A Book A Week - Week 42: The Lies of Locke Lamora

This week's book:
  The Lies Of Locke Lamora   by Scott Lynch

Grade:   B+

I liked this book.  It was mechanically sound, had a decent plot with twists and turns and what-have-yous, and was an entertaining read.  The hero is a con man whose only real talent is lying, a thief who preys exclusively on the wealthy of his city.  But he's not nearly as clever or untouchable as he thinks he is.  Good premise.

So why the B+?  Well, sit down a spell and I'll tell you why...

This is a fantasy novel, and by that I mean adult fantasy.  No, not that kind of 'adult' fantasy, I mean it's more like Game of Thrones than Harry Potter.  For grown-ups instead of kids.  The main character, Locke Lamora, lives in a world where magic is real - but not ubiquitous - and alchemy is real and poverty is real and slavery is very real, and people live by intrigue and trickery or they don't live very long at all.
   When you get a brand-new fantasy world, you have to allow the author the page count to do a decent job of world building.  Some things need explanation, after all, especially if they're germane to the plot.  But it's a fine line between explaining the way your fantasy world works and losing your narration in the details.  Sometimes the author stepped over that line.  Many times, actually.  We don't get to even the hints of the plot of the book until about 50 pages in.  There is actually a Prologue, which in publishing nowadays just isn't done.  Honestly, I'm surprised the term 'Prologue'  survived the editing process, if I were in charge that would have been my first edit.
   The author never gets past this tendency to navel-gaze the details of his world.  Time after time after time the narration is interrupted with an explanation of some point of the world that's going to be important in ten pages or so.  I get it, you thought this through, but this over-reliance on exposition of the details of the world is just like when other authors over-share their research.  Dan Brown, I'm looking your direction here.  It gets in the way and only calls attention to itself.

There is too much dialogue.  Luckily, the author avoids - mostly - the kind of too-clever 'author's voice' dialogue I loathe; the characters speak in their own voice.  They just do too much of it.  There is banter between characters, which is the author's self-indulgence leaking through, and it persists long after establishing mood and defining relationships.  Towards the end the dialogue veered into exposition from time to time.

Because of the first two points, too much world-building and too much dialogue, the book is too long.  Much too long.  The plot, even with its twists and setbacks, could have been accomplished in 450 pages instead of 650.  When I actually have to turn off the page count on my e-book reader because the countdown to the end is interminable, you know the book is too long.

Also, even though this is a fantasy world, the author clearly based it on the Italian Renaissance, probably Venice or Florence or a combination of both.  There are many Italianate words and names and terms, which keeps them from sounding like Fake Fantasy names, but doesn't allow them to fade into the background either.  I got the feeling that the heroes would take a gondola to St. Mark's Basilica any moment.

Even though I have my complaints and I graded it a B+, I really did like the book.  It's clever, and the fantasy elements hang together.  The hero is likable even though he's a rogue and a con man, and the bad guys' motivations seemed reasonable enough.  As far as first novels go, it was much, much better than Twilight or Ready Player One, but not quite as good as The Golem and the Jinni or The Panopticon. 

Next week:
  ????
I have absolutely no idea.  I need to go to the bookstore and find something tomorrow.