL/RSUS - I think that's not so much a difference of style as that the stakes are not nearly as high in this book as in the last two. In the present they have assurances they can't kill each other and in the past they're spending most of their time training with Chains or being actors - all far less dire and risky than being stuck between sides in a mafia civil war or being poisoned amongst pirates.

That's okay though, I still found it lots of fun to see Locke and Jean weaving plots in the present, and the intra-team dynamics of the past that there wasn't a ton of time to explore in LoLL and were absent in RSUS.

I, too, find Wert's post above intriguing, and find the idea exciting. After these first 3 books, we certainly have a thorough understanding of who Locke and Jean are up to this point, even if we haven't seen every part of their lives so far, and what their capabilities are with and without lots of resources. There's also a lot of things that have been setup - some only slightly touched - that could be used in future novels:

Spoiler

-Whatever association Merrain was a part of
-As Cause points out, we've seen that alchemy is a major part of the world but not with a full explanation/exploration of what it is yet
-The bondsmagi are now mostly gone so we don't need to have them cropping up all the time in pursuit of Locke, but at the same time we have some knowledge now of how magic works in this world
-The now-even-creepier-and-metal Falconer will almost certainly be a major antagonist at some point. Possibly in book 6: The Mage and the Master Spy
-Sabetha can return at some point without being super-hyped up from not having been seen in the prior books
-The mysteries of the Eldren remain, but we've been exposed to how world-spanning their ruins are

Some people don't like the big shift of RSUS, and it seems already some people don't like the split plots of tRoT, but whether you have them as they are or you changed the structure around a bunch, we're at a point now where we've had a thorough introduction of Locke, Jean, their former gang and history, 5 medium-to-major cities and cultures, and the rules, religions and magic of the world. I think it's a great spot to be at and means Thorn of Emberlain should be really satisfying. I wouldn't be surprised if it really is highly focused on an actual caper without too much of a huge shift in plot halfway through - the way some people complained LoLL and RSUS did - since it doesn't need to include any expository fluff that's been covered in the first 3.

So, overall, I was satisfied with RoT and excited about the rest of the series.

[amphibian]

RSUS =/= RSURS.

[Traveller]

Just bought Republic.

I love this forum.

[Tapper]

I thought it was a decent book with a better flashback story than current storyline. The main delight was reading about little cultural snaps - the restaurant in cages, the ridiculous hat worn by Dexa, the naming conventions. The actual plotting and planning didn't get into intrigue but was more pranksterish and the end result of the election was never in doubt. A pity the manner in which it came to be was about one chapter long instead of a long hatched scheme, which would have been stronger.

Spoiler

I particularly thought that the Nikoros is the informer bit was uninspired, as was Locke's way of filtering it out. It is basically the oldest trick in the book and Sabetha should have been prepared for it. Oh well.

Wert's explanation for the series makes sense. RSURS was a transition, that much was clear. I am slightly disappointed that RoT is a bit of the same - it reads like one half of a novel instead of a full-fledged one. In the end, it may mostly be a pity for Lynch's sales figures that his first book is still his strongest, althemore so since it shapes the expectations of the follow-ups for the readers.
Not sure how many returning readers/ new readers are going to struggle through 2 decent books in order to get to a new highlight.

As for the book's revelations:

Spoiler

Patience's game ran deep and it wouldn't surprise me if one reason for bringing in Sabetha was that it would allow them to get Locke there - as a study object based both on what he did to the Falconer and on who he might be. It conveniently suited her for her revenge as a mother by playing with Locke's weakness (Sabetha). I think one conclusion of Locke's heritage and the whole reveal of the Falconer rediscovering magic through willpower is that Locke is also capable of magic through willpower. He is extraordinarily lucky and capable of pushing his way onto people, not always logically: what if this unconscious manipulation is the result of unwitting magic use? In the book three moments stand out: Locke being elected as priest of the Crooked Warden over Sabetha when she is the more experienced and impressive thief, Locke tying the web of loyalty of the GBs around himself, despite being the youngest recruit (and notice Sabetha falling outside of it as a result of her prolongued absence) and the whole implausible angle of how they convince the Black Iris Konseillemember to switch sides without doing anything about his arguments against the bribe: Jean offers precisely the same as Locke but with worse implications for the future (lose any shot of running in five years time), the guy can still not use the money or add it to his counting house, and the amount of riches is still too big to move easily. But somehow he is massaged into it and even parts with the bones of his forebears to make the scheme work - and Locke says to Sabetha that they predicted this.

[Stormcat]

I am about half way through and so far I like it. I loved lies and thought red skies was okay, this third one is living up to my expectations so far.

[Nicodimas]

I loved Red skys..i just wanted to make that comment and don't see how in anyway it detracted or was a lesser book in the series.

We will see about book 4, I'm very curious what path it takes now after finishing..

[Malaclypse]

I never lack for victims QT - you ought to know that by now

This is a lazy book that I refuse to continue with until people whose opinions I respect tell me it's worth pursuing. Oh and we should be sympathetic right? OK my sympathy was used up in RSURS. This is trash.

ETA: I actually stopped reading altogether after falling afoul of this offering - it harmed my faith in the value of creativity. This dude can do a lot better than this.

This post has been edited by Malaclypse: 30 November 2013 - 04:54 PM

[QuickTidal]

Malaclypse, on 30 November 2013 - 04:49 PM, said:

I never lack for victims QT - you ought to know that by now

Slowly learning this.

[Morgoth]

So, 500 pages in and I'm not impressed. To me the book feels like Lynch has lost his drive or perhaps interest in the story. The writing is so bland as to be embarassing until suddenly, out of nowhere you get a flash of the old Lynch. A piece of dialogue, the setting of a scene, a clever ploy. They shine so brightly these parts because the rest of the book feels to me a slog.

It is a little sad, to be honest. I love this kind of story, but Lynch to me seems without enthusiasm for his work. Perhaps the answer is tied to what Wert explained above. That this all is just a prelude to the story Lynch really wants to tell. If so, considering the struggle he's been through, I understand why he wrote tRoT as if it was merely an obstacle in his path.

[stone monkey]

In places, I found this fun to read. In others... it wasn't so good. I don't think it was offensively bad or anything. I didn't find the overall experience offensive, or whatever epithets might be bandied about. But it was just okay. I wasn't expecting anything life-changing, despite all the plaudits I didn't find Lies... to be as good as advertised, but I was hoping for better than okay.

As a whole, it struck me being more as a collection of incidents that happened to have a connection than a real honest-to-goodness story. Obviously the setup - it is a good engine for the plot, I must admit - gives you a fair bit of narrative drive, but I think it simply coasted on that. Which, to me, was disappointing more than anything else.

[End of Disc One]

Finished this the other day. It was pretty good but not nearly as good as the others. It was great to be back in the world at first, but once I got over that I found the plot unremarkable.

I agree with Morgoth about there being flashes of Lynch's billiance. Jasmer Moncraine doesn't get nearly enough love. All of his lines were gold. He would fit right in to one of Abercrombie's books.

[Una]

Finally got a chance to read it.

It was a lot of fun. Funny thing. I didn't care much for the story. Our Gentlemen Bastards don't ever seem to catch a break and they always seem just one step behind the competition. They seem to be always in damage control mode instead of brilliant plotting mode, and I find that frustrating. But, I found the character interactions and the dialogue so much fun, I just didn't really care where the story was going. That's quite unusual for me.

[Werthead]

LOCKE LAMORA TV show in the works.

It's also looking like THORN OF EMBERLAIN is going to be delayed (not the biggest surprise in the world), but right now only to March or so.

[QuickTidal]

Werthead, on 25 May 2014 - 12:03 PM, said:

LOCKE LAMORA TV show in the works.

It's also looking like THORN OF EMBERLAIN is going to be delayed (not the biggest surprise in the world), but right now only to March or so.

The amount of coin needed to throw at this will be LARGE...so I'm taking the typical believe it when it airs type stance.

[Trull's son]

My rule of thumb is to expect another Legend of the Seeker. That way, no matter how the adaptation comes out, it has to be better than that baseline. There is just no way Lies can be any worse.