Double-, triple-, and quadruple-crossing
Jul. 6th, 2023 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileAfter finishing my reread of The Lies of Locke Lamora I was compelled to then reread its sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies. This one combines two very fun settings: the first half is casino shenanigans and the second half is pirate shenanigans. It makes for a rather convolutedly structured book as our heroes, Locke and Jean, find themselves buried under an increasingly convoluted set of interlocking scams.
I find myself a little of two minds about this. On the one hand, it was fun! I thoroughly enjoyed about the first 700+ of the 760 pages, including the jarring shifts from one scam to the other. But I feel like it didn’t quite stick the landing, and it’s one of those situations where I feel sort of bad about criticizing it because I certainly can’t think of a better way to stick the landing either, but the fact is that stories that have multiple plot threads that all look like they’re about to kill our heroes generally function as setup for the conclusion, and much of what’s fun about them is going “I have no idea how our heroes are going to pull this off!” and then watching our heroes pull it off in an unlikely fashion. And I know that some stuff has gotta be left open for sequels, but also… it feels like they didn’t pull off everything they were supposed to pull off? They escaped with their lives, for now, which I suppose is very impressive given how fucked they were, but it didn’t quite get that satisfaction of having everything snap together at the end, which is a pretty significant part of the fun of these kinds of complicated heist/con/scheme sorts of stories. Anyway it was still a lot of fun for most of it.
I find myself a little of two minds about this. On the one hand, it was fun! I thoroughly enjoyed about the first 700+ of the 760 pages, including the jarring shifts from one scam to the other. But I feel like it didn’t quite stick the landing, and it’s one of those situations where I feel sort of bad about criticizing it because I certainly can’t think of a better way to stick the landing either, but the fact is that stories that have multiple plot threads that all look like they’re about to kill our heroes generally function as setup for the conclusion, and much of what’s fun about them is going “I have no idea how our heroes are going to pull this off!” and then watching our heroes pull it off in an unlikely fashion. And I know that some stuff has gotta be left open for sequels, but also… it feels like they didn’t pull off everything they were supposed to pull off? They escaped with their lives, for now, which I suppose is very impressive given how fucked they were, but it didn’t quite get that satisfaction of having everything snap together at the end, which is a pretty significant part of the fun of these kinds of complicated heist/con/scheme sorts of stories. Anyway it was still a lot of fun for most of it.