Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
This is the second book in Scott Lynch’s “Gentleman Bastards” series, but I don’t think you have to have read THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA to appreciate it. Lynch’s world is an amazing tapestry of fantasy cultures. Cities have infrastructure of ancient techonolgies, bondsmagi alter lives like the Illuminati, crime lords kill one another with the aid of bizarre animals, and alchemists create beautiful steampunk contraptions.
Locke Lamora and his friend Jean Tannen are professional thieves and con men who have moved to a new city to get away from some *ahem* troubles which you know about if you read the first novel. These characters are charming in their boundless optimism and over-polite behavior. Sometimes they remind me of the chipmunks from the Warner brothers cartoons, the ones who were always playing gin rummy with one another. Locke and Jean will try politeness when they can, lies when politeness doesn’t work, and violence when neither of the first two get the job done.
One of my favorite parts of this novel is the elaborate con schemes that Locke and Jean get involved in. Early on in the novel, Locke consigns a set of antique replica chairs, which he presents as a gift to the master of the Sinspire (a very exclusive casino.) We know that these chairs have some important function, and that Locke has a scheme to rob the Sinspire blind, but he keeps us guessing until the very end.
The other aspect of this novel is that it deals with pirates and ships. Since the cover of the novel features a flaming ship, I don’t think that I’m giving away too much of a spoiler here. I’m a sucker for tall ships, and love nautical adventures. I also like that the women form an intricate part of Lynch’s world. They’re not just pawns and princesses, they’re sea captains and mercenaries and majordomos and scholars.
Some of THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA will be spoiled for you if you read this book first, but not so much that I don’t recommend this book for people who haven’t read the first one. I recommend this for people who like elaborate heists and capers (like Oceans 11), for people who like tall ships, and for people who like well-constructed high fantasy.
