Red Seas Under Red Skies

This is a great follow-up story to a fantastic first book! I really care for these characters and their allies. That's obviously important in a multi-book series, but what keeps me going are the new situations, the new cons, and the twists and turns that follow. It's been pretty obvious in both books that the Gentlemen Bastards are going to pull off all their long-cons successfully, but they're always pulled off with unforeseen results and consequences.

The most fun part of this book is the plot. Taking our flawed, yet beloved heroes and making them unwilling pirates is a twist on the fish out of water (no pun intended) trope that I don't think I've ever encountered. Scott Lynch's realization to make that the focal point of the book is genius; and making them break into the life of being pirates the way only Locke and Jean could, by conning, is a testament to how well Lynch knows his protagonists.

The ONLY gripes I have about this book are fairly moot. First is that it's too obvious when a certain major character is headed to meet their maker. The whole setup is just like, “Well, OK, they're not making it to the end of this chapter”. It's just a bit disappointing because I didn't get that obvious foreshadowing in the first book's dealing with major characters' death; but I digress.

The other fault is more of a pet-peeve. In TV shows, I greatly dislike it when the show opens with a major battle, or a “WTF situation” and then the credits role and you're presented with “24 hours earlier” first act. Ugh, that bugs me. There's no need to do that unless the story leading up to that moment is sub-par and you (the writer) know it.

In this book, the story begins with an impossible situation from close to the end of the book where Jean betrays Locke. The point is thrown in the reader's face that the always-aware Locke sees no hand signals from Jean that he's playing a role, and then BAM, you rewind a few months to the actual beginning of the story; Chapter 1. Pretty intense. The whole time reading the book, that moment is in the back of your mind. You can't wait for it to happen! Then you kinda forget about it as you are too busy being engrossed in this great story. Then, a chapter begins with a familiar situation to the reader and you say, out loud, “Hell ya, this is it!”. Then the moment happens, the situation is played out and, just like in those TV episodes, it turns out to either be a misunderstanding or a double-cross you see coming from the actual story leading up to the moment. In “Red Seas Under Red Skies” case, the explanation is super lame and a total cop-out. It feels like Scott Lynch himself forgot he wrote that Prologue, realized he needed to craft a scene with it, and then explains what happens in the most character-breaking moment in the history of ALL BOOKS EVER! /hyperbole

So, ya, stop doing that crap, writers. It benefits no one. Focus on the story and not an “inside of the jacket paragraph”-type prologue to grab your audience. There are so many other great pay-offs in this book that the in-your-face moment that needed a huge pay-off was pitiful.

So, after that diatribe, get reading this series. It's fantastic!