Hell yeah! That’s what I felt like shouting every couple of pages while reading Scott Lynch’s follow-up to his tour-de-force debut novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, which I reviewed here. If you haven’t read the first one yet, skip this review and run out and buy the damned thing right now!
Red Seas picks up a little more than two years after the conclusion of Lies. We find our intrepid and ingenious thieves Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen scheming in the island city of Tal Verrar to rob the Sinspire, the most exclusive gambling house in the world. Cheating in the Sinspire carries a summary death sentence, a rule Locke and Jean flaunt with incredible abandon.
But the Bondmages of Karthain haven’t forgotten what Locke did to one of their own. There are traps, lies, schemes, and deceptions at every turn, and one false move, one misplaced lie, will mean the end for them both.
Oh, and there are pirates and sea battles, too. As I said, hell yeah!
I loved this book. Yes, Lynch writes long, but his books have a narrative velocity behind them that carries this weight easily (if not always elegantly). Lynch has also been criticized in some circles for his use of modern language and idioms in the speech of his characters and for having women in positions of power they wouldn’t “normally” have in a pre-industrial society (Lynch’s world seems to be somewhat equivalent to Europe in the 1700s).
I think those critics are missing the point. The use of modern idioms is deliberate and accomplishes Lynch’s goal of making Locke and Jean highly accessible characters, as well as creating laugh-out-loud dialog exchanges that wouldn’t be possible with a more formal, “period-centric” language. As for the role of women … it’s his damn world and he can do what he wants. Obviously the Sea of Brass civilizations evolved differently from our own. In that world it’s bad luck to sail a ship without a woman on board, preferably as an officer. That tradition evolved from something, even if Lynch doesn’t bother to explain what. Criticizing him for making his world “overly PC” is just a disingenuous argument that I can easily dismiss.
If you read The Lies of Locke Lamora and enjoyed it, you won’t be disappointed with the follow-up. Highly recommended.
i loved this one as well! i could listen to locke tell his lies all day long. i really do miss calo and galdo, i threw my (audio)book across the room when they were knocked out in tLoLL.