Audiobook Review: The Gentlemen Bastards by Scott Lynch

This will be a review for the first three books in the series. Someday, hopefully, we will get more of this wonderful fantasy series, but I’m not going to hold my breath for them. We are going on 10 years waiting for the fourth book, and whatever the reason is for the wait, it never looks good when that much time goes by. But I will keep good thoughts that maybe someday a miracle will happen and the rest will finally be available.

I listened to all three of these books and Michael Page did an excellent job with the narrations. He has a rich and varied voice that conveys all of the emotions and idiosyncrasies of each of the characters. He also does a marvelous job of having different voices for all of the characters. His voices and emotional outpouring into each character will keep you riveted and grounded in the story until the very end.

The Lies of Locke Lamora

Publication Date: 2006

This first book introduces us to the Gentlemen Bastards, and what a fun group of young men they were. I loved listening to their banter and to their scheming. But most importantly I loved learning how they all came together to become a family.

This book also set up the format for all of the books, in that we have two stories happening, one in the past and one in the future. In this book we see how Locke and the other kids came together to be under the tutelage of master con artist Chains. I really enjoyed all of the things that Chains taught them, and even though he was strict with them, he also genuinely loved them all. The present day story has the kids all grown up and on their own, with Locke as the leader of the Bastards.

This story was quite brutal and sad, but the political intrigue, the world building and all of the characters we meet are wonderfully and masterfully done. This is a fast paced and well thought out work of fiction that will make you want to pick up the next book as soon as you can.

Red Seas Under Red Skies

Publication Date: 2007

This second book has Locke and his best friend Jean picking up the pieces and coming to terms with all that happened in the first book. They are far from home but still scheming and looking for that big score. There is also two stories happening, a past and present. The past chronicles the things they did after they left Camorr and partly how they came to Tal Verrar and the current con they are working, We also get to see a bit of how they set up cons and all the details that entails. The present day story has all of the great political intrigue and betrayals that the first did, but with the added benefit of pirates.

I just loved the pirate aspect of the story. The pirates were all well done and quite a diverse set of characters. I enjoyed watching Locke and Jean learn how to sail and some of the superstitions that sailors have, are just a hoot. Some of which are true today to some extent. I thought the need for cats on board a boat for luck was wonderful.

This story was just as complex, fast paced and brutal as the first. The world building in all of these books is just amazing, We get to see so much more of it in this book as Locke and Jean travel around it in both the past and present stories. It is a rich world with lots of different cultures, but with all of the social ills that most worlds have. There are some happy moments and even a little bit of romance in this one, but once again we are left with a tragic ending that has Locke and Jean having to leave everything behind once again.

The Republic of Thieves

Publication Date: 2013

This book was perhaps the most sedate of the three books. It starts with Locke fighting for his life and Jean doing everything he can to help him. They end up making a bargain with their sworn enemy and embark on a journey to fix an election and to meet up with Locke’s former lover, Sabetha.

We have heard about Sabetha throughout all of the previous books, and I was delighted to finally meet her. The past story is all about how Locke and Sabetha grew up as part of the Gentlemen Bastards, and fell in love with each other. The Bastards are sent off by Chains to learn the fine art of acting, and of course things end up going horribly wrong at one point, but Locke and Sabetha scheme their way out of every situation. The present story is all about how they fix an election in the city of Karthain. Locke and Jean on one side and Sabetha on the other. I loved some of the shenanigans that they both got up to to stop the otherside from winning.

I really enjoyed this one almost as much as the other two. It was fun to finally meet Sabetha and learn her story as well as how she and Locke fell in love and what happened to them. But this one did seem to be lacking a sense of urgency and the twists that just made the others so interesting. I was also a bit annoyed by the long passages that were scenes from the play they were performing in the past. Perhaps because I was listening to the story, I missed how these scenes connected to the overall plot, but they just felt like unnecessary filler. The ending was intriguing though, and really makes me want that fourth book, sooner rather than later.

This was a really thrilling series that I quite enjoyed listening to. From what little I was able to learn about the fourth book, the author has completed it, but for whatever reason it has never made it to the final edit and printing. Long waits between books are often the death of a series, but this one is still being published and is as popular today as it was when it was first published. This is a good sign that maybe someday that fourth book and maybe the others that were planned will come to be. We can only hope that we have not seen the last of the Gentlemen Bastards.