The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)

by Scott Lynch

The Thorn of Camorr is said to be an unbeatable swordsman, a master thief, a friend to the poor, a ghost that walks through walls.

Slightly built and barely competent with a sword, Locke Lamora is, much to his annoyance, the fabled Thorn. And while Locke does indeed steal fro the rich (who else would be worth stealing from?), the poor never see a penny. All of Locke's gains are strictly for himself and his tight-knit band of thieves: the Gentlemen Bastards.

The capricious, colourful underworld of the ancient city of Camorr is the only home they've ever known. But now a clandestine war is threatening to tear it apart. Caught up in a murderous game, Locke and his friends are suddenly struggling just to stay alive . . .

The first book in the Gentleman Bastard sequence, The Lies of Locke Lamora is a fast-paced and devilishly twisty epic fantasy, and has become a perennial favourite of fantasy fans everywhere.

• ISBN13: 9781399625302
• Publish Date: April 2024 (first published 1 January 2006)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Gollancz
• Edition: Broken Binding Exclusive
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 530
• Language: English
• Special: Numbered Signed Sprayed Edges

Reviews

[Metaphorosis Reviews]

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Locke Lamora is a professional thief, raised from childhood to be so. But he and his crew don't follow the rules of the Secret Peace that governs the city's underworld. And they'll pay a price for that.

Review
I’ve been hearing about this book for a very long time, but somehow nothing specific enough to trigger a purchase. When I saw it on sale, I decided to finally go ahead and pick it up.

The blurb on the cover says, “fresh, original”. I have to say that it isn’t really either of those. Pretty much all the foreground elements are things we’ve seen many times before. And much of the storytelling seems more driven by heist movies than by fantasy tropes; I began to feel worn out by the sheer number of ‘but he wasn’t really dead’-type twists. It’s exacerbated by the slow introduction and the endless time-hopping. There are any number of fairly sizable plot holes that are papered over or simply ignored. One of the big reveals – the identity of the villain – is very disappointing, while another that is often hinted at never comes up at all, and will presumably provide a climax for the series.

Oddly, it’s the background worldbuilding that’s most interesting about the book. Lynch has clearly spent some time on this – to the extent that he’s constantly introducing more scenery, giving the feeling that, most of the way through a fairly large book, he’s still introducing the city it takes place in. While I liked the world, I got the feeling that he’d done so much work on it that he insisted on cramming it all in, even when it slows or complicates the plot. Maybe it’s all essential to the later books, but I have my doubts.

All that said, and to give Lynch credit, the characters are engaging (if somewhat stock), the plot itself moves along quickly (ignoring the constant flashbacks), and the whole setup is intriguing enough to make the book a fun, reasonably quick read (despite the frustrating plot holes). I could see picking up and enjoying later books in the series (but don’t really feel driven to buy them).

So, fresh and original this is not, but it is a reasonably fun and solid fantasy read, with caveats.

[moraa]

***FOR REASONS THAT HAVE RECENTLY COME TO LIGHT, I CANNOT CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THIS AUTHOR***

There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.

Are you in the market for characters more real than yourself, with lives more interesting than yours and quips way funnier than yours against a backdrop of coastal city with descriptions of food that make you salivate ten minutes after your last meal?

Then, my friend, The Lies of Locke Lamora, is exactly what you're looking for. This is the tale of a gang of thieves who dare to be bastards, but do it with style. (It's not enough to merely be a thief in Camorr, one must stay cutting edge, so to speak). Here, you will find a ruthless underworld and blasé peerage, neither of which couldn't give two shits for anything but their wealth and their hierarchy.

You will find characters with congruent and incongruent goals. Characters who are not afraid to take what they want and few who are afraid of the consequences. You will find a world of enjoyment and blessed escapism, so much so that you will forget that the Gentlemen Bastards would probably rob you blind if they saw you walking down the Mara Camorrazza.

My one problem with this book:
The first 30% was a DNF danger zone.
Riddled with far too much exploration of the world (which I normally enjoy) but little exploration of the characters' voices/desires/goals/fears etc, I almost said goodbye to this much beloved piece of fantasy. (Seriously, I can't tell you how much it gets brought up).
Anyway, the balance of those two factors was resolved soon after and I am very happy to have enjoyed this.

We thank Callo Androno, The Eyes on the Crossroad, god of travel, languages and lore. We shall feast in your honour this night and two more hence.

[smartflutist661]

The special kind of book that grabs on and refuses to let go until you’re finished. Beautifully plotted, beautifully written, occasionally humorous and occasionally moving. Very glad I finally got around to it.

The beginning was so incredibly slow... I normally don’t mind slow books, but when you don’t care about the characters yet and half of the chapters are flashbacks, it becomes a different story.

I didn’t care for the interludes. The might have given the necessary backstory, but it made me disconnect with the story and wasn’t a fan of the way it was done.
Because every half of the chapter became an interlude, it took forever for the story to progress and continue. Maybe a next read will increase my rating, but for now it will stay at three stars.

The story didn’t pick up until halfway through the book and when it did, I started to care and couldn’t put this book down. Scott Lynch wrote some very complex characters and an interesting world that is worth exploring.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

GODS. This book was SO STRESSFUL.

Really good though. Really, really good.

I had a very difficult time getting into this book, but somewhere between where I was really bored and the end, I got absolutely hooked. Like: "Honey, I can't talk, I'm listening to The Lies of Locke Lamora" hooked. The fantasy world doesn't feel like over-saturated fantasy. Magic is very limited. The characters don't win. They have a lot of bad times. You want a book that flaunts the "Kill your Darlings" style? Read The Lies of Locke Lamora.

But despite the heart attacks, this book is so good. SO GOOD. The characters break all sorts of fantasy character tropes, you love them even when you don't want to. When people say "don't get attached to any characters", they're not kidding. This book is very murdery. Be prepared for blood. Gruesome descriptions. All sorts of death. When people say "don't fall in love", they're not kidding.

It's very good. It's hard getting started, but it's GOOD.

[Melanie]

Review originally posted at RabidReads.ca.

I read this book many years ago (way before I was even on Goodreads, so I know it was before October 2009). I bought this audiobook a few years ago to revisit this series (I only read this one book and wanted to read more, but wanted to revisit this one before going to book two). I got it as part of Audibles 2 for 1 deals. I’m just now getting around to listening to it (after I just bought book two in another 2 for 1 deal).

I didn’t remember a lot of what this story was about. I just remembered that I really liked Locke and I found that this hasn’t changed. This story is told in multiple timelines. There is a story with Locke in “present day” and then Locke as a child and going through training to become the con man he becomes (this is one of those things that I completely forgot about).

So Locke is an orphan boy that was taken in by a guy known as The Thiefmaker. The Thiefmaker takes boys and trains them to be, well, thieves, among other things. He then sells them to gangs, etc. However, Locke quickly becomes more than what The Thiefmaker is willing to deal with. He takes him to “The Eyeless Priest” known as Father Chains. Chains takes boys (well there is a girl too, but she doesn’t have a large part in this book) and trains them to be sophisticated thieves. He doesn’t want pickpockets, but people who can pull off the long con. He works to teach them accents, manners, skills, languages, fighting, etc.

In the “present”, we have Locke and his gang running a long con on the elite, or Peers, of Camorr. He is planning on having the biggest take ever. He and his gang are ready for a con this long. Things just don’t quite go as they plan.

I really love the characters of this series. Locke, as the leader of this gang, is great, even if his confidence is his biggest weakness. I also really like the other members of Gentleman Bastards, Jean Tannen, Calo Sanza, Galdo Sanza, Bertilion “Bug” Gadek (an apprentice in “present” time) and even Father Chains. They each have their strengths and weaknesses and they work together so that they all do the part they are best suited for.

This story isn’t a faced paced story. It is long and so it may be hard for some people to get through (I’ve heard that from people in the past). I even upped my listening speed, but I still really enjoyed the story.

This is a fantasy, but it takes a while to show it’s hand. It takes place in what would be similar to Italy (the majority of the names have an Italian flare to them and there are gondolas). At first, you hear some about alchemy, but then as the story goes on, you learn about the Bond’s Mage and his Scorpion Falcon. They are really the big part of the fantasy of this story. Not sure how much more it picks up in other series. It was still enough to keep me interested.

If you like fantasy that doesn’t have to be fast paced that have really great characters, this might be a good book for you. I will warn you, this is a bit like Game of Thrones in that there is not a happy ending for everyone involved (I hope that isn’t saying too much).

Locke Lamora’s rule of thumb was this: a good confidence game took three months to plan, three weeks to rehearse, and three seconds to win or lose the victim’s trust forever.

[chrssym]

very clever

[KitsuneBae]

This could have been a 5 star book for me if only the writing wasn't so tedious and that the timeline does not shift in every fucking chapter. Author, I appreciate your attention to details but please can you just get to point and not spend numerous paragraphs describing one canal or one castle?

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

DNF: I was bored out of my mind and the modern-sounding prose doesn't match the setting.

[Amber]

This review was originally posted on Books of Amber

The Lies of Locke Lamora is amazing. Freakin' brilliant. I think it deserves 100x more attention than it is getting right now. With an easy but engaging writing style, lovable characters, and fantastic world-building, you can't really go wrong.Let's start with the world-building because it was beautiful. It's more subtle than, say, The Way of Kings or Mistborn. You start the book feeling quite at home in Renaissance Italy, and then all of a sudden super intelligent fantastical sharks jump out of the water and start eating gladiators, and there's talk of magicians and you're like woahhh.

Throughout the book there are subtle hints of the history of the world and the characters, and Lynch slowly starts to pull back the layers and introduce things in a completely natural way. This onion has a lot of layers, and by the end of the book you will be dying to find out more about the world and the backstory. Not only that, but I think the Gentleman Bastard series is made up of several onions and even though I'm three books in, I've only really discovered about half of the first one. Onion, that is. We're still talking about that analogy.

Also, I have to mention the representation of women in this series and world. A lot of the time in the fantasy novels I read (looking at you, Mistborn) the female characters are few and far between, and they're so under-represented it hurts me. In the Gentleman Bastard series, however, Lynch does a pretty great job with it. While there aren't any female main characters (yet), there is an abundance of secondary and tertiary female characters, and a lot of them are in-fucking-charge. AND the whole city of Camorr is basically run by women. There's a chapter dedicated to talking about how the women rose up and basically came to rule the city. I died. DIED.

Okay, so, the characters. LOCKE AND JEAN, FIRST AND FOREMOST. If they're not your OTP then you're doing it wrong. Their relationship is the loveliest thing, and it really is the focal point of the series. There's not Locke Lamora without Jean Tannen. They prop each other up. Locke is meant to be a BAMF leader but he's also vulnerable and Jean is there to help and protect him. I was telling Tatum about how Jean protects Locke with his physical strength and power, whereas Locke protects Jean with his wits and sharp tongue. It's legit.

The rest of the gang of thieves and con-artists are, of course, wonderful. They're not as developed as Locke and Jean are, for reasons that become clear later on, but throughout the series you get to know them more and more and now that I've finished The Republic of Thieves I am in love with this little crew. I love this whole crime family to pieces.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is a book that I'm dying to reread. I rarely reread anything, and right this second the only recent (as in, in the last three years) reread I can recall doing is The Final Empire. And that's one of my all time favourites. JUST LIKE THIS BOOK.

Just read it. Thanks.

OHOHOH, I should end with some quotes! Here you go:

There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.

"I cut off his fingers to get him to talk, and when he'd confessed everything I wanted to hear, I had his fucking tongue cut out, and the stump cauterized."Everyone in the room stared at him."I called him an asshole, too," said Locke. "He didn't like that."

"Until Jean shows up."