Reddit reviews The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastards)
We found 49 Reddit comments about The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastards). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Del Rey
I would recommend:
Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind
Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, or his newest series The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive).
If you made it all the way through Sword of Truth series, you probably will enjoy Jordan's Wheel of Time.
Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora is also very enjoyable.
If you are looking for another big one, enjoy the gritty and dark elements from Martin, Stephen Erikson's Malazan series might be up your alley. The first book is a little difficult to get through, but it picks up after that.
My personal favourites are;
Links to the aforementioned books;
For general fantasy I've enjoyed Gentleman Bastard, The Kingkiller Chronicle, and The Broken Empire. I listen to Kingkiller Chronicle fairly often due to the amount of commuting I do where I live.
For more urban/fantasy maybe try Lives of Tao, Iron Druid Chronicles, or anything by Neil Gaiman. The anniversary edition of American Gods was really excellent on audio-book. Not sure if the others have audio editions or not.
I've also really enjoyed stuff by Drew Hayes (a webnovelist). His banner series is SuperPowereds. But I though NPCs was a great take on an old fantasy trope. Neither come in audio formats unfortunately.
Good luck.
Steven Erikson - Malazan Book of the Fallen
Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn
Brandon Sanderson - The Stormlight Archive
Peter Brett - The Demon Cycle
R. Scott Bakker - The Second Apocalypse
Joe Abercrombie - The First Law
Scott Lynch - The Gentleman Bastard
Patrick Rothfuss - The Kingkiller Chronicle
All excellent. Some slightly more excellent than others.
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Solid book
So Monday night the dogs woke me up with a nose to the face during a massive thunderstorm. Having no tornado warnings on my phone and a great appreciation for severe weather, I go to watch the proceedings: lightning doesn't stop flashing before the next bolt goes off, etc, etc. And then a tree lands two inches from my face.
Commence mad dash for the basement. Turns out the university unsubscribed me from severe weather alerts in the past week without telling me. My email and all those printing credits are still active though. Go figure.
So anyways, there is still no power, there is a tree on my house, my neighborhood looks like this and this and this and this, and I'm in Sweden. Very glad that husband was not home for that little escapade or he'd be a gibbering wreck. And I'm still not done compiling survey results.
By strange coincidence though, I was reading (and enjoying) The Lies of Locke Lamora on the plane over, and in downtown Stockholm, I found a little handwritten sign on a bookstore saying that Scott Lynch is going to be doing a signing there in two weeks. I think I may be in Estonia that day though.
...Imgur wouldn't let me make an album. Poo.
And in writing news, I have a hard copy of my MS left with a friend to read while I'm gone, but I haven't had a chance to write as my husband will not leave me alone. I know we've been apart since May, but he keeps following me to the bathroom and generally behaving like a starfish. It's old already.
In all honesty, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are pretty tough to get into, since they are practically the ur-examples of fantasy, written back when a lot of commercial fiction methodology was still being developed.
When i read a book, I worry first and foremost if I'm entertained, if I am, I'll give it my recommendation, regardless of the flaws. These are the ones I think you'd find best for jumping in with.
YA/Middle Grade Books
Fantasy
Discworld by Terry Pratchet (I'd recommend not starting at the beginning.)
Sci-Fi
Urban Fantasy
Thrillers/Suspense
Openings are hard as shit to do in sci-fi/fantasy. You have to basically lecture on the world without it sounding like you're lecturing them on the world: excuse me while I grab my smoke and mirrors. I'm not going to do line edits because it's view only. Instead you get my wall of text that I'm compiling on scifi/fantasy openings as I read more and more piles of it, when I should be reading something like literature (Idk, is that what the cool kids are doing?).
It's view only so my line edits will probably be limited, but I'll start with your opening two sentences.
>The café of 'Morl's Best Cuppa' was odd, green and uncomfortable to look at. It's rough exterior stood out against the trimmed vein of grey that was the rest of the city-block, like a bulb of gum beaten flat under step, ruining an otherwise pristine side-walk
Protag is looking at a building. I'm not as experienced in third person style narratives, but I'll do my best. If I was writing this in first person I'd be extremely leery of writing a description of the building for the begging portion. I do think you have an interesting world set out. There are genuinely funny moments, but it's packaged in a way that makes me want to put it down. I'd say this is due to an incomplete opening. You have characters and setting, but you don't have a problem for these characters to overcome (plot).I'm going to copy paste parts of a post that I did on sci-fi/fantasy openings that I made earlier, with significant modifications/additions (but the core idea is the same). If this is frowned upon, I'll stop. Disclaimer, I'm not saying that you should do any of these things that I suggest. This is merely my own opinions on ways to get over the initial hump that sci/fi fantasy stories face. These are some good resources/books that I've found.
In essence a good opening has three things
This is kind of vague and bullshitty so I'll use some examples.
The openings in fantasty/sci-fi books are notoriously terrible. For instance, Red Rising, an otherwise half decent thriller book has the shittiest opening that I've read in a published work. But that didn't stop him from selling books out the wazoo and getting good blurbs ("Ender, Catniss, and now Darrow"), because he knows how to write a page turner later on (I'd still recommend it even though the opening is questionable, if you enjoy cheap dystopian thrills). But damn, did the opening want to make me throw the book against the wall. It's not that he doesn't do the three things that an opening should do, it's that he switches voices within it and had several narration snaps when it's clearly HIM speaking and not the main character. I'd also say that Patrick Rothfuss' opening is extremely shitty (and he says so himself), as he takes 50 pages before anything substantial happens. Thus he went back and added a prologue so the reader would feel some sort of plot in the story. Prologues are effective in scifi/fantasy for quickly introducing a problem, if your world takes awhile to build. For instance -- Harry Potter also did this to an extent, since it had the scene with his parents dying. Some openings, like the one that I'm about to discuss, have a really solid hook and immediately grab the reader. Am I saying that you should write a prologue? No , I haven't really read enough of your story to figure that out. I'm just offering a few nuggets of advice that I've seen authors use to get over the initial hump of creating the world.
I think a solid example of a good opening in a sci-fi story, that I've read recently, is the story Wool (here's a link, use the look inside function). The hook is one of the better ones I've read, something along the lines of "Holston climbed his stairs to his death." Is it a cheap trick? Yes. Do I really care, and does it add tension to an otherwise monotonous climb up the stairs? You betcha! He explains certain elements of the silo as he gets to the different actions, e.g. "I put my hand on the guardrail, worn down one flake at a time by centuries of use." He doesn't just come out and say "HEY THE SILO IS OLD LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT MY CHILDHOOD IN THE SILO AND THEN GET TO THE PLOT DAMMNIT". In your case we see some characters mostly annoyed, bored, or not really doing much. Sure the setting is engaging, but the characters, in my opinion, aren't. The pro of an exposition opening is that you can fit a lot of information into a relatively small amount of space. The con is that it's hard to present in a way that doesn't create a POV snap, a boring tell instead of show description, and it's hard to create a problem if you're trying to be an omnipotent narrator. Dune does it, but it hasn't set a trend because it's hard as shit to do. Pride and Prejudice does it, but Jane Austen is incredibly good at writing in different tones. I'll stick to my nice comfortable first person narrative right now. I'm not a good mechanical writer, or a good writer at all yet, but I'm working on it. I do worldbuilding half decently (though I'm put to shame by the people on /r/worldbuilding)
Another solid opening is "Mistborn;" (here's a link) a fantastic example of a dialogue driven opening. I'd say that if a dialogue opening is done right, its exponentially more interesting than an exposition opening. The problem is making the characters feel natural. I spent quite some time on my opening hammering out the robotic narration style, but I still had to go back and write a prologue because I didn't introduce the main problem of the story properly. I problem that I had is that my characters seem to stick their fingers up their butts and don't do anything. Basically a dialogue opening is harder to do, but it's well worth the effort if you can pull it off. Dialogue is also a good way to squeeze information out of your world. Want to have an explanation about scientist, well slap a scientist in there and have your protag ask some questions about it. Don't have random flashbacks in the very begging. Think about a movie that had someone fixing breakfast, and every time they did something relatively minor there was a flashback. E.g. poured some orange juice. That reminds me of my mentor who trained me in how to write a good sci-fi opening. Going to eat some Coco puffs, like me mum used to. But me mum beat me so I angrily ate the coco puffs.
The best fantasy opening that I've ever read is Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I'd recommend taking a peek at it here. He casually just strolls in, quickly establishes two characters, a problem, and a setting in half a page. It's brilliant. I can't say I've read the rest of it though, but it's on my list of things to read. The only complaints that I've heard about Lies (aside from the usually fantasy grumbling about tropes), is that the heist narrative is too lowly for such a talented writer. I think that's a pretty good sign that hes doing shit right.
In the words of Brian Sanderson "writing is all smoke and mirrors." In fantasy/sci-fi you have to set up scenes that are more or less infodumping segments that feel natural to the reader. E.g. travelling from town to town, "oh theres a ghost thing over there"
"that's not a ghost its your mum!" laughter ensues
On the bright side, it seems like you've done some good world building, so writing the segments shouldn't be too hard. I highly recommend watching Brandon Sanderson's lectures on the youtube channel "Write about dragons." Start with the first lectures he does, because they cover a lot of mistakes that people make.
Also read this article on common mistakes that editors see (link) . Watching and reading just a little bit will help you from falling into a ton of pitfalls, like I did with my first story. I spent far too long on too little words, that were absolute rubbish. Now I've been able to get at least a consistent word count down every week, with mixed reviews (some chapters are better than others.) Basically, write consistently and read often. Potential and inspiration are bullshit. Hammer out some words, get it torn apart on this sub-reddit, pick up the pieces and repeat. Make sure to give back often, this place is awesome. I think one of my better experiences was posting a basically infodumpy chapter, and had some pretty positive reviews (aside from some pseudoscience that I quickly cut, and leapt back into the warm embrace of space opera).
If you get past the opening hump, this article, is a fantastic way to plan how your plot is going to unfold over the course of a novel, in a concise fashion. I wish I'd found this resource sooner, cause my planning would've been much better. (I tend to discovery write, with minimal planning.)
I think Salvatore gets sort of a bad rap. His Dark Elf Trilogy was one of the first Fantasy novels I had read and really kickstarted my interest in fantasy. The idea of elves as an evil race was totally groundbreaking for me and made me realize there was more to fantasy than the standard LotR model.
Even if Salvatore isn't your style, don't let it rule out other authors in the "Forgotten Realms" universe. Paul S. Kemp would stand up well against other fantasy authors commonly mentioned in the community. His Erevis Cale Trilogy and Twilight War series are among my favorite books.
Having said that, I'd recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora and The Dresden Files. I'd describe these books as fun, fast-paced, light reading that most folks find hard to put down.
How to Build™ : Down Here Buddy(Fighter- Dual Dex Dynamo)
Objective
A dual weilding halfling using a quick wit and even faster blades.
__
Stout Halfling +2 Dex, +1 Con
Background: Criminal
Equipment based off Suggested Quick Build
Stats based off Legal Adventure League Array 15,14,13,12,10,8
Stat | | Stat |
---|---|----|----
Str | 10 | Int | 13
Dex| 14+2 | Wis | 12
Con | 15+1 | Cha | 8
AC 14 (7 more AC possible with higher quality gear)
HP 13 (9 hp/level afterwards)
Level | Class | Gain|Note
---|---|-----|----
1| Fighter | Fighting Style: Two-Weapon Fighting, Second Wind | With every slash you are able to get the needed leverage to drive home the blade.
2| Fighter | Action Surge | Sometimes you just need to do some extra convincing to drive home your point.
3| Fighter | Champion: Critical Strike 19-20 | Every strike digs closer to the threats.
4| Fighter | Feat: Dual Wielder | Your blades move so fast that you can even use them to deflect incoming blows, as well as you have built up strength to wield larger weapon with equal speed (Rapier- 1d8).
5| Fighter | Extra Attack I | Bring the pain.
6| Fighter | +2 Dex | Your blows hit harder and your feet move faster.
7| Fighter | Champion: Remarkable Athelete | Add half your proficiency bonus (round up) to any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution check you make that doesn't already use your proficiency bonus.
8| Fighter | Feat: Resilient Dexterity | Float like a butterfly, sting like bee.
9| Fighter | Indomitable I| You are able to shrug off attacks and difficulties that those with a smaller heart would crumple to.
10| Fighter | Champion: Fighting Style Defensive | You are able to leverage your armor so that it deflects blows in unexpected ways.
This gets you pretty far progression wise, more beyond this and it can just get too complex as far as flexibility of a guide goes.
Post level 10 I would suggest Feat: Durable, +1 Dex, +1 Con, +2 Con, and even Magic Initiate: Cleric to pick up the spell Shield of Faith or Bless and then Spare the Dying, and Thuamaturgy. These spells augment your team helping their attacks and saves, lets you instantly stop a bleed out, have great RP moments, and are not reliant on having a high wisdom. Also it could work well as your level 19 Feat as you're being blessed by the God of Theives with greater power.
Thanks! I'll check these out... and maybe I'll reread the Dark Tower series, so friggin' great.
<>
Edit:
Amazon links:
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
Abundance Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
Stephen King's Dark Tower Series
Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles)
Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series
(yeah, these are smile.amazon.com links... if you aren't already supporting some organization with your Amazon purchases, how about my kid's school's PTA?)
Fellow fan of series here! Let me see...
Young Adult
Percy Jackson series is fun (and finished, too, I think).
Artemis Fowl series isn't quite as good as Percy Jackson IMHO, but it's got a following.
Fantasy
Harry Dresden series This is one of my favorites. Harry is Chicago's only professional wizard. There are a ton of these books and they are still going strong.
Game of Thrones These are great...but unfinished. If you watch the show, reading the books does help you get even more out of the story, I think.
Wheel of Time Another good series. There is a LOT of this series and it's finished. (Thank you, Brandon Sanderson!)
Mistborn Speaking of Brandon Sanderson... This one is very good. I highly recommend reading the Mistborn books before trying the Stormlight Archive, but only because as good as Mistborn is, Stormlight Archive is even better.
Stormlight Archive Amazing. Man, these are good. The series isn't finished, but the two books that are available are some of my favorites ever.
Kingkiller Chronicles I loved the first book. I could not freakin' believe I enjoyed the second one even more. The third one is still pending.
Temeraire Dragons in Napoleonic times. Super cool premise! This one is not finished (I don't think, anyway).
Gentlemen Bastards Con men in a fantasy realm. It's pretty light on the fantasy elements. Very light, I'd say. I'd also say that it has some of the very best swearing that I've ever come across. :D
Scifi
Old Man's War I'm almost finished this one--it's amazing!
Horror/Thriller
Passage Trilogy I've heard these described as vampire books...maybe zombie books... It's apocalyptic for sure. Great books!
Mysteries
Amelia Peabody Egyptology + murder mysteries. Super fun, but trust me...go with the audiobooks for these. They are best when they are performed.
Stephanie Plum Total popcorn reads. If that's your thing, shut off your brain and just enjoy.
Walt Longmire These get particularly good as it goes along. The main character is a sheriff in modern day Wyoming. (Side note: The TV show is also great--just don't expect them to stick to the books.)
Graphic Novels (Everything recommended can be gotten in a "book" format instead of only in comic form, in case that matters. I've gotten most of these from my local library.)
Locke & Key Eerie as crap. Love the art! This one is on-going.
Y: The Last Man All the men on the planet drop dead in a day...except for Yorrick. REALLY good. This is the series that got me reading graphic novels. Plus, it's finished!
Walking Dead I am not a zombie fan...but I like these. They're not done, but I've read up through volume 22 and am still enjoying them.
Other
OutlanderI have no idea how to categorize these or even give a description that does them justice. I refused to pick it up for AGES because it sounded like a bodice-ripper romance and that's not my bag. But these are good!
I hope there's something in there that'll do for you. Have fun and read on!
Edit: Apparently, I need to practice formatting. :/
Edit 2: I forgot to add the Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentlemen Bastards #1).
For the social manipulator request, there are a few I can recommend.
(The Lies of Locke Lamora) [https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Locke-Lamora-Gentleman-Bastards/dp/055358894X] is the first novel in a series about con men in a fantasy world. The main characters frequently manipulate people and use their wits to survive, but despite their advantages rarely have total victories. Highly recommended.
(Weaver Nine)[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/weaver-nine-worm-fanfic-au-thread-2.304177/] has some social scenes from Jack Slash's Point of view as he navigates conversations with capes. The meat of the story is on an Endbringer battle, but still lots of social manipulation.
There's also (Weighed Down)[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13083387/1/], a short, incomplete Worm fic using Theo (the son of the charismatic villain Kaiser) as he establishes himself as the leader of a team.
Edit: Did the links using mobile and messed up, but the infos there so not going to worry about it.
It's usually the first one suggested:
-"The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss (Kingkiller Chronicles)
Whilst different in terms of scope and story, the world building is on par with ASOIAF. I was a little skeptic, being in the same position as you are in, when I picked it up, but now I'm anxiously awaiting both Winds of Winter and the third book in the Kingkiller Chronicles.
I've also started Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (Gentleman Bastards series). So far I'm enjoying it A LOT. I do love having an anti-hero protagonist, and the world so far is pretty engrossing. But I can't officially recommend as I'm not even half way through.
Also, if you like GRRM's style of fantasy, Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard series would probably be a good bet to try. The first two books are already out (Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies)and the third is due out this October, with another 4 books still planned after that.
Call Me By Your Name for queer book club and Lies of Locke Lamora.
Some of my favs:
The King Killer Chronicles
Gentlemen Bastard Series
The Dark Tower
Riyria Revelations
The Ender Quartet
Ummmm I know I'm leaving some out, but those are some of my favorite series off the top of my head.
Edit: Stupid formatting on mobile.
I'll post links so you can get an idea of what they're about. Apologies, I'm a bit tired, otherwise I would give you a rough synopsis myself
If you're looking for some good fantasy books I'd highly recommend the following:
1.) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - http://www.amazon.com/Name-Wind-Kingkiller-Chronicle/dp/0756404746
2.) Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence - http://www.amazon.com/Prince-Thorns-Broken-Empire-Lawrence/dp/1937007685
3.) Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson - http://www.amazon.com/Gardens-Moon-Malazan-Book-Fallen/dp/0765348780/ref=pd_sim_14_12?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51pDraZRUIL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR99%2C160_&amp;refRID=1H0ZZ7MYMYZGKGQMEKTW
This next one has some fantasy elements, however, it's hard to pigeonhole into an exact genre (low fantasy adventure?), nonetheless, it's one of the better books that I've read recently.
4.) The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastards) by Scott Lynch
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Locke-Lamora-Gentleman-Bastards/dp/055358894X/ref=pd_sim_14_5?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51tpIK8K%2BtL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR98%2C160_&amp;refRID=1H0ZZ7MYMYZGKGQMEKTW
5.) The Way of Shadows: The Night Angel Trilogy: Book 1 by Brent Weeks -
http://www.amazon.com/Way-Shadows-Night-Angel-Trilogy/dp/0316033677/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51tPZPp5dsL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR93%2C160_&amp;refRID=1WERAT21ARWMVZN12V2P
(All books mentioned are the 1st novel of a larger series. If you're already aware and/or read these already than disregard, trying to pass along some great books for anyone who might come across my post)
I just finished reading the Gentleman Bastards series, by Scott Lynch:
After reading The Stormlight Archive, and Mistborn, a friend recommended me the Gentleman Bastards saga and I loved it. I'd say I liked it more than mistborn, and equally than The Stormlight Archive. Scott Lynch is also a great author.
I enjoyed reading the Gentleman Bastards saga. The characters are complex, the fantasy lore is rich, not Brandon Sanderson-rich, but rich. The history is great. But I must say that I think Scott Lynch is very descriptive, I found difficult to get through because so much detail was offered.
PS. Maybe we all could share our goodreads.com profiles. Seeing that we have similar tastes, we could see what others are reading.
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Excellent world. Adventure, twists, character growth. This is the first of a series and they are all great.
Oh god I love this question. I've got some fantastic recommendations:
Fantasy Series:
The Gentleman Bastards Sequence
by Scott Lynch
Book One: The Lies of Locke Lamora
Simultaneously one of my top 5 favorite fantasy novels, and my favorite Heist story of all time.
Suspense, Intrigue, Visceral action, and some of the wittiest, best-written dialog I've ever read in fiction make this series simultaneously dark, tense, and hilarious.
Thank god Lynch was wondering what a swords and sorcery take on Ocean's Eleven would look like, because the thought never occurred to me before this.
The Mistborn Trilogy
by Brandon Sanderson
Get the boxed set. Just do it.
Sanderson is perhaps best known for being chosen to continue the Wheel of Time series after the passing of Robert Jordan; and this is very unfortunate. I would take Mistborn over WoT any day.
The author's passion seems to be exotic settings, and unique magic systems with a solid set of rules. You get so attuned to what Mistborn's Allomancy can and can't do, that it seems as fundamental as gravity by the end. And speaking of endings, this one is Incredibly well thought out.
-----------------------------
I've got stuff to do, so I'll cut it off here for now, but seriously, check them out. And Please don't ask me which I'd recommend more, I don't want my head to explode.
More to come, if I'm not too lazy. I'm full of these.
You might really enjoy The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's basically nonstop adventure. Any qualms I had about being sympathetic to a con-man/assassin/thief as a protagonist were quickly put to rest with Scott Lynch's rich portrayal of the beguiling Locke Lamora and his city of Camorr in this novel. The vibrant character navigates a story that superbly connects a coming of age tale with gang facets alongside a swashbuckling Three Musketeers-like adventure sprinkled with magic and humor in appropriate places. With dukes, kings, alchemists, spies, thieves and mafia dons as its inhabitants, the city of Camorr feels real and solid as if existing somewhere in medieval or Renaissance Italy or Spain.
Can't recommend this enough for anyone looking for a damn good book about good "bad guys."
You should give the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch a try.
First one.
I would suggest The Lies of Locke Lamora Meets all of your criteria.
I am just reading the 'Locke Lamora' series: a gentleman thief in a world with quite mighty magicians but very well balanced.
For those who like a fantastic story I can also recommend Jasper Fforde. In his world the characters of all books have a personal life when nobody reads it at the time (and sometimes even then). Characters in a book that don't have a name are only blurred, also in their personal life ;-)
And of course Niffenegger, "The time traveller's wife'" is excellent.
I will second The Lies of Locke Lamora (part of the Gentleman Bastard series) as an excellent choice.
If you like Percy Jackson because it is fantasy mixed with the real world (i.e. urban fantasy genre) you might like The Dresden Files or the Iron Druid Chronicles
You might also look at branching into historical fiction, maybe? There are a lot of books using real historical military campaigns as backgrounds that are very entertaining - if that is of any interest to you, start with The Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield.
I would recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora.
I can't pick one, so here are a smattering:
E.L. Doctorow has yet to write a disappointing book. He writes fiction stories that are heart-wrenching. The one that gets the best response from people I recommend it to is Homer & Langley.
There's a series by Jonathan L. Howard about this necromancer named Johannes Cabal. It's quite good.
Italian Calvino wrote a book called Cosmicomics that I recommend to everyone, even though technically it's sci-fi.
Scott Lynch wrote a series called The Gentleman Bastards, which is part heist (swashbuckling in the second book), part buddy story, part magic/fantasy. Quite good.
Take a look, it's in a book!
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is a fantastic book, and if you enjoy it there are two other books currently out, and (four?) more to come!
It's really hard for me to only recommend one book right now, normally when I recommend books I give people huge lists that scare them. :P Bookworms rule!
I have a Books/Movies wishlist, and I'm 100% fine with a used copy.
Reminds me a bit of the book "the lies of Locke Lamora". Probably the best book ive ever read...
https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Locke-Lamora-Gentleman-Bastards/dp/055358894X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1550015147&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;keywords=the+lies+of+locke+lamora
A Song of Ice and Fire is a great series, One of my personal favorite and I would say you probably can't go wrong with it.
However, the series I would recommend (if you haven't already read it) is the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch. I just finished the first book and I'll say it is possibly my favorite fantasy book.
I have bottles of:
Hmmm... Maybe I need to have some friends over soon :-)
Tough to pick a favorite, but The Lies of Locke Lamora is a pretty good example.
I have not read this series (Yet. It is sitting on my Kindle to read next) but I have heard very good things about 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' by Scott Lynch (I actually think it is more thieves but not 100%)
Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder is a pretty nice read but again she is magic-y.
Little OT for /r/Fantasy but does anyone know of any 'Modern Assassins' books. There seems to be a slew of Fantasy stories of children being brought up as Assassins but I have not really had any luck finding any set modern day.
I feel like a traitor to George R. R. Martin, but maybe because I have to wait so long between books. But,
The Gentlemen Bastards series, starting with The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Starts slow, but stay with it. Well worth it.
I have 0 experience with incarceration, but I have loads of experience with books. Not sure his interests, but here are a few books I adore:
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Basically an Ocean's 11 heist story set in a world similar to Game of Thrones.
The Name of the Wind - (from the Amazon description) The riveting first-person narrative of a young man who grows to be the most notorious magician his world has ever seen.
Cosmos - Carl Sagan saw the best in our species. This book is what the TV series was based on.
I would encourage your friend to read text books as well while he is inside as well. Pick a topic they have an interest in, and find an older textbook on the subject. For me that would be this book. Not a topic I was educated on, but something I have an interest in.
Thank you for supporting your friend!
Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive.
Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards.
Peter V. Brett's The Demon Cycle is just ok, nothing amazing.
Not Similar to white collar, but for a fantasy-style "Ocean's 11" book:
Lies of Locke Lamora
Hm, here are some recommendations of my favorite Dark/Gritty Fantasies that immediately come to mind:
Joe Abercrombie is one of my favorite new authors, his books are incredibly gritty dark and original, but the characters are simply amazing. The best starting place is The Blade Itself, but you can read his two other books that aren't part of the trilogy and can be read without losing too much, though they are in the same world and there's more to like about it if you already read the First Law Trilogy. Out of his two stand alone books I'd recommend Best Served Cold which is a Fantasy revenge story in the vain of Kill Bill.
One really good book I read recently is Daniel Polansky's Low Town which is a really cool gritty noir fantasy novel. Where the main character is a former detective for a Fantasy city, but at the beginning of the book he's a drug dealer. Then when murders start to occur, he gets drawn back into the politics of the city, resulting in a great story and multiple plot twists and revelations.
One of my favorites books I've read recently has to be Brent Week's Black Prism. It has some really unique world building, where the magic powers are based on light/colors, and the different magic users have different really unique powers based on their color wavelength. His previous work, the Night Angel Trilogy is also great and it's a little more gritty, with the main character being an assassin.
Next I'll go a little indie here, with the author Jon Sprunk's Shadow's Sun. It features an assassin with slight magical powers and the conscience of a beautiful invisible woman (a real imaginary friend) that is always following him around. There's a lot of things to like in this book, even if they are a little shallow.
Two books from different authors (both of which I really loved) that have kind of similar settings featuring thieves running amok in the underbellies of fantasy cities with a decent amount of grit (without being too dark) are The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and Doug Hulick's Among Thieves.
There's also Ari Marmell's [The Conqueror's Shadow] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Conquerors-Shadow-Ari-Marmell/dp/0553593153/ref=la_B001JSDH98_1_20?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1340785404&amp;sr=1-20), the main character is a former evil warlord who gave it all up to live a mundane life with a woman he kidnapped. He then has to put back on his fear inducing armor, when someone else is out in the world impersonating him. There is no evil force in this book, and there's a lot of interesting stuff here, the guy actually has a demonic amulet as a partner that provides him with magical abilities, and the demon is hilarious.
The next series isn't too gritty but it's awesome, so I'd still recommend the author Michael Sullivan, a DIY author that was so successful Orbit picked up his 6 book series to release as three larger books (he's also done some great AMA's on Reddit), the first of which is Theft of Swords. The characters in his book are absolutely superb. It's about these two master thieves that are brought into the conspiracy that they wanted no part of, but will see it to the end no matter what the cost.
Robin Hobb technically isn't real gritty, but she is one of my favorite authors, and in her books serious and horrible things can happen to the characters at times, but the endings of some of her trilogies are some of my favorite endings I've ever read. You could start with her first book about the bastard son of a king (that can bond with animals) being trained as an assassin, Assassin's Apprentice, or my favorite trilogy of her's set in the same universe but a different continent, Ship of Magic that has some awesome pirate settings, talking ships, and dragons. I also love one of her other trilogies set in a different universe than the rest of her books, Shaman's Crossing, the first book has kind of a Harry Potter-esque academy setting without the magic, and the rest of the trilogy gets into some really interesting stuff that's too weird to attempt to explain.
I think that's all I got, and you wouldn't go wrong reading any of these books, all of the pages I linked to are the book's Amazon page, so you can read further descriptions that I'm sure are better than mine. :)
I thought the lies of Locke Lamora was similar , check it out!!
https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Locke-Lamora-Gentleman-Bastards/dp/055358894X
Not sure if it's appropriate for this thread and subreddit, but may I suggest a book? I just finished reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and it's a funny, action-packed novel about a gang of thieves in a fantasy world and I already consider it one of my favorite books, it was so much fun to read.
I would first echo most people here and say Sanderson's anything- Elantris comes to mind as a good recommendation.
When you say in the same calibre, are you talking in terms of story, in terms of being high fiction, in terms of length or in terms of moments that make you go, "ohhh... well DAMN!"
I would recommend a lot of things I saw below, so I'm going to try to not do that any more than I already have. The Conan Chronicles by Robert Howard are fun and a much unappreciated classic of Low Fantasy. Orcs by Stan Nicholls is a great series, somewhere in the middle ground between high and low fantasy, and does an interesting twist on the classical fantasy story. The Gentleman Bastards series is another interesting take, but it is more of an Ocean's 11 in a fantasy world. I only saw one mention, but anything Tolkien is a must read if for nothing else than to pay respect to the godfather. The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks is another good story, and it uses a lot of the ideas Jordan uses in terms of who knows what, why and when to progress the story. Finally, for a more Eastern themed book, Tales of the Otori by Liam Hearn is a good trilogy with a lot of political twists.
EDIT: added a link for Elantris
Amazon (Red Seas Under Red Skies)
Nice list, have you read The Lies of Locke Lamora yet?
Ender's Game is seriously so much better than the movie. It's amazing what people will do to ensure the safety of the human race, without fully seeing the whole picture.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski. I was hesitant at first, always seeing it, but never checking it out at the library. It wound up being one of my favorite books to read, it was that good. Story of a mute boy raised on a farm breeding dogs. He can sign, and has pretty good life, as far as things go, until his father dies. He tries to prove his uncle had a hand in the death, but the plan backfires. Hated the ending - not because it was bad, but it was so damn sad.
If you're willing to poke at a series, try Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series, the first book is The Lies of Locke Lamora. The series centers around Locke and his shenanigans as a Gentleman Bastard - a notorious gang of thieves. They pull off some pretty intense schemes, some with great success, some with spectacular failures. It's a great series, and another set of favorites that I recommend to everyone that'd ask.
Congratulations on the new job, hope it works out well for you! Also, I love that you had such a great turn out for your book drive. My kids know how important it is to read - I actually push my daughter to read a little bit above her grade level. She keeps a reading log for homework, so her teachers are pretty impressed. She did amazingly well on her latest state reading/math test, and her teacher believes it's because of all the reading she does. If you do another drive, I hope it goes just as well.
I highly recommend:
I just started reading The Lies of Locke Lamora today, and so far (~60 pages in) I am really enjoying it! I'm also reading Libra for a literature class, and I am enjoying that a lot less.