[Coco with marshmallows]

It was okay.

minor/bordering on major niggle:

This book mentions telling storeys.

Repeatedly, Locke and others tell storeys.

ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME?????

Whichever Editor did a 'find and replace' job on the manuscript needs fired. Preferably from a catapult.

Storeys =/= stories you moron.

Sorry, but that actually bugged me enough to post.

[amphibian]

So I booted up my kindle version and searched for "storey". Zero finds.

Looked for "storeys". Zero finds.

Did you get a print version or some sort of digital copy that got hijacked by the Scotsman from Samurai Jack?

YE POOGLEFACED NIMPTY!

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 30 October 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

So I booted up my kindle version and searched for "storey". Zero finds.

Looked for "storeys". Zero finds.

Did you get a print version or some sort of digital copy that got hijacked by the Scotsman from Samurai Jack?

YE POOGLEFACED NIMPTY!

EDIT: Coco's right. I initially said I'd not run across this typo...but not moments later when I was reading it I found that very word "storey's".

It Is annoying, because unless they are telling each other about the "levels/floors of a building"...then they should be telling each other STORIES.

Wow, that's a huge misteak! (<---intended)

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 30 October 2013 - 12:54 PM

[QuickTidal]

Hit page 500 now.

Spoiler

I don't buy Patience's story about the Lamora Acanth guy magicking himself into a new body and renaming himself Locke Lamora for one second. I'm with Jean on that one. I STILL think she's his mom. I think her story is a combination of misdirection and half-truths to lead the rest of the council away (she MUST know that Coldmarrow is spying for the other side!) from the truth of her having another son...possibly with the Acanth guy? I dunno. It's just too simple and sewn up the way she explained it, for me to buy.

[Salt-Man Z]

amphibian, on 30 October 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

So I booted up my kindle version and searched for "storey". Zero finds.

Looked for "storeys". Zero finds.

Did you get a print version or some sort of digital copy that got hijacked by the Scotsman from Samurai Jack?

No, I'm sure it's just that they get the Queen's English version in Canada/Europe, and to "Britishize" (or should it be "Britishise"?) the original American-English text they just did a simple find-and-replace for various words: color->colour, stories->storeys, etc. Whoops.

[QuickTidal]

Salt-Man Z, on 30 October 2013 - 03:17 PM, said:

amphibian, on 30 October 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

So I booted up my kindle version and searched for "storey". Zero finds.

Looked for "storeys". Zero finds.

Did you get a print version or some sort of digital copy that got hijacked by the Scotsman from Samurai Jack?

No, I'm sure it's just that they get the Queen's English version in Canada/Europe, and to "Britishize" (or should it be "Britishise"?) the original American-English text they just did a simple find-and-replace for various words: color->colour, stories->storeys, etc. Whoops.

Heh? That seems odd. I can see a find and replace doing Story up as Storey (though Storey does only mean "floors")...but I don't think Stories would be found and replaced with Storeys...would it?

Maybe it would. Weird!

[QuickTidal]

Finished!

Spoiler

Okay, so I have to PARTIALLY agree with Obi...the ending is not a scratch on the rest of the book. It's solid, but it IS kind of a let down after the rest of the story. The Young Locke portion in Espara KIND of flags in the final section with Boulidazi lusting after Sabetha so much that he keeps a constant eye on the proceedings, up to and including getting drunk and rapey with Chantal...and then the whole show must go on bit, and the "we need to hide his death" in an elaborate way stuff...I was like...meh. Alright. I guess.

Thankfully the main present-day Karthain storyline clicks along well up till the final resolution, which is what left me non-plussed. The Back and forth with Sabetha, Locke, and Jean over the course of the few chapters before the final count was good, and fun and kept me reading to try to guess how Locke and Jean would outwit Sabetha as I knew they would. The bit that disappointed me was two-fold: 1. The Election results as a tie, with the one Konseil ( <---that word fucking annoys the shit out of me BTW...just call it COUNCIL Lynch, and stop the fancy bullshit) member remaining independent....meh. I honestly would have been more impressed with a Locke/Jean win...since it turns out the Election didn't mean fuck all to the people, OR the Bondsmagi anyways. 2. The Bondsmagi/Patience resolution...I guess we are meant to be left in the dark still about WHY a large faction of the Bondsmagi (lead by Patience and Coldmarrow) want to off the brewing power hungry magi (because the Eldren did something similar and pissed off some godly power?) and then pull a Tolkien-Elf and go to Valinor go be "quiet" somewhere. Dafuq?

Beyond that, I'm a little confused by Patience's revelation in the safe house. So the painting of Lamora Acanthe is of some guy who looks nothing like Locke, but the wife is the spitting image of Sabetha? So wait, am I meant to think that the Acanthe Magi guy took Sabetha's body as an orphan and not Locke's? Or no, he still took Locke's body as an orphan, but somehow Sabetha still looks remarkably like the guys dead wife? Was what Patience told Sabetha that made her bolt...that SHE was actually this dude reincarnated?

So yeah, as far as a resolution to the main story I feel that the Election features TOO heavily and ends with FAR too much of a whimper to be useful (the Patience, Locke, Sabetha tale being far more interesting, and with a point)..sure the Five-Year game had an ulterior purpose for the magi, but eh...I'm still annoyed how much of it we had to see so intricately when it really didn't matter in the grand scheme other than as a piece of misdirection. And the Young Locke & Co. story was really great (mostly for the Sanza's, let's face facts!), but it ends in a rather predictable way.

So all in all, I really like about 95% of the book, and this is almost as good as LIES IMNSHO...but I'd be lying if I didn't say the ending let me down a tad (if not perhaps as much as it seemed to do with Obi).

Oh, and I REALLY didn't need a large portion of the epilogue. The multiple bits about Falconer growing up and manipulating birds, and Patience telling him how he could be hurt by that....could have been written in one paragraph and spared me 4 pages of blather. That said, his convo with his mum from his handless/voiceless state was awesome, and his question of whether or not she's ever seen her OWN future in her visions, followed up by him forcing his will into dreamsteel hands and sending a murder of crows to...murder her. Inspired. Great way to end the book without feeling the need to drop it into the same cliffhanger madness that RSURS used with Locke's poisoning.

Thems is my thoughts.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 30 October 2013 - 06:15 PM

[Imperial Historian]

QuickTidal, on 30 October 2013 - 06:11 PM, said:

Finished!

Spoiler

Okay, so I have to PARTIALLY agree with Obi...the ending is not a scratch on the rest of the book. It's solid, but it IS kind of a let down after the rest of the story. The Young Locke portion in Espara KIND of flags in the final section with Boulidazi lusting after Sabetha so much that he keeps a constant eye on the proceedings, up to and including getting drunk and rapey with Chantal...and then the whole show must go on bit, and the "we need to hide his death" in an elaborate way stuff...I was like...meh. Alright. I guess.

Thankfully the main present-day Karthain storyline clicks along well up till the final resolution, which is what left me non-plussed. The Back and forth with Sabetha, Locke, and Jean over the course of the few chapters before the final count was good, and fun and kept me reading to try to guess how Locke and Jean would outwit Sabetha as I knew they would. The bit that disappointed me was two-fold: 1. The Election results as a tie, with the one Konseil ( <---that word fucking annoys the shit out of me BTW...just call it COUNCIL Lynch, and stop the fancy bullshit) member remaining independent....meh. I honestly would have been more impressed with a Locke/Jean win...since it turns out the Election didn't mean fuck all to the people, OR the Bondsmagi anyways. 2. The Bondsmagi/Patience resolution...I guess we are meant to be left in the dark still about WHY a large faction of the Bondsmagi (lead by Patience and Coldmarrow) want to off the brewing power hungry magi (because the Eldren did something similar and pissed off some godly power?) and then pull a Tolkien-Elf and go to Valinor go be "quiet" somewhere. Dafuq?

Beyond that, I'm a little confused by Patience's revelation in the safe house. So the painting of Lamora Acanthe is of some guy who looks nothing like Locke, but the wife is the spitting image of Sabetha? So wait, am I meant to think that the Acanthe Magi guy took Sabetha's body as an orphan and not Locke's? Or no, he still took Locke's body as an orphan, but somehow Sabetha still looks remarkably like the guys dead wife? Was what Patience told Sabetha that made her bolt...that SHE was actually this dude reincarnated?

So yeah, as far as a resolution to the main story I feel that the Election features TOO heavily and ends with FAR too much of a whimper to be useful (the Patience, Locke, Sabetha tale being far more interesting, and with a point)..sure the Five-Year game had an ulterior purpose for the magi, but eh...I'm still annoyed how much of it we had to see so intricately when it really didn't matter in the grand scheme other than as a piece of misdirection. And the Young Locke & Co. story was really great (mostly for the Sanza's, let's face facts!), but it ends in a rather predictable way.

So all in all, I really like about 95% of the book, and this is almost as good as LIES IMNSHO...but I'd be lying if I didn't say the ending let me down a tad (if not perhaps as much as it seemed to do with Obi).

Oh, and I REALLY didn't need a large portion of the epilogue. The multiple bits about Falconer growing up and manipulating birds, and Patience telling him how he could be hurt by that....could have been written in one paragraph and spared me 4 pages of blather. That said, his convo with his mum from his handless/voiceless state was awesome, and his question of whether or not she's ever seen her OWN future in her visions, followed up by him forcing his will into dreamsteel hands and sending a murder of crows to...murder her. Inspired. Great way to end the book without feeling the need to drop it into the same cliffhanger madness that RSURS used with Locke's poisoning.

Thems is my thoughts.

On the ending

Spoiler

I agree somewhat that the ending was anti-climatic, but I enjoyed the ride so I can't quibble too much.

Re: the painting, I saw the woman looking like sabetha revelation being that locke is actually in love with the memory of his dead wife, and has imprinted on sabetha because they look similar, but I could be entirely wrong there

[QuickTidal]

Imperial Historian, on 30 October 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

On the ending

Spoiler

Re: the painting, I saw the woman looking like sabetha revelation being that locke is actually in love with the memory of his dead wife, and has imprinted on sabetha because they look similar, but I could be entirely wrong there

Spoiler

Yeah, I kind of got that impression as well...but she's apparently the spitting image...so that's what led me down the road that said "Maybe she's the orphan who got taken over"...or MAYBE, just maybe into Locke he (Arcanthe) transferred himself...and it was imperfect...and with Sabetha he actually was able to somehow necromance the spitting image of his dead wife? And maybe that's one of the reasons Patience was so intent on not allowing them to continue down the road to their old-flame love? Since it might be cyclical and lead the the same power-hungry nature that made Arcanthe so dangerous to begin with, especially with his wife along for the ride? I dunno. I'm still not sure what was going on in that scene that we were meant to notice and what we weren't meant to notice.

[amphibian]

Yes, Sabetha wants to be loved for her brain - and Locke keeps doing stuff to make her think that she's wanted because she's the most convenient body with this particular feature.

So when she opens up, she gets hurt by Locke doing something inadvertent to make her think she's not wanted for the reasons she wants to be wanted for and then runs away/closes up again. I'm actually familiar with the dynamic and it's a goddamn maddening one to deal with on both ends. We called it quits, but it remains to be seen whether Locke will have the courage to chop off that part of himself and move on (I doubt it).

[Coco with marshmallows]

Also....

Spoiler

Wasn't there an implied rival for Jean as well?

I feel sure I read something about the other side having an exemplar who could fight and who would neutralise Jean - it was in one of the interludes between various Bondsmagi.

Or did I skim read and miss something there?

[QuickTidal]

Cocoreturns, on 31 October 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

Also....

Spoiler

Wasn't there an implied rival for Jean as well?

I feel sure I read something about the other side having an exemplar who could fight and who would neutralise Jean - it was in one of the interludes between various Bondsmagi.

Or did I skim read and miss something there?

Well that can't have been Vordratha...but maybe that's who the Bondsmagi were referring to?

[Malaclypse]

so I'm 825 of 2544 iphone pages in and precisely nothing has happened to advance the plot - not a good sign.

This is one thing I love about Lawrence - you just get on board this amazing ride and decide how you're going to cope with it - this is weak. The revelation that their opposition is going to be Sabetha is so disappointing to me that I haven't resumed reading it for 4 days- it's juvenile and not clever.

The whole first part of the book is spent dealing with the idea that Locke might have actually died from poison, which nobody believed at any point so...weaksauce!

Lynch is good with quips, clever turns of phrase but that is not enough to carry a series and I think we're finding that out now.

Patience the incredibly forthcoming Bondsmagi - wtf is that all about? Why does she share all of that? WHY? because it's an ungraceful infodump, that's why.

All I'm waiting for now is for Locke to have latent magical ability.

[Stalker]

And it gets worse, Mal. I definitely agree with what you've said so far (Sabatha being the opponent was obvious a mile away), and I actually thought the strongest part of the novel was what you've already read. From there, the pacing slows dramatically and the plot is questionable. I read Pat's review after I finished the book, and overall I agreed with a lot of what Pat wrote. I don't think my grade would have been as harsh (5/10), but it certainly wouldn't have been above a 7.

[Malaclypse]

It's like an episode of Tom and Jerry, ffs

Anyway, might as well plug Douglas Hulick, whose debut 'Among Thieves' I genuinely and thoroughly enjoyed. Fingers crossed that he doesn't fall apart like so many others ;p

[QuickTidal]

Malaclypse, on 05 November 2013 - 12:25 AM, said:

so I'm 825 of 2544 iphone pages in and precisely nothing has happened to advance the plot - not a good sign.

This is one thing I love about Lawrence - you just get on board this amazing ride and decide how you're going to cope with it - this is weak. The revelation that their opposition is going to be Sabetha is so disappointing to me that I haven't resumed reading it for 4 days- it's juvenile and not clever.

The whole first part of the book is spent dealing with the idea that Locke might have actually died from poison, which nobody believed at any point so...weaksauce!

Lynch is good with quips, clever turns of phrase but that is not enough to carry a series and I think we're finding that out now.

Patience the incredibly forthcoming Bondsmagi - wtf is that all about? Why does she share all of that? WHY? because it's an ungraceful infodump, that's why.

All I'm waiting for now is for Locke to have latent magical ability.

Grumpy though you are, I think you make some arguably good points above. The best is probably the Sabetha rival note...it is truly obvious...and I THINK Lynch plays it off as something everyone has been looking forward to (the mysterious Sabetha we kept hearing about) too much and tries to let it ride on that fact. But yeah, it's a boring aspect of the book.

The Patience infodump does actually (and surprisingly) have a bigger point. It's not the infodump you think it is. It's also not some crazy revelation though...but yeah, it's more than just an infodump.

As to the rest of your comments, yeah a lot of that is true. Can't argue it, and in hindsight I think a lot of my praise comes off this one being better than the second book, and initial enjoyment of the first...but a couple of weeks down the line I'm seeing more of the holes.

I still enjoyed the read, but I'm much more skeptical of the series now...especially after what I found to be a lackluster/confusing ending.

[Werthead]

There are some problems stemming from the totally unexpected six-year gap between volumes (THIEVES was originally supposed to come out a year after RED SEAS). Sabetha was never really supposed to be a character people spent years building up in their minds and thinking was going to be some badass character. In fact, the novel makes it repeatedly clear that Sabetha is nothing really special, and Locke's infatuation with her is bizarre and inexplicable. That's a core part of the book, that what's going in Locke's head and what's going outside it are rather desperately at odds.

320 pages in, and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's quite different to the first two in tone and feel. This is isn't a romp or a heist or an adventure book. It's more of a psychological study of Locke and his expectations and fantasies being dashed to pieces by reality, and then by that reality being upended. There's some dark undercurrents to this one that weren't present in the first two and a bit more in the ways of subtle characterisation and foreshadowing of future events.

I got to speak to Scott and his publishers last night at a London signing and it was good to hear that Book 4, THORN OF EMBERLAIN, is in a very advanced stage of completion, with editing already being done. Gollancz are very optimistic about it coming out next October (returning to the one-a-year schedule the first two had). I wouldn't be surprised if later books had longer gestation periods, however, as apparently Scott did a lot of writing on THORN whilst struggling with edits on REPUBLIC, so he had more work in hand when REPUBLIC was finally delivered. And obviously all of this depends on his health remaining good, but he seemed in good spirits.

[Malaclypse]

Aaaand, Karsa and Torvald would do this better in every conceivable way, if Steve would consent to write it. 'Nuff said.

I got to speak with Simon Thomas while at a dinner with Steve a few years ago, after the publication of Red Seas in any case, and I proudly proclaimed that if Lynch could construct a credible seven-book series from that point, I would stab myself in the eye with a fork and I have no current worries on that score. Don't get me wrong, I loved the first book but it seems very few fantasy authors can sustain the quality of their offerings - we can debate about Erikson and whether or not he's past his peak but we're still here and he still makes me think, makes me want to be a better person, makes me want to be more effective in terms of trying to improve the world around me. Lawrence is similar - these works demand that you examine yourself and that is something precious.

Regarding particulars, you can't call the gap 'totally unexpected' - this is entirely in the grasp of the author, it's for him to figure out and his cross to bear - the consumers don't have to have any sympathy with this notion. And why should they? Most of them work normal jobs, lots of them probably spend significant amounts of time on buses, ffs. None of these people are going to sit there on the bus, reading this substandard book and be thinking 'poor Scott Lynch' and nor should they.

You want to read a psychological study of a fantasy character? Read 'The Summer of Katya' by Trevanian - I'm sure there are many other splendid examples of this type of writing but that's my example. This book is not going to achieve those heights. If that is the goal, well, consider me unimpressed because if that's the case then Locke and Jean will breeze through the rest of the book, defeating Sabetha at every turn due to Jean's competence if nothing else. Oh? That doesn't happen? You don't say? Pffft

What a crock of shit.

This post has been edited by Malaclypse: 07 November 2013 - 12:04 AM

[amphibian]

Malaclypse once directed me to a Western by Burroughs that you claimed was incredible. It was average at best.

Yeah, calling what Lynch went through entirely in the grasp of the author may be somehow accurate, but it doesn't make it a good thing to say or believe.

Werthead is exactly right in what this book is and it's not trying to be anything other than that. Why judge it on that basis when you can look at it for what it's actually trying to do. The focus is on Locke and Sabetha. We get to understand the backstory and the current story, get a political game going and then boot Locke out of his thieving ways and into something truly fresh setting-wise and story-wise.

Yes, there are a few problems, but it's a return to the enjoyable and complete writing of TLoLL, rather than the fitful RSURS, which isn't that awful of a book.

[QuickTidal]

Amph is right.

I'm not going to tiptoe around Malaclypse's attempt to stir the pot. He's clearly a tavern brawler without a victim. For whatever reason. So here I am.

I'm going to include the notion that he thinks he can see the future and feels comfy enough with that stolen tech to predict how seven books will come out after two...which is rather laughable.

I may have had issues with the book, some of which Old Mr Grumpy even noted...but I do NOT begrudge Lynch the 5 year gap, nor do I feel it weighed on the quality of what I felt was 95% a great book and a true return to form.

Wert: Sabetha's "legend" never came from the gap to me, it came more form two full books of mentions of her like she was this mythical feature in Locke's life.

though I like the nod that this was more of a psychological study of Locke. That fits actually now you mention it.