I've been re-reading the Lies of Locke Lamora, as I just got it back after about 3-4 months. Couldn't keep my hands off it, really, I've missed it terribly even though I read RSURS in the meanwhile. I also just finished the Blade Itself, and so have a very fresh feeling of it.
Now, I found out about both Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie in an SFX books special. (I've been trying to figure out when I bought it, but can't find any sort of year in the actual magazine. But as there were the first pictures I ever saw of the first Twilight film, I'm guessing it was summer 2007.) There's a list of "the top 100 sf and fantasy authors of all time", and Lynch and Abercrombie are numbers 88 and 81, respectively. In the bit about Lynch his books are recommended for people who like Abercrombie, and vice versa. Abercrmombie's bit even starts with the words: "The UK's answer to Scott Lynch".
That naturally made me suppose that their stuff was somehow similar to each other. A stupid idea, but it stuck to me. Now that I have read both, however, I find that I enjoy Lynch far better than Abercrombie. The reason for this took a discussion with a friend and a rant to my brother.
To the actual point, then. Joe Abercrombie writes what I (perhaps wrongly, as I have all the fantasy sub-genres nice and muddled in my head) would categorize as swords-and-sorcery. He writes about people who are not beautiful, not perfect, and not Chosen Ones. They are regular people facing problems that are quite ordinary, such as wars between nations and power-hungry superiors. There's absolutely no fault in this, on the contrary, I quite support this kind of fiction. It's brutal, it's conniving, and often unfair, but so is real life.
But what I miss in Abercrombie is the wit. That's what Scott Lynch has, and that's what I enjoy. As an admirer of Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Ellen Kushner, Terry Pratchett and, as much as I can be without having read too much of his works, P.G. Wodehouse, I just love word-play and the sort of flowing of language that I think all of the authors mentioned above have mastered. Lynch writes the most amusing dialogue, and I find myself grinning half the time, not because something funny happened but because someone said something in a way that tickled my fancy. But Lynch also has the not-very-pretty characters with flaws - I was very pissed with Locke in RSURS - although he does not display them as prominently as Abercrombie does. In the Gentleman Bastard sequnce there's both sword-and-sorcery (though very little actual sorcery, which pleases me, too) and mannerpunk. And I love the combination.
Another reason I prefer Lynch might be that when I finished the Lies I felt I could either continue of leave it at that and be satisfied with it. With only two books of seven out it's a tad early to say, but at least these two have plots of their own that get completed when the book ends, but under them lies a larger picture that will slowly unfold as the series progresses. It's something like the plotting in Harry Potter - you can read the books as individual stories, if you really insist, or you can see what the significance of the earlier books is in relation to the on-going plot.
With the Blade Itself, and with A Game of Thrones, I was almost frustrated when I realised the book ended and the story was still wide open. It's a matter of preference, of course, but I'm too impatient to wait for three or more books before something gets settled. (A reason I tend to steer away from long series. I started the first Wheel of Time a long, long time ago, got bored on page 10 and quit it. It was probably a wise decision with my attention span.)
If somebody finds this, and they have read the authors concerned, I'm sure to get very angry mail. Now that I've tried both Lynch and Abercrombie, I see they are nothing alike, but the comparison has been in my head for so long now it's hard to get rid of it. But I'm positive that in time I'll be separating the authors comfortably from each other. But for now, I'm a total Lynch-fan, unless someone can point out something I really missed in the Blade Itself.
Now I'm going to go read Lies again. If you're a fan, too, you may want to visit Camorr
Great people, interesting discussion, fairly active with the little members there are. Or at least the little active members there are. We always need more! :D
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti