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need Gentleman Bastards opinions
Mar. 9th, 2014 06:28 pmI read the first three-quarters-ish of Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora, and I wasn't enjoying it much, and then my library ebook expired. Should I go to the trouble of re-waitlisting for it to finish it?
I got interested in the series in the first place because of Lynch's defense of a pirate lady in the second book as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for middle-aged mothers, which sounded pretty relevant to my interests. But there's no one at all in the first book that I like much at all, which doesn't really bode well for me getting much out of the pirate lady either, and I feel like structurally I left off at a point in the first book where I should be on the edge of my seat to know how they'll possibly survive/pull it off/etc and I Just. Don't. Care. (Thinking about it, I enjoy heists and con jobs when I find the protagonists sympathetic and the targets actively unsympathetic. Lies didn't really establish either, for me. Yes, the big bad is extremely unpleasant, but for me it had more of an effect of making the whole *book* unpleasant than getting me invested in Locke. I like my rogues lovable, is the thing. When I read the first chapter, I really wanted this book to be "Miles Vorkosigan if he was raised by Ferengi instead of Klingons", but Miles wants *so* many things, so strongly, and Locke for all of his scheming doesn't really seem to have much forward momentum at all, in the sense of things I can really worry/care about him pursuing.)
But I would be very interested if anyone wanted to argue that the last quarter of the book is so awesome it should not be missed, or that the second book (Red Seas Under Red Skies) is so much better than the first that I should keep going for it.
I got interested in the series in the first place because of Lynch's defense of a pirate lady in the second book as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for middle-aged mothers, which sounded pretty relevant to my interests. But there's no one at all in the first book that I like much at all, which doesn't really bode well for me getting much out of the pirate lady either, and I feel like structurally I left off at a point in the first book where I should be on the edge of my seat to know how they'll possibly survive/pull it off/etc and I Just. Don't. Care. (Thinking about it, I enjoy heists and con jobs when I find the protagonists sympathetic and the targets actively unsympathetic. Lies didn't really establish either, for me. Yes, the big bad is extremely unpleasant, but for me it had more of an effect of making the whole *book* unpleasant than getting me invested in Locke. I like my rogues lovable, is the thing. When I read the first chapter, I really wanted this book to be "Miles Vorkosigan if he was raised by Ferengi instead of Klingons", but Miles wants *so* many things, so strongly, and Locke for all of his scheming doesn't really seem to have much forward momentum at all, in the sense of things I can really worry/care about him pursuing.)
But I would be very interested if anyone wanted to argue that the last quarter of the book is so awesome it should not be missed, or that the second book (Red Seas Under Red Skies) is so much better than the first that I should keep going for it.
