Welcome Lynchmob!
Here follows the questions in the second week of the Lies of Locke Lamora Read Along. You are on the Super Secret List and hence are privileged to these ahead of Saturday's posting. I look forward to your inciteful and snarky comments, but please don't post anything until Saturday. This segment covers Chapter 3 through the end of the Interlude: The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse.
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!
2) Are you digging the detail the author has put into the alcoholic drinks in this story?
3) Who is this mysterious lady Gentlemen Bastard Sabetha and what does she mean to Locke?
4) Are you as creeped out over the use of Wraithstone to create Gentled animals as I am?
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?
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?
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?
1. The first time I read this story, I felt like something would go horribly, terribly wrong, but that Locke would pull it out in the end. It's an amazing thing to have such confidence in a character that seems to be biting off more than he can chew, but that's how I felt.
2. To be honest, I hadn't really noticed the detail in the drinks until now. I guess it was just another part of the "setting" for me.
3. Oh Sabetha, ever mysterious, and with some clear-yet-unspoken connections to Locke's past. She's definitely a mystery, that one.
4. I thought it was pretty creepy, yeah. Probably not as much as you did, but there's definitely a lot of "Eww, why?" going on.
5. It would make for an interesting story to see Locke as the Capa of Camorr at some point, or at least with a huge amount of influence. And they clearly get along. There have been worse arranged marriages, I suppose. But reading through it the first time, I didn't think it would happen.
6. The first time I read this book, I assumed that The Gray King was trying to undermine Barsavi's tight-knit group of leadership, and make it look like the Capa couldn't take care of his own people, so why not let The Gray King take care of them instead.
7. The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse is my second favorite flashback in the novel (thankfully, my favorite is in the week that I make up the questions!). I think that Chains really learned what he had that day in Locke. He's someone that can get the job done, AND do it in such a brilliant way that he recoups the original cost of pulling off the job along the way. I'm thinking that Chains was probably willing to give them bigger jobs starting right after that.
I'm really enjoying the food and drink angle to this book. I wonder if i could reproduce some of the meals.....
ReplyDeleteThat's very intriguing... saying that your favourite flashback will be included in next week's questions. Now I'm going to have to go looking and see what you're referring to!
ReplyDeleteLynn :D
.. you mean like sharks, stuffed with peppers that have been stuffed with cheese! Very unusual. You'll have to report back if you try any of these.
ReplyDeleteLynn :D
I'd totally stuff peppers with cheese. . . but i'm not sure about stuffing those into a shark. that just sounds weird.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to meet Sabetha! I figure she'll either turn into my favorite character, or i'll hate her. :(
I'm saving the second book till next month but does Scott Lynch still continue to tease us with Sabetha in that book?
ReplyDeleteDo you want spoilers? If so...
ReplyDeleteYes. He does.
I've no time to comment fully on each question this time around, at least at the moment, but most of my answers are pretty close to Bryce's anyway. We see pretty eye-to-eye on these books.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, this was a great flashback so now I can't wait to hear your favorite!
ReplyDeleteIt seems like most people haven't been all that repulsed by the gentling. I'm wondering if this says more about how terrible everything else is rather than how people really feel about the idea of creating braindead animals.
1) Well I guess this I answer this first before reading other answers as that may spoil things for my first read through. As Locke is our "Hero" I will assume he will succeed. Playing both sided really reminds of what the original Mission Impossible would do, and they've taught me that everything always goes as planned. Any unforeseen incident was always considered and planned for.
ReplyDelete2) I love the alcoholic drinks, especially the ginger one. Reminds me of my drink of choice, the Dark n Stormy. The spicier the ginger the better!
3) So far very little is known of Sabetha other than she's been gone a long time. She was gone when Locke arrived, but as I recall, in Locke's older years she has still been gone but it seems not after meeting him. Perhaps they had a fling? To be honest, this element of the overall story hasn't interested me as much as the other plotlines.
4) Wraithstone is quite haunting as a brainwashing method, but is it really all that different from a lot of the other actions and method we use with our pets or livestock?
5) The courting is quite funny. My bet is that they will develop a relationship far further than they planned but that it ultimately won't pan out and perhaps possibly end tragically with a death?
6) Well with first mention I actually thinking that the Grey King was Locke himself, or that he's involved. His way of keeping total control overall. Based upon the other Bastards responses, this would mean that they too aren't privy to Locke's plans. But then again that's probably pretty far fetched. Who knows?
7) I found it amusing that they did do exactly what I thought would be easiest; they bought it! Nice touch to stage a theft to get a little more out of the compassion of others.