The Lies of Locke Lamora read-along: week 5

Final set of Locke Lamora questions, these ones supplied by Lynn’s book blog.

I’m writing this in my hotel room at Eastercon. The read-along exercise has been great and I want to thank everyone who organised it. Sorry I haven’t commented on other people’s answers–I’ve been quite busy and have had trouble reading the book on schedule. I am a bad person.

Anyway, my answers:

1.       The Thorn of Camorr is renowned – he can beat anyone in a fight and he steals from the rich to give to the poor.  Except of course that clearly most of the myths surrounding him are based on fantasy and not fact.  Now that the book is finished how do you feel the man himself compares to his legend.  Did you feel that he changed as the story progressed and, if so, how did this make you feel about him by the time the conclusion was reached?

Well, the Thorn was never a legend that Locke tried to live up to; he was a persona that Locke found it useful to promote. It’s a nice bit of symmetry that the other major players have similar personae in the Grey King, and the Spider. It’s a duel of masks where everyone’s trying to out-deceive one another.

Does Locke change as the story progresses? Yes, and mostly through the tragedies he suffers. When Calo, Galdo and Bug are killed, Locke becomes focused on revenge with a single-mindedness that he never brought to bear on his pursuit of wealth. The book ends just after he achieves that revenge, but I can’t imagine he’ll go back to his previous good-humoured personality entirely.

I think the events also forced him to become more moral. In the early Locke-as-child scenes we know he caused someone’s death, as a side-effect of a poorly-thought-out scheme. Throughout the adult-Locke parts of the book, but especially in the final act, he is very careful to avoid endangering innocents even when he steals their money. He goes back to rescue the waiter whose costume he stole, risking the success of his plan; and then he risks his life to go back and save the nobles from the Wraithstone bombs. At the end that’s the contrast between him and the Grey King.

2.       Scott Lynch certainly likes to give his leading ladies some entertaining and strong roles to play.  We have the Berangia sisters – and I definitely wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of them or their blades plus Dona Vorchenza who is the Spider and played a very cool character – even play acting to catch the Thorn.  How did you feel about the treatment the sisters and Dona received at the hands of Jean and Locke – were you surprised, did it seem out of character at all or justified?

In the early part of the book I was actually bothered by the apparent lack of female characters. The five Gentlemen Bastards were all, well, gentlemen; the only Lady Bastard (if that’s the correct term) was a prominent absence whose only trait appeared to be being Locke’s idealised love interest. The Berangia sisters initially look like a background detail (a well-placed one, because they stuck in my memory without looking like they would obviously be important later); Nazca was, again, defined primarily be being a potential partner for Locke; and Dona Salvara was just there to be married to Don Salvara. It was only when we got to the last 1/3 or so of the book that we met Dona Vorchenza, and the Berangia Sisters and Dona Salvara came into their own as characters. So I’m happier with the book by the end than I thought I would be, but it would still have been nice to have a major female character from the start.

As for the treatment the Berangia sisters got from Jean, I thought that was a great fight scene that didn’t make a fuss of the genders of the participants, which was just right. It was clearly a life-or-death, him-or-them fight scene, and it’s not out of character for Jean to want to win that fight rather than die!

3.       Towards the end we saw a little more of the magic and the history of the Bondsmagi.  The magic, particularly with the use of true names, reminds me a little of old fashioned witchcraft or even voodoo.  But, more than that I was fascinated after reading the interlude headed ‘The Throne in Ashes’ about the Elderglass and the Elders and why their structures were able to survive even against the full might of the Bondsmagi – do you have any theories about this do you think it’s based on one of our ancient civilisations or maybe similar to a myth??

I don’t think the book has given enough information to form a sensible theory. We know magic (or at least alchemy, which I’m treating as a branch of magic) is used kind of like technology in this world, and the Elderglass is ‘sufficiently advanced technology’ in the sense of Clarke’s law. I think it’s nice that even though the present-day human setting of the story is clearly based on real-world Venice, the Elder civilisation isn’t ripped off from a real-world culture or myth. Why should they resemble anything from the real world? They’re aliens. And their ruins don’t have elaborate curses or traps or messages left to future generations: their builders didn’t care enough about humans to leave messages. They’re just big and dumb and fireproof.

4.       We have previously discussed Scott Lynch’s use of description and whether it’s too much or just spot on.  Having got into the last quarter of the book where the level of tension was seriously cranked up – did you still find, the breaks for interludes and the descriptions useful or, under the circumstances did it feel more like a distraction?

The description was just right. Some of the later interludes (after the main child-Locke story had been concluded) felt a bit unnecessary, as if they were just there for the sake of having an interlude at the end of each chapter whether there needed to be one or not.

5.       Now that the book has finished how did you feel about the conclusion and the eventual reveal about the Grey King and more to the point the motivations he declared for such revenge – does it seem credible, were you expecting much worse or something completely different altogether?

It’s credible. That kind of obsessive, long-planned campaign of revenge is an extreme thing to do, but not unbelievably so.

6.       Were you surprised that Locke, being given two possible choices (one of which could possibly mean he would miss his chance for revenge on the Grey King) chose to go back to the Tower  – especially given that (1) he would have difficulty in getting into the building (2) he would have difficulty in convincing them about the situation and (3) he would have difficulty in remaining free afterwards? Did anyone else nearly pee their pants when Locke and the rest were carrying the sculptures up to the roof garden?

No, because what kind of an ending would it have been if he hadn’t? He kills the Grey King and then in the background there’s a white explosion from the top of the tower as all the dukes get Gentled. When the sculptures are first mentioned during Locke’s first visit to the tower, the description practically shouts “these will be important later!” so from that point I was expecting them to be bombs or something similar, and for Locke to have to get rid of them.

I actually found the scene where the sculptures were disposed of to be lacking in the tension I’d expected. Locke spends some time convincing them, and then they see the problem, what will they do? and then someone points out the solution right away. Oh–Wraithstone can be negated by putting it in water, and we happen to have some water within reach. I don’t remember that cistern in the roof garden being set up previously, so it felt like a solution that came out of nowhere. Perhaps it could have been more exciting if I’d had a sense of coming closer to disaster–numbers ticking down on the bomb, or some fantasy equivalent.

7.       Finally, the other question I would chuck in here is that, following the end of the book I was intrigued to check out some of the reviews of LOLL and noticed that the negative reviews mentioned the use of profanity.  How did you feel about this – was it excessive? Just enough? Not enough?

Excessive? Fuck off. It’s used heavily right from the start, so someone knows what they’re getting in to from a casual look at the book. It’s used very well, and used only where you’d expect it to be used.

8.       Okay one further, and probably most important but very quick question – having finished, will you pick up the sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies?

I don’t know. Lies was good but I have a whole lot of other books on my to-read pile and I want to read widely, so I’ll probably give it a miss for now.

Eastercon

Tomorrow I’m heading off to Eastercon! I’ve always had a great time at Eastercons in the past so I’m looking forward to it greatly.

This year I’m going to be on my first ever convention panel, on ‘Can videogames tell a good story?’. I am somewhat nervous. If you can’t make it, my argument is basically going to be ‘Yes’. (Though I have been jotting down some ideas for things I could say besides that.)

The Lies of Locke Lamora read-along: week 4

Here are my answers to this week’s discussion questions on The Lies of Locke Lamora. Questions this week provided by @ohthatashley at SF Signal.

1.      In the chapter “A Curious Tale for Countess Amberglass” we learn of the tradition of the night tea in Camorr. I found that not so much fantastical as realistic – how about you?

I don’t think something has to be either fantastic or realistic. It’s not fantastic in the sense that it doesn’t rely on anything supernatural; it is fantastic in that it’s part of an invented culture rather than part of a real one; but it’s also realistic, in the sense that it’s a very believable part of the invented culture. With things like this, realism and good fantasy go hand in hand.

2.      When Jean meets with what will become the Wicked Sisters for the first time, the meeting is described very much like how people feel when they find their true work or home. Agree? Disagree? Some of both?

Agree. And it’s cute, but it’s also kind of disappointing how predictably some of the flashbacks set up the present-day situation.

3.      Salt devils. Bug. Jean. The description is intense. Do you find that description a help in visualizing the scene? Do you find yourself wishing the description was occasionally – well – a little less descriptive?

Not at all. I thought there was just the right level of description in this scene.  I had a clear sense of place but I never felt the action was slowing down in order for elaborate descriptions to be fitted in.

4.      This section has so much action in it, it’s hard to find a place to pause. But…but.. oh, Locke. Oh, Jean. On their return to the House of Perelandro, their world is turned upside down. Did you see it coming?

No. I wish I had! In last week’s answers I naively said that Locke’s ordeal of being left to drown in a barrel of horse urine could be the book’s lowest point. It looks like I spoke too soon! In hindsight, the urine barrel ordeal wouldn’t be an effective lowest point because it doesn’t change enough: it’s the sort of thing which Locke could survive and not be changed by. The deaths of Locke’s friends and the destruction of the group’s hideout have to change Locke, and he changes visibly. And hot on its heels is the change in the city’s overall status quo, which is an additional shock.

I also love the way that the Don Salvara game is finally tied into the Grey King plot, in a way that makes it much more urgent. Locke’s got to complete the Don Salvara game, as before, but this time with fewer resources and more urgency, as it’s his only source of money.

5.      Tavrin Callas’s service to the House of Aza Guilla is recalled at an opportune moment, and may have something to do with saving a life or three. Do you believe Chains knew what he set in motion? Why or why not?

I don’t think Chains foresaw things in that much detail. I think he was doing what he said he was doing: giving the Bastards skills that might come in useful in many different future scenarios.

6.      As Locke and Jean prepare for Capa Raza, Dona Vorchenza’s remark that the Thorn of Camorr has never been violent – only greedy and resorting to trickery – comes to mind again. Will this pattern continue?

I think so, and I think it’ll be to Locke’s eventual advantage. Notice how he takes time to help the waiter he took advantage of escape, rather than leave him to Merragio’s justice. I suspect his record of non-violence will win him someone’s trust or friendship at some point in the future.

7.      Does Locke Lamora or the Thorn of Camorr enter Meraggio’s Countinghouse that day? Is there a difference?

It was Locke, not the Thorn. The Thorn of Camorr is a dashing swordsman who can walk through walls, who robs from the rich and gives to the poor, isn’t he? He’s a persona that Locke can use to his advantage, but he doesn’t use this persona at any point during the (ridiculously entertaining) Meraggio’s sequence. Unless you’re going to argue that the recent events have meant the death of Locke Lamora and the character is now the Thorn–but that’s not how the book presents it. It looks like Locke still thinks of himself as Locke.

Multiplayer vs immersion, and Journey

The other day I played a game that did something I wasn’t sure was possible: let me interact with other players without breaking my immersion with the game’s story.

That game is Journey by thatgamecompany, downloadable on the PS3. It places your avatar in a beautiful, wordless landscape and challenges them to reach a mountain they can see in the distance. Soon you begin running into other avatars like your own–these are other players playing the game.

I’ve previously found that any interaction with other players breaks story immersion for me. This isn’t necessarily bad, of course–there are ways to appreciate a game other than being fully immersed in its story–but story immersion is one of the things that I look for as a gamer, and I’ve never been able to get it from multiplayer games. If a game has a story at all, it feels entirely separate from the actions of the other players: I’m interacting with them as other players playing the game, rather than as people who inhabit the world, and that means I’m conscious that it is a game, so I can’t lose myself in the same way that I can in a single-player game.

Before now, the multiplayer game that’s come closest to immersing me in its story is Left 4 Dead. The other players’ avatars still don’t move in natural ways, and my communication with them over voice chat is obviously still out of character, but the game goes to lengths to preserve its ‘in-character’ story despite that. The game characters have automatic in-character dialogue in addition to what the players say, and all the in-game actions make sense from a thematic and in-story point of view.

Journey succeeds on a whole extra level, though, and it does this by removing all out-of-character means of communication, and drastically limiting the selection of actions a player can take. I can run around, fly in a limited way, and ‘sing’, which both alerts the other player to where I am and also activates certain game objects. This ‘singing’ helps players to stay together (which is useful but not essential) and provides as much communication as is really needed to overcome the game’s fairly simple puzzles.

The result is that I didn’t experience any in-character/out-of-character disjoint while playing Journey. The other character, my little avatar’s travelling companion, was all I needed to think about; I wasn’t pulled out of the story by being reminded of the player holding that character’s controller.

Perhaps this is an antisocial way to enjoy a multiplayer experience! But I did enjoy it, more than I do most multiplayer games, and also more than I would have if the travelling companion had been an AI character. Even if it had been a very sophisticated AI, there’s something about knowing you’re travelling with another player that makes the game more special.

Journey has proven for me that multiplayer games need not break story immersion. This limited approach to multiplayer interaction is far from the only good way of doing multiplayer, but it’s a way I hope more games will explore.

Mass Effect 3: The Ending

So, the ending of Mass Effect 3, eh? It certainly…ended Mass Effect 3.

Massive ending spoilers below

A lot of fans are unhappy with the endings, and they’re putting pressure on Bioware to change them. There’s been some online commentary talking about this in rather black-and-white terms trying to paint one party or the other as victim, which I think is unreasonable.

Do fans have a right to demand a new ending? Does Bioware have a duty to change it for them? No, of course not. But expressing dissatisfaction doesn’t make you an entitled whiner, either, and there’s been a lot of valid criticism even if it’s not always expressed in the most constructive possible way.

And I don’t think it’s helpful to cast this as a choice between the ending Bioware originally intended, and a fan-demanded ending that abandons the artistic integrity of the work. The fact is, assuming that Bioware didn’t intend a lot of players to have a negative emotional reaction to the ending, they didn’t write the ending they intended to write. Even if it is brilliant when you interpret it the right way (and I’m not sure it is), that doesn’t mean that players’ initial gut feelings aren’t important. The artistic integrity of the work may not have been fully realised in the first place, because the players didn’t ‘get’ the ending in a way that was emotionally or intellectually satisfying. A changed ending might well be more artistically satisfying, and in that sense a better expression of what Bioware really intended.

I don’t think the main fan demand is for a happy ending, either. (At least, that’s not what I’d want.) It’s for an emotionally satisfying one. That could well involve Shapard and all his/her allies dying, or even the human race being wiped out, if it’s presented in the right way.

My ending

I personally didn’t find the ending satisfying at the time, and the more I think about it, the less satisfying it gets. I can feel the fans’ frustration, as I have loved, loved, loved the Mass Effect series up to that point. My specific thoughts are below:

After a mostly Renegade playthrough, I was presented with two options: Control and Destroy.  (I’m aware there’s a third option which appears if you achieve more War Assets; I deliberately didn’t fill the bar all the way up as I wanted to save the best ending for my second playthrough.)

I chose Destroy, and later realised I’d done so based on misunderstanding the choice presented: I had thought that the ‘this will destroy all the mass relays’ bit applied only to the Control choice. After browbeating the Geth and Quarians to live together in peace, and helping Joker hook up with EDI, even my Renegade character didn’t like the idea of wiping out all synthetic life, but I thought it was worth it to protect the relay network that made galactic civilisation possible.

But it turns out that the relay network gets destroyed whatever you do. Actually I’m only sure of that because I’ve read about the endings online: the ending cutscene wasn’t completely clear. It wasn’t clear on most other things, either. Big red fireballs engulfed London: so, was London destroyed, or was that just individual Reapers exploding? Or was Earth destroyed? Did the wiping out all synthetics thing work? Did Shepard survive? I can guess, but it’s not clear.

Another question: why is the Normandy flying through mass relay-space at the time the explosions happen? Why is Liara on board, when a few minutes ago she was part of my squad and running for the conduit with me?

It’s possible for Joker to have picked up my surviving squadmades and made it to the mass relay while Shepard was on the citadel, but there’s no reason given why he should have. So if it does make sense it’s not clear why, in which case see point 1.

It’s also not clear what the cause-and-effect is between the collection of War Assets and what happened in the ending. In Mass Effect 2, this was handled very well: if I fail to buy one of my ship upgrades, or failed to do one of my squadmates’ loyalty missions, that makes the ship or the squadmate perform poorly in a visible way in the endgame. In Mass Effect 3, the number of War Assets I’ve obtained effects the success or failure of whatever choice I make, but it’s not clear how or why this happens. In fact, I only know there are different levels of success because I’ve read up on it on the internet. All three endings are enforced by arbitrary last-minute space magic, and there’s no reason why my having got the krogans or whoever on my side should affect the wave of red explosions that disables the Reapers.

Finally, even where it did make sense, I didn’t think the ending was satisfying. All three ending options change the galaxy so radically that it would overshadow the effects of all the choices I’ve made up to this point. The end of the mass relays means the end of galactic civilisation in its current form, so what does it matter whether the Salarians and Krogans are on good or bad terms with one another? In any case I don’t get to see the effects of the choices I’ve made because the game ends so abruptly.

The choices come out of nowhere and rely on space magic to enforce them. They’re not integrated with the plot: you could replace them with pretty much anything else and the plot would make sense equally well. They’re also a sudden swerve into fantasy for a series that’s always been on the hard-sf end of space opera.

It’s possible that it does all make sense when looked at in the right way, and I’m just not understanding it. I think I’m a reasonably clever guy, though, and I’ve had no trouble understanding it up until this point, so maybe it’s a case of the writers misjudging how easy they made it to understand.

Theories

There’s a theory that the events of the ending didn’t literally happen, but represented Shapard’s hallucinations as s/he fought against Reaper indoctrination. I’m inclined to believe this, since it does make the ending make more sense. But, if that’s what Bioware intended, that still doesn’t make the ending brilliant, because 1) it’s not clear that this is what happened, and 2) it’s still not a satisfying ending because even if Shepard breaks free of Reaper control, that doesn’t win the war. We’re left with Shepard lying wounded or dead on Earth and the Reapers still closing in.

On the whole, I thought Mass Effect 3 was brilliant. I think Mass Effect 2 was still just better, but 3 is well up there in its league. And I don’t think that the ending was a ‘slap in the face’ or any other melodramatic nonsense, but I do welcome the noises Bioware are making towards changing it.

Works of art — including video games — aren’t handed down complete from the muses to be presented to the public in their one perfect form. They can be changed and improved, and sometimes they’re released in a state that’s not as perfect as it could be. I believe this is what’s happened here, and if I were a Bioware writer I’d be welcoming the chance to change my work based on the audience’s reaction and enhance its artistic integrity.

The Lies of Locke Lamora read-along: week 3

My answers to this week’s Locke Lamora questions, this time from My Awful Reviews:

1. This section is where we finally get to sneak a peek at the magic in The Gentleman Bastards books. From what we read, what are your initial impressions of the magic Lynch is using? Is there any way that Locke and Company would be able to get around the Bondsmage’s powers?

I’d rather see them getting around the Bondsmage than getting around the Bondsmage’s powers. I like the magic portrayed here: rare, very powerful, but also clearly defined, and with a good in-universe reason why it’s as rare as it is. Because it’s powerful and clearly defined, getting around it is like a logic puzzle: you find loopholes in the magic’s rules, rather than defeat the magic head-on. (I’m reminded of Asimov’s robot stories here.) In fact, that’s what Barsavi does: he learns ‘the Grey King’ can’t be killed by blades, but nothing stops him from drowning.

Could Locke defeat the Bondsmage in a similar way? Possibly. But then again, Barsavi only succeeded at this because the Bondsmage let him, and anyway, that’s not Locke’s style. His heroic skill is manipulating people rather than figuring out impersonal problems. I want to see him trick the Bondsmage, or trick the Grey King.

2. Not a question, but an area for rampant speculation: If you want to take a stab at who you think the Grey King might be, feel free to do it here.

I have a hard time believing he’s any character we’ve met in a different guise. It could be he’s the Spider, the Duke’s chief of secret police. His being able to afford a Bondsmage narrows down the options substantially.

2.5 (since 2 wasn’t really a question) Anyone see the Nazca thing coming? Anyone? Do you think there are more crazy turns like this in store for the book? Would you like to speculate about them here? (yes, yes you would)

I didn’t see the Nazca thing coming at all, and it was a great piece of misdirection to set up the Nazca/Locke arranged marriage plot before brutally cutting it short like that. Any other crazy turns…well, the nature of these turns means they’re hard to predict, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Don Salvara game and the Grey King business turned out to be related in ways we don’t yet know about. The book might end up seeming disjointed otherwise: my feeling right now is that it has a sudden change of plot half way through (the Don Salvara game is dropped and the Grey King takes centre stage), which is a structural weakness.

3. When Locke says “Nice bird, arsehole,” I lose it. EVERY TIME. And not just because I have the UK version of the book and the word arsehole is funnier than asshole. Have there been any other places in the books so far where you found yourself laughing out loud, or giggling like a crazy person on the subway?

This is a great piece of setup–time pauses in that moment of confrontation and we have a flashback explaining why you have to be polite to Bondsmagi, so Locke’s line both subverts the preceding flashback and releases the tension that had built up due to the pause.

What else? I find a lot of the Bastards’ banter enjoyable, especially when it’s semi-in-character, such as when Lukas Ferwright lamented that he was entirely fictional. Bug being rolled around in a barrel was funny. There haven’t been that many laugh-out-loud moment for me, but then I tend not to laugh out loud at books.

4. By the end of this reading section, have your opinions changed about how clever the Bastards are? Do you still feel like they’re “cleverer than all the rest?” Or have they been decidedly outplayed by the Grey King and his Bondsmage?

Unless they have some plan they’re keeping secret from the reader, they’ve been outplayed. It didn’t come as a surprise that the Grey King’s plan involved Locke being killed in that encounter–if he’s intended to survive, why not go himself? I’m kind of surprised that Locke didn’t think about that. Then again, he was out of options: it was either go along with the plan, or flee Camorr, perhaps with the Bondsmage on their heels.

If he survives now (and of course he will, because the book’s named after him) it’ll be through dumb luck. Either the Bondsmage will save him for his own mysterious purposes, or the other Gentlemen Bastards will recover the barrel and rescue him before he quite drowns. In the latter case, he’ll have survived due to Barsavi’s carelessness in not making really totally sure his enemy is dead. Either way it’s due to no skill of Locke’s.

But that’s appropriate at this point in the story. This may be the lowest point. Act II needs to end with our heroes apparently defeated, so we can enjoy their victory in Act III.

5. I imagine that you’ve probably read ahead, since this was a huge cliffhanger of an ending for the “present” storyline, but I’ll ask this anyway: Where do you see the story going from here, now that the Grey King is thought to be dead?

I haven’t read ahead, but I’d guess that the Grey King now moves behind the scenes to seize control. Alternatively, he could pull off a resurrection trick to strike even more fear into the underworld, and use that to take control.

If he does the latter, and moves openly, then Locke now has a means of getting at him. If he impersonated the Grey King once, he can do it again. So Locke sows confusion: there are two Grey Kings, and no one is sure which is real. Locke defeats the Grey King through deception.

And then, finally, they wrap up the Salvara game.

6. What do you think of the characters Scott Lynch has given us so far? Are they believable? Real? Fleshed out? If not, what are they lacking?

The characters are fine, and they’re fleshed out as much as they need to be. It sometimes feels a little too straightforward–they’re thieves who worship the thieves’s god and spent their youth training in thief school, which sounds like an uninspired D&D character backstory–but Lynch pulls it off by giving them individual traits on top of this.

7. Now that you’ve seen how clever Chains is about his “apprenticeships,” why do you think he’s doing all of this? Does he have an endgame in sight? Is there a goal he wants them to achieve, or is it something more emotional like revenge?

This is still the big mystery to me. Chains is spending a lot of effort into his legacy, ensuring that the Gentlemen Bastards continue after his death, when he could be spending his last years enjoying the fruits of his ill-gotten gains. He is, after all, sitting on an enormous pile of money. My best guess now is that he’s doing it out of a sense of duty, or because he finds the idea of his work living on after him more satisfying than cashing in his luxuries–but it’s possible he has a more specific goal in mind.

 

The Lies of Locke Lamora read-along: week 2

Here are my responses to this week’s questions on The Lies of Locke Lamora, this time supplied by Dark Cargo.

1) Do you think Locke can pull off his scheme of playing a Midnighter who is working with Don Salvara to capture the Thorn of Camorr? I mean, he is now playing two roles in this game – and thank goodness for that costume room the Gentlemen Bastards have!

Of course he can! The interest in the Don Salvara game has always been in how Locke can pull it off, not whether he can. If he fails it’ll be because of some problem external to that scheme, e.g. the Grey King.

It was a nice bit of misdirection to introduce the Midnighters from Don Salvara’s point of view, before revealing that the Midnighters were Locke and Jean. I was actually a little disappointed that they weren’t who they claimed to be. Actual Midnighters on Locke’s trail would have introduced real tension about whether Locke could succeed.

My biggest problem with the book so far is that, in the present timeline, everything seems to be going Locke’s way. It’s been interesting for a while to see how Locke’s plan unfolds (it feels like an episode of Hustle), but that necessarily puts Locke at arm’s length from the reader (because if we can read his mind then his plan isn’t a mystery), and I don’t think it’s enough to sustain a book of this length. The Don Salvara game is Locke’s ordinary world, the starting point from which the real story will take off, and it’s about time it did.

2) Are you digging the detail the author has put into the alcoholic drinks in this story?

I hadn’t really noticed, to be honest. The detail is there because the alcoholic drinks play a role in the plot, but I haven’t noticed them being given more detail than other plot-relevant elements of the setting.

3) Who is this mysterious lady Gentlemen Bastard Sabetha and what does she mean to Locke?

Now that’s the big question. And I think it’s effective that Sabetha is in the book as an absence, with just the right level of intriguing mentions. She’s right there in the first scene, mentioned by Chains along with Calo and Galdo; then we meet Calo and Galdo pretty quickly so Sabetha is left as an intriguing void. Now we know that she returned in between the child-Locke and adult-Locke timelines, but there are only hints about what happened.

4) Are you as creeped out over the use of Wraithstone to create Gentled animals as I am?

Nope. I think it’s a great part of the setting. I was a little surprised at how easy it turns out to be to get hold of Wraithstone and to affect animals or people with it, though. I’m thinking of other possible uses. A fully Gentled person would be obvious, but could you slip very small quantities of it into someone’s food to make them docile…?

5) I got a kick out of child Locke’s first meeting with Capa Barsavi and his daughter Nazca, which was shortly followed up in the story by Barsavi granting adult Locke permission to court his daughter! Where do you think that will lead? Can you see these two together?

It was a nice bit of structure to put Locke’s first meeting with the Capa and Nazca so close to his latest one.

It’ll lead to something more than what Locke intends, to play along for a few days and then brush it off–because otherwise what would be the point? But whether he and Nazca could be together is another matter. I can see it happening if Locke can get over this Sabetha person, and especially if Nazca becomes privy to Locke’s real schemes and they think a partnership would be in their mutual interest.

6) Capa Barsavi is freaked out over rumors of The Gray King and, in fact, us readers are privy to a gruesome torture scene. The Gray King is knocking garristas off left and right. What do you think that means?

It means that finally there’s something that could put Locke in danger!

I like the way the Grey King is similar to the Thorn of Camorr, Locke’s imaginary folk-hero persona. They both work by having a myth built up around them, and I’m guessing the Grey King will turn out to not match his myth in the same way that Locke isn’t the Thorn.

(Unless–and this is some out-there speculation–unless Locke is the Grey King, and the whole thing’s part of another con?)

7) In the Interlude: The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse, we learn that Father Chains owes an alchemist a favor, and that favor is a fresh corpse. He sets the boys to figuring out how to provide one, and they can’t ‘create’ the corpse themselves. How did you like Locke’s solution to this conundrum?

I was surprised at its simplicity! In fact, I get the impression that Locke didn’t find it challenging enough, hence his more elaborate and entertaining scheme for getting his money back using the corpse as a prop.

It’s this urge to make plans more elaborate than they need to be that might turn out to be Locke’s undoing. We’re told he’s gotten more sensible after the recklessness of his youth, but perhaps he could still overreach himself.

The Lies of Locke Lamora read-along: week 1

So, here’s the first batch of discussion questions for the Lies of Locke Lamora read-along, with my responses:

1. If this is your first time reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, what do you think of it so far?  If this is a re-read for you, how does the book stand up to rereading?

I’m loving it! There are some books where you feel like you’re putting a lot of effort in to get enjoyment out, but with Locke Lamora it’s effortless. Without being a comedy, it’s fun, in the prose style and in particular in the dialogue.

2. At last count, I found three time lines:  Locke as as a 20-something adult, Locke meeting Father Chains for the first time, and Locke as a younger child in Shades Hill. How are you doing with the Flashback within a flashback style of introducing characters and the world?

Well, it depends how you count. I’d say there are two really important timelines: Locke as a child and Locke as an adult. The distinction between these is formally visible in the book’s structure, with the main chapters being adult Locke and the prologue and interludes being child Locke. The child Locke sections further jump around between the business with Chains (first between Chains and the Thiefmaker, and then Locke meeting Chains) and Locke’s earlier childhood.

The Locke-as-adult sections jump around in time a little as well: they start in medias res with Locke being throttled in an alley, and then jump back to show us how we got there. The sections with Bug don’t always quite align temporally with those with Locke, either.

So we’ve got jumping around in both timelines, especially in the child-Locke one. The difference, for me, though, is that the early-childhood flashbacks seem to have caught up with the Locke-and-Chains timeline: they’ve tracked Locke from early childhood to events just a couple of days before he met Chains. Whereas we don’t yet know exactly how the Locke-and-Chains timeline relates to the adult-Locke timeline: there’s a big gap that the book hasn’t (yet?) explored. We can guess at a lot of what happened during this time, but there are mysteries as well. (What becomes of Chains, for example–is he still around?)

3. Speaking of the world, what do you think of Camorr and Lynch’s world building?

It’s subtle, which I like. I get the impression that world-building isn’t the point of Lynch’s book: it’s about characters, and character-scale drama. When the political structure of the world beyond Camorr becomes relevant (as it does in Locke’s con), the book tells me exactly what I need to know at the point I need to know it. Of Camorr itself, I think there are just the right number of fantastic touches. There’s the Elderglass, and the few uses of magic (gentled animals and alchemical botany), but for the most part Camorr feels like an easily accessible version of Venice with a dash of Dickensian London. The fantastic touches aren’t once that need to have a big effect on the society or on the plot: Elderglass is big dumb architecture that people just build around, and the magic is of the sort that provides flavourful toys for the setting’s aristocracy but doesn’t have major knock-on effects for society. There’s a lot of fun to be had in speculative fiction with exploring how society would be changed by a particular magic or technology, and I’m not getting that from Locke Lamora–but world-building isn’t the point of the book.

4. Father Chains and the death offering. . .  quite the code of honor for thieves, isn’t it? What kind of person do you think Chains is going to mold Locke into?

Well, into the person we see in the adult-Locke timeline, presumably. So far that looks like a cunning con man with the ability to plan far ahead and play the long game; and it’s that forward-planning ability that Chains said he would have to teach Locke. The impression I get from the child-Locke segments is that Chains wants to mould Locke into someone like himself, a cunning thief and con-man, and the implication is that Chains had a mentor who did the same for him, and Locke will eventually take on apprentices of his own.

It’s why Chains wants to do this that I find more puzzling, so I hope I’ll find the answer to that later into the book. The fact that Locke was trained from childhood to be a thief and con-man, and that the Gentlemen Bastards was a pre-existing group rather than something that he formed, is the most surprising thing for me based on my preconceptions from reading the back-cover blurb. Possibly Locke’s character loses something from that: he’s been groomed into the man he is by Chains, rather than forging a path for himself.

5. It’s been a while since I read this, and I’d forgotten how much of the beginning of the book is pure set up, for the characters, the plot, and the world. Generally speaking, do you prefer  set up and world building done this way, or do you prefer to be thrown into the deep end with what’s happening?

I almost always prefer to be thrown into the deep end. Locke Lamora does its setup a lot better than most books: Locke’s childhood is an interesting story, and doesn’t read too much like setup for the main plot. Both the main timeline and the childhood timeline begin with interesting hooks: Locke being sold under threat of death, and Locke being fake-strangled in an alley as part of a con. They both keep the interest going. But even so, I’m in two minds about whether the prologue was necessary. Perhaps Locke would be a more interesting character if I didn’t know the details of his childhood. I don’t know–I’ll have to see how things turn out.

6. If you’ve already started attempting to pick the pockets of your family members (or even thought about it!) raise your hand.

Ah, no. For me, Locke isn’t a pickpocket (or rather, that’s not what’s interesting about him) – he’s a con-main. So rather than making me want to pick pockets, it makes me want to spin an elaborate lie that will lead to my family and friends giving me all their money with a smile. Not that I would try to do something like that of course.

The Lies of Locke Lamora read-along BEGINS

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be taking part in an online read-along of The Lies of Locke Lamora. It’s hosted by The Little Red Reviewer, Dark Cargo, SF Signal and My Awful Reviews. The plan is that we post our thoughts on a section of the book each Saturday, and there can be discussion in the comments.

I was given The Lies of Locke Lamora for Christmas–it was part of a set of Gollancz 50th Anniversary editions in plain bright yellow covers–so this read-along is the kick up the backside I needed to get it off my to-read pile and into my brain. I normally read science fiction rather than fantasy but I’ve heard some good things about Locke Lamora, and I’m drawn to con man characters.

I’ve started reading Locke Lamora, and…well, I may have already finished the section I’m meant to read for this weekend. So far it’s very easy to read and great fun. More detailed thoughts to follow this Saturday.

Writing with game mechanics

I work as a writer in the computer games industry (actually I’m a combination of writer, designer and programmer, but it’s writing that’s relevant here), and I write prose fiction in my spare time. I’ve been thinking lately about the intersection of games writing and more traditional non-interactive storytelling, and I’ve realised that there are some skills (or at least habits) that I’ve picked up from games writing that I’ve been able to transfer to other media.

Game mechanics, briefly, are the set of rules that a game uses to determine what happens, and the set of things it lets the player do to interact with the game. Almost all games try to depict the real world with a greater or lesser degree of realism, even if that realism is just a thematic dressing for abstract game mechanics (e.g. Nintendo doesn’t make games about an abstract shape that moves up the screen then down again when you press a button: they make games about a plumber called Mario who jumps).

On the other hand, even the most detailed and realistic games don’t simulate the world perfectly. (Even if we had the technical capability to realistically simulate every detail of the universe, doing so wouldn’t necessarily make for a good game.) So a game has to take its scenario and decide which parts of the scenario it wants to depict in detail, and which parts it wants to abstract away.

In choosing which parts of the world to make into detailed game mechanics, and which parts to ignore, the game is making a statement about what kind of game it is. A first-person shooter will likely have detailed mechanics about shooting at enemies, reloading, modelling the different effects of different weapons, and so forth. (Note that I said detailed, not realistic–realism isn’t necessarily an aim, nor should it be.) The player character’s need to eat, sleep and urinate are likely to be ignored, as are your enemies’ and squad members’ interpersonal relationships. In the Sims games, on the other hand, the characters’ bodily functions and feelings towards one another are modeled in some detail, but fighting is barely present. Both games are set in the real world but they model different aspects of it.

What does this have to do with novels?

I’ve found that a good way to keep my story focused is to ask myself, What are the game mechanics of this story? What are the sorts of obstacles that get placed in front of the protagonist, and what set of skills does he or she have to overcome these obstacles? This is similar to the question, What is the story about?, but that question normally has a larger-scale answer: it’s about space pirates, or telepaths, or underground-dwelling goblins. Thinking in terms of game mechanics means thinking on a smaller, more detailed scale: what are the specific moment-to-moment interactions the characters tend to have with their world.

For example, in my current novel, the main character is good at reading people’s emotions and manipulating them by saying the right thing. Once I’d decided that, the question of how he could get out of the situations the plot put him in became much clearer: he would start by thinking of how he could talk his way out, and only in unusual circumstances would he find some other way. It also suggested the kinds of situations he could find himself in: not ones engineered for him to get out of easily, but ones he could use his skills on (whether to succeed or fail) in an interesting way. If I hadn’t thought about game mechanics in this way, I think I would have ended up with an unfocused plot and a central character without a specific interesting skill.

Questions to ask yourself about any story:

• If this were a game, what abilities would the player have to interact with the game-world?
• If this were a game, what sort of obstacles would the game put in the player’s path?

Going too far with this thinking could easily lead to single-minded or contrived stories, but I believe that thinking sensibly about game mechanics can help give a story a memorable focus.