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tachyondecay's review
1.0
I love heist movies. It’s a weird addiction that I can’t shake. It doesn’t matter what type of heist movie: Ocean’s Eleven, Foolproof, The Perfect Score, that one episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where they rob the holosuite casino to help their holographic friend (don’t ask). I love that moment in the middle where we get walked through the plan, usually as a montage set to a voiceover. It feels like a privileged sneak peek, because then we get to see the real thing.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with Giant Thief. I just wanted to rhapsodize about my love for heist movies for a paragraph. Plus, it leaves me well-disposed towards thief characters in general. I enjoy watching a protagonist take on someone who really deserves their comeuppance and construct an intricate plan to deliver it, usually by taking something away the antagonist values—or taking back something that isn’t theirs in the first place.
We don’t get a lot of that in Giant Thief. David Tallerman instead presents Easie Damasco, a thief whose mouth is faster than his brain and whose penchant for stealing is matched only by his ability to get into trouble. The story begins with him hanging—yes, he gets as far as the noose—only to be saved at the last moment by Moaradrid, the leader of an army that is invading this land. (I’m a little unclear on the exact geography, but I believe the entire land is called Castovalia.) Easie becomes a conscript in this army in a unit essentially used as cannon fodder. So he escapes, with a giant in tow.
It’s all very contrived and not a little wonky for the first few chapters. And the next few. And the few after that. See, Giant Thief feels like a single, drawn-out inhalation of breath. Easie gets captured, escapes, and runs. He find some allies, and runs. He almost gets captured, and runs. Each chapter finds Easie getting into another scrape, followed by another. He doesn’t get a chance to catch his breath, and neither does the reader.
Another book might do this and earn the label “intense,” but that’s only if the stakes keep increasing as the protagonist continues to get into scrapes. This is where Giant Thief falters in the application of that magic formula. Easie is hauling around an important ruby (I won’t spoil it by revealing what the ruby does, but it’s a perfectly serviceable MacGuffin). Tallerman attempts to draw out the revelations related to this ruby, and this is almost enough to increase those stakes. However, it seldom seems like Easie is any better or worse off in one position than he is in the next. If I were going to draw a Freitag pyramid for this book (which I won’t, because they are dull), it would be pretty damn flat.
And Easie is a thief, for heaven’s sake. He should do thief things. I could probably tally the number of times we see him actually steal something on one hand (I won’t, because I can’t type very well one-handed). He does plenty of stealing, but it all happens off-page, or it gets mentioned but not actually described. Similarly, I expect thieves to be clever, to scheme. If Easie is so clever, why does he keep ending up in so many scrapes? To be fair, Tallerman attempts (there’s that word again) to have Easie make plans—they just all go awry. But you have to toss a win in there once in a while to keep the reader’s attention.
Instead, Tallerman hopes Easie’s wit will do that job. Giant Thief is relentlessly humorous. That is to say, every line of dialogue seems crafted with the intention of being droll. This has the effect of making me feel strapped into a seat at a local comedy theatre. I don’t particularly enjoy stand-up comics, and it’s not just because most of them to tend to rely on stereotypes and weak humour; there’s something innately unfunny about sitting around just to listen to jokes. I my jokes to be contextual. Much like I expect thieves to be clever, I also expect them to be sardonic and funny, and Easie Damasco posesses these qualities in spades. However, Tallerman overuses them to the point that they become white noise. When every line is keyed for maximum punch-line-osity (this is a technical term, I assure you), you risk joke-oversaturation.
Moreover, it seems like a lot of the humour in this book comes at the expense of depth or additional stakes. It’s as if Tallerman is choosing between humour or depth and choosing humour nearly every time. That’s a false dilemma: it’s possible to be funny and raise the stakes at the same time—check out The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or jPod. This is a shame, because there are definitely threads here that could make for a very compelling and fascinating story. But as it is, I just don’t see it.
Finally, a word about setting. The world of Giant Thief never quite coalesces into a well-defined structure for me. Easie and friends bandy about some names, and we meet a prince or two, who seems to be the ruler of a city. Along the way we meet a mayor, and some elders of a village … and it all just feels like cookiecutter fantasy tropes without much in the way of distinct culture. The village, the city, and all the various characters who populate such venues have all been conjured from the fantasy stock pot without so much as a little extra seasoning thrown in.
It’s a really neat idea, pairing a giant with a thief. But they have to let loose. There has to be drama from the beginning, not just a very long chase sequence. There has to be real stakes. And if you want those to include the fate of a country, you need to give me some sense of that country’s history and culture and what makes them worth saving. Giant Thief tries hard to be intense, witty, and enjoyable. And, to throw in some faint praise at the end here, it wasn’t all that boring; there was never a point where I felt like I needed to stop reading. It’s just steeped in missed opportunities.
Certainly, it’s no heist movie.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with Giant Thief. I just wanted to rhapsodize about my love for heist movies for a paragraph. Plus, it leaves me well-disposed towards thief characters in general. I enjoy watching a protagonist take on someone who really deserves their comeuppance and construct an intricate plan to deliver it, usually by taking something away the antagonist values—or taking back something that isn’t theirs in the first place.
We don’t get a lot of that in Giant Thief. David Tallerman instead presents Easie Damasco, a thief whose mouth is faster than his brain and whose penchant for stealing is matched only by his ability to get into trouble. The story begins with him hanging—yes, he gets as far as the noose—only to be saved at the last moment by Moaradrid, the leader of an army that is invading this land. (I’m a little unclear on the exact geography, but I believe the entire land is called Castovalia.) Easie becomes a conscript in this army in a unit essentially used as cannon fodder. So he escapes, with a giant in tow.
It’s all very contrived and not a little wonky for the first few chapters. And the next few. And the few after that. See, Giant Thief feels like a single, drawn-out inhalation of breath. Easie gets captured, escapes, and runs. He find some allies, and runs. He almost gets captured, and runs. Each chapter finds Easie getting into another scrape, followed by another. He doesn’t get a chance to catch his breath, and neither does the reader.
Another book might do this and earn the label “intense,” but that’s only if the stakes keep increasing as the protagonist continues to get into scrapes. This is where Giant Thief falters in the application of that magic formula. Easie is hauling around an important ruby (I won’t spoil it by revealing what the ruby does, but it’s a perfectly serviceable MacGuffin). Tallerman attempts to draw out the revelations related to this ruby, and this is almost enough to increase those stakes. However, it seldom seems like Easie is any better or worse off in one position than he is in the next. If I were going to draw a Freitag pyramid for this book (which I won’t, because they are dull), it would be pretty damn flat.
And Easie is a thief, for heaven’s sake. He should do thief things. I could probably tally the number of times we see him actually steal something on one hand (I won’t, because I can’t type very well one-handed). He does plenty of stealing, but it all happens off-page, or it gets mentioned but not actually described. Similarly, I expect thieves to be clever, to scheme. If Easie is so clever, why does he keep ending up in so many scrapes? To be fair, Tallerman attempts (there’s that word again) to have Easie make plans—they just all go awry. But you have to toss a win in there once in a while to keep the reader’s attention.
Instead, Tallerman hopes Easie’s wit will do that job. Giant Thief is relentlessly humorous. That is to say, every line of dialogue seems crafted with the intention of being droll. This has the effect of making me feel strapped into a seat at a local comedy theatre. I don’t particularly enjoy stand-up comics, and it’s not just because most of them to tend to rely on stereotypes and weak humour; there’s something innately unfunny about sitting around just to listen to jokes. I my jokes to be contextual. Much like I expect thieves to be clever, I also expect them to be sardonic and funny, and Easie Damasco posesses these qualities in spades. However, Tallerman overuses them to the point that they become white noise. When every line is keyed for maximum punch-line-osity (this is a technical term, I assure you), you risk joke-oversaturation.
Moreover, it seems like a lot of the humour in this book comes at the expense of depth or additional stakes. It’s as if Tallerman is choosing between humour or depth and choosing humour nearly every time. That’s a false dilemma: it’s possible to be funny and raise the stakes at the same time—check out The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or jPod. This is a shame, because there are definitely threads here that could make for a very compelling and fascinating story. But as it is, I just don’t see it.
Finally, a word about setting. The world of Giant Thief never quite coalesces into a well-defined structure for me. Easie and friends bandy about some names, and we meet a prince or two, who seems to be the ruler of a city. Along the way we meet a mayor, and some elders of a village … and it all just feels like cookiecutter fantasy tropes without much in the way of distinct culture. The village, the city, and all the various characters who populate such venues have all been conjured from the fantasy stock pot without so much as a little extra seasoning thrown in.
It’s a really neat idea, pairing a giant with a thief. But they have to let loose. There has to be drama from the beginning, not just a very long chase sequence. There has to be real stakes. And if you want those to include the fate of a country, you need to give me some sense of that country’s history and culture and what makes them worth saving. Giant Thief tries hard to be intense, witty, and enjoyable. And, to throw in some faint praise at the end here, it wasn’t all that boring; there was never a point where I felt like I needed to stop reading. It’s just steeped in missed opportunities.
Certainly, it’s no heist movie.
bibliotropic's review
3.0
The story starts, essentially, with Easie Damasco getting caught with his hand in the wrong pocket and thus conscripted against his will, sent to the front lines of the coming war. Not being the kind of person to take this lying down, Easie uses his charm and guile to escape, stealing one of the army’s captured giants along the way, launching him forward into a large adventure that he can’t just walk away from.
With a concept like that, how can you go wrong?
Well, for starters, you could make the book into something that’s all show and little substance, relying more on character stereotypes than actual characters to help move the story along when Easie and Saltlick tire of running (which they do a lot of through the book, as they end up chased from point A to point B, then to point C, then just when you think they might get a break, bam, onward to point D). The book-long chase scene feels less like quick action and tension and more like a reason to get to the next plot point. Can’t figure out a reason why the characters would be in a certain location? Boy, that warlord and his armies caught up awfully quick, didn’t they? Time to run again!
There isn’t much world-building done through the course of the book. Hints get dropped at a wider world with more diversity than we see directly on the pages, but little of it is actually demonstrated, making the book have a very narrow and confined feel. Easie and Saltlick are, for the most part, the only characters who get any real development, which makes a degree of sense since they do feature on almost every single page of the book, but other characters who are often with them and have their own parts to play often thus feel shallow and unrealistic. And otherwise ended up playing to stereotypes. I thought I was going to like Marina Estrada a couple of times, until it was revealed that many of her actions seem influenced by past romance and that she tends to break down in womanly sobs whenever she’s frustrated at things not going her way. Not exactly a flattering depiction of the only woman in the book. True, she is a fairly tough individual and she often has to go out of her way to keep Easie in line (and she does it well), but a lot of her strength was countered, I found, by the crying scene.
The dialogue, at least, shines in this book. Easie’s banter and devil-may-care attitude is fun to read, especially when one enjoys reading about rogues and thieves who are only living for themselves, looking out for number one. Easie himself was a real treat to experience the viewpoint of, even through the times when I wanted to smack him for being so self-absorbed. It was in-character, a character that unfolded swiftly from the beginning, and stayed true to itself as the book went on. Even when he put aside his own self-interests, he didn’t become a different person to do so.
The book wasn’t so devoid of substance that I don’t want to continue the series, but it does make me approach future books with some trepidation. I’m hoping that some of the book’s weaknesses will be lessened as the story goes on, with more time for development of the world and of characters who aren’t Easie. There’s a lot of potential, I think, for this series to become something awesome, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’ll end up that way in the end.
With a concept like that, how can you go wrong?
Well, for starters, you could make the book into something that’s all show and little substance, relying more on character stereotypes than actual characters to help move the story along when Easie and Saltlick tire of running (which they do a lot of through the book, as they end up chased from point A to point B, then to point C, then just when you think they might get a break, bam, onward to point D). The book-long chase scene feels less like quick action and tension and more like a reason to get to the next plot point. Can’t figure out a reason why the characters would be in a certain location? Boy, that warlord and his armies caught up awfully quick, didn’t they? Time to run again!
There isn’t much world-building done through the course of the book. Hints get dropped at a wider world with more diversity than we see directly on the pages, but little of it is actually demonstrated, making the book have a very narrow and confined feel. Easie and Saltlick are, for the most part, the only characters who get any real development, which makes a degree of sense since they do feature on almost every single page of the book, but other characters who are often with them and have their own parts to play often thus feel shallow and unrealistic. And otherwise ended up playing to stereotypes. I thought I was going to like Marina Estrada a couple of times, until it was revealed that many of her actions seem influenced by past romance and that she tends to break down in womanly sobs whenever she’s frustrated at things not going her way. Not exactly a flattering depiction of the only woman in the book. True, she is a fairly tough individual and she often has to go out of her way to keep Easie in line (and she does it well), but a lot of her strength was countered, I found, by the crying scene.
The dialogue, at least, shines in this book. Easie’s banter and devil-may-care attitude is fun to read, especially when one enjoys reading about rogues and thieves who are only living for themselves, looking out for number one. Easie himself was a real treat to experience the viewpoint of, even through the times when I wanted to smack him for being so self-absorbed. It was in-character, a character that unfolded swiftly from the beginning, and stayed true to itself as the book went on. Even when he put aside his own self-interests, he didn’t become a different person to do so.
The book wasn’t so devoid of substance that I don’t want to continue the series, but it does make me approach future books with some trepidation. I’m hoping that some of the book’s weaknesses will be lessened as the story goes on, with more time for development of the world and of characters who aren’t Easie. There’s a lot of potential, I think, for this series to become something awesome, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’ll end up that way in the end.
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