Locke Lamora Read along, nearly to the end!

Posted by: Redhead on: March 31, 2012

• In: Scott Lynch
• 40 Comments

Welcome to week four of what is becoming the most incredible (and holy shit, like largest) read along ever!  You see, we accidentally set a precedent here, that all future read alongs will attempt to reach. Ladies and gents, take a look, a gander, a peek, at what we have unleashed. It’s shaggy! And there’s more!

This week’s questions/discussion starters were supplied by Ashley, who posts on Mondays at SF Signal, and as she so perfectly put it, this is the section where a whole LOT happens.  You thought that torture scene back at Barsavi’s was when the shit got real? That was nothing.

it’s unavoidable, this is one hell of a spoiler ridden post, so if you have never read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, or are participating in the read along but may be a little behind, you will want to skip this post until you have read up through Chapter 13 Orchids and Assassins.

That said, the rest of the everything is after the jump. If you are reading this in an RSS feed, I suggest you scroll really, really fast.

Other read along discussions:

Lynn’s Book Blog
Nashville Book Worm
Dark Cargo
Genkinahito’s Blog
Scruffy Fiction
Numbers Words and Ramblings
Tehthyan Books
Kaitharshayr’s Musings
Paperless Reading
Rose’s Thingamajig
Rememorandum
ReadBooks4Ever
Booky Pony
Beware of the Froggies
Coffee Cookies and Chili Peppers
Books without any pictures
All I Am – A Redhead
A Blog thinger
My Awful Reviews
The Bente Way of Life
Travels Through Iest

newly added conversations!

The Hugo Endurance Project
Felix Pearce
John Ayliff
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 found it perfectly realistic. Especially since I was just reading up on a study about the history of sleep (yes, people really do write papers on that kind of thing) and what they found was up till about 150 years ago, most people slept in two chunks of time of 3-5 hours at night, often with 1-2 hours of awakeness inbetween, and it wasn’t unusual for people to entertain others or go strolling about town in the middle of the night.  Just goes to show, if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep, don’t get all mad at yourself, just get up and do something for an hour or so, and then try to go back to bed. it’s completely natural!  so the idea of midnight teas and dinners doesn’t strike me as something overly fantastical.

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?

Oh, completely agree! The Wicked Sisters aren’t so much weapons as they are unnatural appendages! Good thing Maranzalla had a matching set, is all i gotta say.

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?

No!  If that scene wasn’t so disgustingly descriptive, so cthonically frightening, so tense I forget to breathe, I wouldn’t be spending the next 24 hours flinching at every speck of dust I see out of the corner of my eye, and swearing to any gods who may ever listen that I will never, ever swim in open water again, now would I?  Holy fuck, psychotic jumping sharks and  giant water dwelling spiders ensorcelled towards a taste for human flesh? What’s next?? those salt devils are fucking disturbing.

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?

the first time I read this, I’m pretty sure I was crying at that scene, especially the bit with Bug, and Locke’s last conversation with him. Even thinking about it, I’m getting all teary eyed. and I am getting Angry. No one does that to little Bug, no one.  Locke better fucking kill that Gray King, because if he doesn’t I am going to climb into this damn book and rip that Gray fucker open from nostril to asshole.

and now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, is this not the most beautiful battle vow ever?

“But now,” he said, “now, I will be a murderer once again. I will set myself to slay until every last Gray King’s man is gone. You hear me cocksucker? I will have the Bondsmage and I will have the Gray King, and if all the powers of Camorr and Karthain and Hell itself oppose me, it will be nothing – nothing but a longer trail of corpses between me and your master.”

And the rest of that page it just gets better and better, and it just gets me every time. I want to cry and scream and rend garments and pledge myself to giving Locke Lamora anything he could possibly, ever need, for complete and utter vengeance. I feel the need, deep down in my soul, to be part of his mission. I do not want the Bondsmagi to ever forget, that even they, are mortal. And that you do not fuck with Locke Lamora.

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?

hmm, not exactly, I think Chains just wanted his apprentices to be able to hid behind priesthoods, because that is always convenient! I don’t think each young Bastard apprenticed in every temple, it was just whatever Chains could arrange through his contacts. We are exceedingly lucky, however, that one of the priesthoods in which Jean entered into happened to wear masks. And a mask is always, always your friend.

And I totally get the need for a death goddess, really, I do. But to make the priests in training “get close to death”? creepy!!

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?

Not after what happened in the glass cellar beneath the Temple of Perelandro.  Locke, and therefore the Thorn, is now a powderkeg. He’s no longer out to steal, he’s out for revenge.

Ok, little nit-picky bit here. I really, really wish Dona Vorchenza showed up earlier in the story. She’s actually a pretty important character later, and it would have been nice to have her in the back of my mind a few hundred pages ago.

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

you know, at first, I wanted to say it’s Locke, because he’s desperate and angry, and doesn’t have a plan. . .   and then when I thought about it, I changed my mind.  Locke walks up to the doors of Meraggio’s, but it’s the Thorn who enters.  A man who doesn’t have a plan, but smoothly and seamlessly works his way through every trick he knows, quite literally working his way to the top of the pyramid and making everything up as he goes. A consummate actor, a perfect liar, a smooth talker, a man who can steal the clothes off a noble as easy as taking candy from a sleeping baby: that could only be The Thorn of Camorr!

Tags: fantasy, Locke Lamora, read-along