The Lies of Locke Lamora (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

I suspect a fair number of readers will give up on this in the first few chapters: you can tell this is a debut novel and the writer is sort of settling into his own voice as he goes. The first impression was of a sort of sub-Jack Vance, which is a hard act to follow.

It's worth persisting though - the language becomes less florid and the plot more fascinating: I really liked the setting. At first I didn't warm to the characters, but after a while I started to get attached to them. Be warned though, if you are the kind of reader that finds violence and death to sympathetic characters in fiction hard to read, you may not like this.

Several reviewers have referred to this novel as fantasy: it's set in a renaissance culture in the ruins of an alien culture, which to my mind makes it sci fi, but perhaps sci fi is less in the public eye just now.

I am definitely looking forward to reading the next one.

"The Lies of Locke Lamora" is the first in a projected series of seven books detailing the adventures of The Gentleman Bastards, a gang of thieves and conmen from the Venice-like city of Camorr. It's a ripping yarn full of larger-than-life characters, something akin to "Moll Flanders" meets "Pulp Fiction"; mostly light-hearted but with moments of savage violence, as befits the protagonist's devil-take-the-hindmost attitude to life. There is one torture scene that literally gave me nightmares, which rather puts me off buying the rest of the series - a pity, as it is otherwise good fun.

The mix of traditional fantasy elements (pre-gunpowder weapons, mages) with vaguely SF/clockpunk elements like the advanced architectural technology of the long-departed Elders, the intricate Heath-Robinsonian human inventions and the pseudo-science of alchemy combine in a heady mix of otherworldliness, making Camorr a city you'll remember long after you close the book. If the description is occasionally a little heavy-handed (please, Scott, can it sometimes be just the wind, not the Hangman's Wind?), it's still damned impressive for a debut novel, especially from someone who is still under 30.

Only one thing really takes the edge off an otherwise great book: the dialogue. I'm not at all averse to swearing, but in "Lies" it is at times overdone and inappropriate. It's one thing for the Gentleman Bastards to be effing and blinding amongst themselves, but the Bondsmage? Don Salvara? Considering that the city is sharply divided into the haves and have-nots, the frankly rather unimaginative swearing sometimes gives the dialogue a homogeneous, classless (or rather lower-class) flavour that spoils the overall effect. The characters' voices become almost indistinguishable from one another at times, and sound anachronistic to boot, like Lynch had been watching a lot of Quentin Tarantino movies to get in the mood.

Judging by things he has said in interviews, Lynch is a fan of "Serenity" and presumably "Firefly" (the tone of the book reminded me very much of the show). IMHO he should study Jos Whedon's work a bit more closely: learn how to write really cracking dialogue and most importantly, be a bit more creative with his cursing!

This is like the Godfather, Oliver Twist and Ocean's Eleven mixed up and distilled on the page. Fun, witty, violent and entertaining, it keeps you reading and so is the perfect commute read. As other reviewers have said, Lynch dramatises rather than tells - a bit of a lost art for contemporary writers.

Personally I didn't like the flashbacks and back story, and thought it was too much of a device to delay the main plot but that's personal taste. There are places where Lynch overwrites but this is forgiveable, especially in the middle section of the book where the tension really ramps up. Lynch doesn't shy away from making his characters realistically violent as so many writers do out of moral correctness and that adds to the texture of the plot and characterisation.

This isn't by any means great literature, but it is a great romp of a novel that reminded me of how much sheer fun reading as a child used to be.