The Lies of Locke Lamora & Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Amazon calls Locke Lamora a picaresque fantasy, which is a fancy way of saying roguish. The titular character is the greatest of con men, in the vein of Danny Ocean. Like Ocean, Locke has his merry band of men to help him pull off bigger heists than most could conceive. Along the way, Locke encounters more than his share of twists and scrapes, and is generally worse off for his efforts.

I loved The Lies of Locke Lamora. The character of Locke was wonderfully realized, the schemes fantastic, and the villains were wicked enough to make me wonder how everything would come out in the end.

On a bit of a sour note, it was very obvious that the book was written in the three act structure with each act being drastically different in tone from each other. The first act was much like Ocean’s Eleven in tone: airy, witty, and roguish. The second act was dark and the third was filled with action. While I liked each act very much, I would have appreciated a bit more consistency between them.

The followup entry, Red Seas Under Red Skies, was not nearly as good as Lies, but I still found it enjoyable. It nearly fell into what I call the Terry Goodkind Trap: setting up an impossible to overcome situation so that it requires rewriting rules for the heroes to win the day. That’s even worse than a deus ex machina, in my opinion. However, Lynch sets up the near-impossible situation and its resolution is a bit far-fetched but plausible.

Overall, a fine, fine book followed by a fine sequel. Recommended.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Kvothe is a washed-up demigod (in abilities, not divinity). He’s hung up his sword, turned his back on his magic, and gone incognito. A chronicler finds out his identity and asks him to tell the tale of his mythical life. Kvothe, seeing the world and his own life spiraling into darkness, agrees. The storytelling takes him three days. The Name of the Wind is the first of those three days.

Another book that I absolutely loved. More than the other two authors featured here, Rothfuss is a wordsmith. I easily got lost in his writing only to be consistently impressed with his phrasing and word choice.

Since the book’s success hinged on the main character, it is great that Kvothe is such a fantastic character. It was fun watching him grow up, deal with tragedy and hardship and finally joining a wizards’ school not too dissimilar from Hogwarts. I’m sure Rothfuss would cringe at that comparison, but it’s an apt analogy.

The only complaint I can raise here is the fact that the next two books in the trilogy aren’t already published. He has everything written, but the editing process is slow and Rothfuss’s newfound fame and baby-in-the-wings has slowed it even more.

Book one will make you yearn for two and three. Read it if you dare, but don’t forget about it if you choose to wait for the other two to be published.

The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, & Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

Assembled of an ensemble of characters, The First Law series by Abercrombie features cantankerous wizards, barbarian hordes, religious zealots, and a crippled torturer. Armies of mighty nations are arraying against the incompetently-ruled Union. Evil foes are breaking the Laws of Magic and devouring the flesh of man, granting them powerful magics. All that stands in their way is an international grouping of disparate personalities and a tired, crippled inquisitor.

While Locke Lamora and Kvothe are the linchpins of their respective books, Abercrombie does not rely too heavily on any one character. Glotka, Logen, Jezal, Bayaz, West, Dogman, and Ferro are all POV characters. But George R. R. Martin this isn’t; the characters are for the most part together, interacting with one another.

This isn’t necessarily fair of me to put out a review before I’ve finished the series, but I’m a little over halfway through and I can tell you that I love it passionately. Of the new guard, only Rothfuss has the potential to outdo Abercrombie here. Abercrombie’s writing isn’t as sterling as Rothfuss’s, but his characters are tremendous. Glotka is one of the best characters I’ve ever read. Only Dogman and Ferro are at all flat, and I give Dogman a pass because his coolness and that of the rest of the Northmen in his band. I’ve read complaints about Jezal being too whiny and flat, but I rather like the arc I see Abercrombie taking with him. Though I admit he is trying to read about (akin to Martin’s Sansa).

Unless Abercrombie blows it in the remaining book and a half, this will count among my favorite series of all time. Go read it!

My first “real” books contained the standards like Where the Red Ferns Grows and The Call of the Wild, but they also included fantasy novels like Narnia and a few of Stephen King’s fantasy novels. When I grew a little older and discovered the D&D multiverse I began reading anything Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms that I could get my hands on. Raistlin and Drizzt shaped the type of literature (and you can call it that) that I enjoyed.

In the last few years I emerged from my shell, thanks in part to the royal hacks that are (were?) Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind — both authors that began fantastically and then squeezed their cash cows for every ounce of penny-milk, leaving us loyal readers in the lurch.

I’ve since sought new avenues of entertainment. I went to the classics, much maligned by me at school (Gatsby and Eyre have nothing on Raistlin and Drizzt). But I located Orwell and Dante and learned to love them. I’ve read light fantasy like Gaiman, acting a scofflaw to my earlier tastes. I even dabbled in Sci-Fi, and that is what has sparked this line of thought.

I recently (as in last night) began Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep. So far I’m really enjoying the plot, but it has brought to the surface several issues about what I value in my reading. Fantasy is very easy to digest for me, largely because of my long history with it. But it also comes down to the fact that it’s very easy to understand. Fantasy is mostly based on our own medieval past. Thus, even with different races, characters, and histories, it’s easy to piece together based on my knowledge of Pre-Modern Europe.

Then it comes down to a matter of operational rules. What can happen, what the characters are capable of, and where the story can take us are all subject to the author’s and ultimately our imaginations. These are tempered and controlled in fantasy via “magic.” Magic allows the author and us to bend and break rules to allow the story to unfold. I generally have no problem following the leaps, since they are an established part of the genre and are simply accepted. Watching/Reading “Harry Potter and the Title of Such-and-Such,” we don’t ask how Harry is able to use his wand to defeat the baddies, we accept it as a matter of course.

This is where the crux of my issue with Sci-Fi is. Instead of the backgrounds being based on our history, our modern history is (sometimes not) the basis for its background. There is rarely a concrete basis for the order of the universe. Delving into the first chapters of a Sci-Fi book, the reader (me) must sort out where human history fits in. Is their history based on ours? Does it ignore it? Do these humans (almost always humans) come from Earth? These are minor issues, but are sometimes not resolved. Parallel universes are the norm in Sci-Fi, and are to be again accepted as a matter of course.

My bigger problem comes in with the rules issue. Instead of “magic” we have “technology.” Since Sci-Fi tech is based on the real world whether the story is based on modern history, I sometimes have a conflict. When the author tries to be too real but still take the technology to either its realistic end or its plot-necessary end, it requires from the reader leaps in logic. Unlike magic which isn’t based on logic, technology is.

If an author just handwaves technology, then it’s usually not a problem; it’s more like magic in that case. The best example for this is Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m sure everyone’s seen at least one episode of ST:TNG, and many (if not most) contain a similar conflict resolution technique: magic! That’s right, if the Klingons have figured out a way to penetrate your shields and you only have minutes before you’re destroyed, then use an ionic pulse to disable theirs and use your photon torpedo to destroy them first. That’s also known as magic! It’s all based on phony technology (at least now it is) and serves to advance the plot in the direction required but without loosening the tension first. I’m familiar with that technique as fantasy uses it all the time.

My problem is more when Sci-Fi builds on believable technology and then has a hard time (or deigns not to) explaining it. In the Vinge book I’m reading currently, ultra-light speed travel is possible (with implications of tens of thousands of lys possible in only years time), but only in the outer part of the galaxy. The closer toward the galactic black hole one is, the slower their vessels can travel. That’s why we now on Earth can’t beat light speed; we’re too close to the middle. That I can accept, except for the fact it wasn’t truly explained until eighty pages in or so. Far more difficult to understand is the economic system built on information exchange. Vinge tries to differentiate between servers, mainframes, archives, and their ilk. Only to me they’re synonyms and I’m having trouble grasping what the big deal is.

I’m trying not to shift the blame onto Vinge. I’ve had the same problem with Moorcock and Card (although Card’s worlds don’t get complex until deeper into his books). They try to explain to us their magic in words we can understand. But those words conjure analogs to modern equipment and ruin the “magical” qualities the authors are imbuing them with. I’m only 20% done with Vinge, and I don’t understand a large part of how his universe works. Perhaps he’s just withholding it, only to reveal the innerworkings later, but for now it’s mildly frustrating me and my enjoyment ebbs.

Perhaps that’s why I’ll probably always stick with fantasy as my standard. It’s authors don’t have to strain too much to get me to understand, and I can then work on understanding the characters and their plots and machinations instead of first trying to understand the underlying rules under which they operate.

I just recently finished reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

First of all, I really enjoyed the book. The message that the “normal” social and legal rules are effectively suspended during wartime is very effectively conveyed. Not only is the message strong, it’s delivered primarily through snark, sarcasm, and satire.

The book begins with the main character, Yossarian, in a military hospital in the Mediterranean campaign in 1944 Italy. He’s doing his damndest to avoid flying any more missions — not because he’s unpatriotic, but because he doesn’t want to die when the War is all but won. Catch-22 parades a cavalcade of quirky and idiosyncratic characters including Colonel Korn, Major Major Major Major (the army couldn’t resist promoting him), Chaplain Tapman, Lieutentant Scheisskopf, Nately’s whore, and Major ——— de Coverly (who’s so gruff no one’s ever asked his first name).

The war effort seems to conspire to keep Yossarian flying in the war. Logic seems to escape most of the decision-makers, as the infamous titular paradox makes apparent: if you’re crazy, they’ll send you home when you ask. But if you have the capacity to ask to go home, you must not be crazy. Even though some of Yossarian’s best friends are dying in combat, his clueless superiors are being promoted.

Through all of the frustratingly annoying decisions and character deaths, the endless stream of humor and characters kept me entertained.

My only complaint would be in my unfamiliarity with a plotless storyline. Heller’s strength lies solely in the characters and there is very little story. Because of this it was initially difficult for me to get into the book. I half-assedly read it over the course of two weeks before I finally hunkered down and read in solid blocks. Once I was reading more than one or two chapters at a time, I found it to be a much better book than I was giving it credit. I was able to pick up on the nuance quite a bit more.

Oh, and on a minor side note, Heller’s language is superb. His dialogue is very natural (despite its absurd content), and his choice of words is delightful. Plus, you can learn a lot of new words. Ones for me included prolix, infundibuliform, ebullient, and phlegmatic.