If my experience being washed down the river of my life towards my eventual and inescapable doom in the Sea of Mortal Humility has taught me anything it’s that nothing is certain. This is especially true of women, pistachio nuts and sequels within the fantasy genre when the first book was near flawless. If you disagree, please feel free to ask George Lucas what it’s like to lose a fan base that at one time thought that every little thing you created felt more real than the crappy reality they were pulled into kicking and screaming.
Scott Lynch’s first book, The Lies of Locke Lamora, was a simple idea, a heist set in a fantasy world, kind of like Ocean’s Eleven meets The Lord of the Rings, but like many simple ideas it was all in the complexity of the execution which in this case included some of the clearest and most evocatively real characters I’ve read in quite some time. It set up a complex mish mash of a plot, had the typical “everyone’s going to die” high points and low points, there were surprises, sudden plot twists, betrayal, murder, hatred and the whole thing eventually ended up in a really satisfying conclusion. It managed to do all of this while managing to make the fantastical elements a mere element of the plot rather than the whole point for it. In short, it was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in the last year and a half.
And for the last two days, I’ve been reading the sequel. And all I have to say is THANK GOD.
Red Seas Under Red Skies is indeed a very good book, full of Lynch’s real strongpoints. Firstly he has a real knack for getting into the head of a righteous rogue, of someone who has a mind as duplicitous as a lockpick, that sees all the angles due to an inherent mastery of the protractor of thievery. Lamora is a kind of more thuggish Robin Hood in a world where everyone is too conniving and self-motivated to qualify as really poor, so unfortunately he has to keep the money he steals for himself. I love reading how the world becomes incredibly simple when you don’t live in fear of failure, when you have your own moral code and when anything and everything can be a tool, opportunity or distraction.
Secondly, Lynch has pitch perfect descriptive capacity, every building feels like it’s been there for centuries, every boat smells like the blood sweat and tears of it’s maniacal crew, every piece of high art or meticulous cookery evokes a palate of emotive reactions of a higher quality than anything I’ve made or owned. Lynch has a turn of phrase that manages to make the commonplace extraordinary, especially when it’s layered around a crunchy core of awesomely weird fantasy background. Everything has a level of narrative nuance behind it which makes me wonder if Lynch hasn’t spent the entirety of his life with some very creative mortal enemy bent on his ultimate distruction. As such Lynch is the type of guy who takes a toilet, combines it with a maniac with chronic bowel issues and throws them together with a well-placed assassin with a roll of poisoned toilet paper. He keeps everything two centimeters off the ground, every person, every thing is dirty and base and really really real.
Lastly Lynch has an ability to keep the ball rolling, things progress, change, characters die and are converted into other characters, you think the plot is going to go one way and it smacks you in the nuts, steals your wallet and goes the other way.
(Slight Spoilers below. Well, not so much Spoilers, more like commentary on plot structure that might change your perception of the book, so be warned.)
So, I loved this book, I really did. Well, mostly.
The only real problem was, for me, kind of a biggish one. if I had to say something, which considering that this is a review and not an attempt to get Scott Lynch to paint my house, I’d say that maybe he tried a little too hard to cover multiple plot elements without giving the central plot the development it required. I wasn’t totally sure I felt a bit like the Heist was ignored for the vast majority of the book, I woud have really liked to see more time spent manipulating the Mark and living in that world. Lamora’s role as a thief feels like it was a bit underutilised, which I think was interesting but a bit disappointing. Halfway through the book, Lamora is forced to sideline his heist to go to sea by a second villain, so the momentum kind of stalls, a secondary villain kind of takes up the steam of juicy hatred that you just managed to build for the first. It didn’t help that in terms of their character, they were both very similar. An early plot point was the inclusion of a legendary gambling establishment that gets pushed to the side due to polt developments, which I didn’t really like. I would have preferred to have Lamora stay there rather than be pushed into a role as a pirate because I kept thinking that he would end up having stretch the Heist into another book, so when it came suddenly, it lacked the purpose and momentum that I so enjoyed in the first book.
All in all, this was of course, fantastic. Really really amazing, you won’t be sad you read it. You will be right there next to me in the queue for the next one.
