The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1) in Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"

Mar 29, 2017 Joseph rated it really liked it · review of another edition

OK, I remember becoming aware of this book back not too long after it was first published in 2006 or so, and hearing good things about it, but for whatever reason I was always reluctant to actually pick it up, no matter what I had heard about it. (Truth be told, I think it was something about the title -- the name Locke Lamora, specifically -- that I always found just a bit off-putting.)

I'm happy to admit: I was wrong.

As was already known to almost everybody but me, this was an awful lot of fun OK, I remember becoming aware of this book back not too long after it was first published in 2006 or so, and hearing good things about it, but for whatever reason I was always reluctant to actually pick it up, no matter what I had heard about it. (Truth be told, I think it was something about the title -- the name Locke Lamora, specifically -- that I always found just a bit off-putting.)

I'm happy to admit: I was wrong.

As was already known to almost everybody but me, this was an awful lot of fun -- a lengthy caper book, sort of like a sword & sorcery version of Ocean's Eleven. Locke Lamora is an orphan who, at the book's opening and at a very tender age, is sold by an admittedly desperate Thiefmaker of Camorr (fair Camorr where we lay our scene; sort of a fantasy Venice, if Venice were littered with magical glowing glass towers and other remnants of a fallen, non-human people) to a "blind" priest whose temple has some rather ... unconventional liturgical preferences. We then alternate between the present day (at the beginning of which Locke and his band of Gentlemen Bastards are beginning yet another glorious confidence scheme) and flashbacks to Locke's training and his introduction to Jean Tannen, Bug and the Twins, the other members of his merry little band.

As always, in a caper book (or film), half of the fun is watching the would-be con men going about their business, never quite certain if they're actually quite as clever as they think they are, and never quite certain whether their marks are quite as befuddled as they think they are. There's plenty of that, and plenty of bits where somebody on one side of the equation or the other does something really remarkably clever, only to find out that their actions actually played right into their adversaries' hands.

And of course there are complications (not least the mysterious Gray King, who's waging, for entirely unknown reasons, a war on the chief of Camorr's underworld, and who decides he could really use some assistance), and when things start to go wrong, they do go horribly, horribly wrong in all sorts of unexpected ways ... ...more

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May 31, 2015 Tome Addiction rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This book came highly recommended but for me after 150 pages I was having a difficult time enjoying this book. I found I could skim it easily enough and keep up with the storyline but it bounced around too much, not enough action, too much description, lack of plot progression, and I couldn't get into any of the characters or premise of the book. This book is perfect example as to why I don't like Fantasy that much, and how difficult it is for me to find a good fantasy novel. If you want to read ...more

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