Friday, October 19, 2007

The Lies of Locke Lamora

Lynch, Scott. The Lies of Locke Lamora. New York: Bantam, 2006. ISBN: 0553804677

The Lies of Locke Lamora is a story of crime and vengeance and cleverness and loyalty and survival. The characters are surprising and wonderful and the plot is engaging and full of lovely little turns. It's really too bad that we must slog through excessive worldbuilding to unearth the all the deliciousness of this story.

Locke is orphaned at a young age and taken in by a Fagin type character. Locke, being too clever by half for this gang of pick pockets, causes a great deal of trouble and ends up being sold to a professional grifter currently styled as a blind priest. Under Father Chains Locke and a small group of friends receive an impressive education and extensive training in the art of grift. The story bounces back and forth between Locke's childhood and his adulthood. Both sides of the story are equally compelling. As a child Locke discovers that his clever schemes have consequences and despite being on the wrong side of the law, there are still rules he must follow. Adult Locke has inherited leadership of Chains' little gang known as the Gentleman Bastards. They skillfully con the peerage out of vast sums of money while avoiding the Duke's special forces and maintaining a small time reputation with the leader of the city's criminal gangs. All is well until a mysterious figure styling himself the Grey King arrives on the scene with well laid plans for vengeance.

The Lies of Locke Lamora has received a great deal of well deserved praise. It's an enthralling tale peopled by fascinating characters and I do recommend it... with one caveat. Be in a patient mood when you pick up this book. While none of the extraneous exposition will put you directly to sleep, it is a fascinating world after all, there's just a bit too much and it weighs the plot down in places. These rich details serve their character and worldbuilding purposes well at the beginning of the story. But as the action heats up and we're itching to find out how Locke can possibly survive the latest predicament, is this really the right place to insert the entire family history of a minor character?

I stress this point only because none of the other reviews that I've read have mentioned it. Perhaps, by Tolkien's example, we've all come to expect excessive exposition in fantasy? Gosh, I hope not. This is the only noteworthy flaw in an otherwise delightfully clever story.

Lynch's followup, Red Seas Under Red Skies, is already on the shelves and on my wishlist. I'm looking forward to reading more of Locke's clever schemes and narrow escapes.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Air: Or, Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman

Ryman, Geoff. Air: Or, Have Not Have. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004. ISBN: 0312261217

My husband and I spent a few days of our honeymoon in Siam Reip, Cambodia near the temples at Angkor. I was dumbstruck by the otherness of this country. It felt like a place out of time where the past and the future collide with shocking and fascinating results. There's been a Dengue Fever outbreak and worried parents with their deathly ill children wait in line in the muddy lot in front of the hospital a mere block away from the posh Sofitel resort. A poor old woman pushes her grilled banana cart past an Internet cafe -- the only building on the block with air conditioning. An emaciated cow grazes on a thin patch of grass in front of a construction site where yet another luxury resort for foreign tourists is being built by foreign investors. A silk shirted government guide points out the highlights of an 800 year old temple while a six year old skips school to hawk beaded bracelets in 3 languages. If she's lucky she'll earn enough money that her mother can buy rice for her family's dinner. Tourists from all over the world visit here every day, but even the wealthiest Cambodians rarely cross over their own borders. If I find myself in Cambodia again ten years from now, will it be the same? Or will everything have changed?

More than the clash of poverty and wealth, I felt the clash of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Picture a young Buddhist monk with his shaved head and traditional orange robes and sandals walking across the courtyard of a monastery that hasn't change in three hundred years, an ipod anachronistically dangling from his fingertips it's ear-buds stuck in his ears. Time moves in fits and starts here. Tradition holds some things fast, while others lurch forward awkwardly. I have never before or since felt so aware of the passage of time.

It is these memories that I brought with me into Air: Or, Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman Perhaps this is why the theme of juggling history and tradition while facing the inevitable future strikes me so solidly while other reviewers dwell on poor rural easterners crashing headfirst into western culture and technology. While Ryman may have intended this book to be about the effects of bringing "Have" to the "Have Nots", as the subtitle, "Have Not Have", implies, I believe he achieved something more. I believe he ended up talking about all of us. Our pasts and traditions are part of us, and whether we run toward it gleefully, accept it stoically, or futilely try to hold it off, the future will come and it is part of us too.

Mae is the fashion expert in her small rural village in a fictional western Asian country modeled after the former Soviet republics. She brings modern clothing, make-up, and hair styles to the ladies of her little village that rarely have a chance to travel to the nearest city. When a new form of communications technology called Air, intended to connect people all over the world, is tested in Mae's village the results are disastrous. But there's no stopping Air's scheduled arrival and, despite Mae's personal difficulties she takes it upon herself to prepare her village for this monumental change. Sezen, a rebellious teenager, eagerly awaits Air with the belief that it will set her free from her difficult past. Kwan, the wife of a village landlord and a member of the native minority, risks government retribution by using the precursor to Air to tell the world about the history and traditions of her people. And Shen, the village teacher, clings to the present and rebels against the new technology with all he has, destroying families and social order along the way.

The setting, a rural Asian village, and the theme of reconciling past, present, and future along with this particular flavor of culture clash are all fairly rare in science fiction. These elements make Ryman's Air fresh and interesting. The story telling is strong and I couldn't help but be fascinated with Mae and her friends and the dynamics of village life.

As much as I enjoyed Air, it's far from flawless. A few of Ryman's plot elements stretch our suspension of disbelief uncomfortably far and most of these same elements become heavy handed and unnecessary metaphors. If you're seeking a wow factor you may be disappointed as well. While the idea of Air is rather interesting, the science behind it is hand-wavy SF author magic dust (also known as layman's quantum physics). And, just to pick nits, the line editor for this book needs to find a new day job, really and truly.

Despite these flaws, Air really is a rewarding and enjoyable read. The characters are wonderful, the setting well researched and vividly brought to life, and the themes are timely and thought provoking.

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Ryman's "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)" was nominated for a Best Novelette Hugo this year. It's available online here and it's a great read, especially if you've ever had an interest in Cambodia or the Khmer Rouge.

And, just in case you're curious, my honeymoon pictures are here. There are pictures from our stay in Thailand as well as the time we spent in Cambodia.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

The Sharing Knife

Bujold, Lois McMaster. Legacy (The Sharing Knife #2). New York: Eos, 2007. ISBN: 0-06-113905-x

I love Lois McMaster Bujold and I'll read anything she writes. She has an amazing talent for creating wonderfully interesting characters and putting them in simple but compelling SF or fantasy universes. She also has a talent for dropping these characters smack dab in the middle of trouble and making them figure out how to get out of it.

I'm sad to report that Bujold's most recent work, The Sharing Knife, a duology made up of Beguilement and Legacy, is by far my least favorite. That's not to say these two books are stinkers -- they are written by Lois Bujold, after all. She's created two quite likable main characters and a fairly interesting universe. But Bujold has set a very high bar for herself and this time she failed to reach it. This story lacks her usual pop. Frankly, the main plot fizzles like a wet firecracker.

Dag is a burnt out old patroller. A Lakewalker patroller is a bit like a Dunedain Ranger or a Jedi Knight only Lakewalkers travel in groups and they aren't loved and revered by the little people they devote their lives to protecting, they're loathed and feared. Lakewalkers kill malices and Dag has killed quite a few of them. He's loyal and honorable. He believes in what he's doing and he's good at it. Many many years ago his young wife was killed in a battle with a particularly nasty malice and he never really got over it... until he met Fawn.

Fawn is a young farmer girl, one of those little people. She's bright, inquisitive, open to new ideas, and has a mind like a steel trap. Sound like anyone we know? Miles Vokosigan, perhaps? Miles' big hurdles are his small stature and his deformities. Fawn's big hurdles are her age, her gender, and her farmer naivety. No one takes a little farmer girl seriously.

Dag and Fawn meet and fall in love over an accident with a magical knife. There's some mystery surrounding the knife and some action and mortal peril involving malices. But the major plot is focused on Dag and Fawn trying to win acceptance for each other with their families and societies. There's really not a whole lot of tension here. There's never any doubt that Dag and Fawn's love can survive their families' disapproval and that they will both choose new lifestyles rather than walk away from one another. The subplots are far more interesting and compelling, but they're underdeveloped. The mystery surrounding the knife has a lot of potential and deserved a big exciting outcome. Resolving this mystery should have brought new knowledge about sharing knives to the Lakewalkers. Instead this great little story potential was tossed aside with an unexciting and unsatisfying explanation.

According to her website, Lois Bujold is working on a second duology to follow this one. She left some very interesting tidbits about this world laying around in the first two books. If she picks those up and expands on them in the next two books and focuses on the mystery and the action rather than the mushy romance, she's gonna produce a really good story.