Lies of Locke Lamora

I just picked up a fantastic book by a new fantasy author named Scott Lynch titled The Lies of Locke Lamora. I'm a geek, I read, watch and breath science fiction and fantasy stories. While I like fantasy, I'm a lot more picky about what I read, which authors I pick up, etc. Most of the stuff out there's pretty craptacular - most of the stuff's pretty cliched and not all that interesting to me.

Lies of Locke Lamora is Lynch's first novel, and it's the first in a series called The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, and it's scheduled to run for seven books. The second, Red Seas Under Red Skies, was released last month in hardcover, which I'm really excited to start reading that soon after I finish the first one.
It's different, grown up, not your Lord of the Rings type fantasy novel. This is fantasy with a bite, down in the underworld with a perfectly realized society and city, with a plot with heists and crime lords, someting more reminicent of the novel and book Layer Cake than Ocean's 11 (as stated on the back cover). This is highly original fantasy at it's best, and Lynch is an author that's going to go far in the field. Just take a look on the inside cover - George R.R. Martin, Kate Elliot, Richard Morgan, Matthew Stover, and several other highly prominent authors in the field have tesimonials to this first novel.

The Perfect Crime - The Decemberists

Look - Buy