A review by vaxildidi
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

4.0

First of all, this book is incredible. Lynch's world building and dialogue remains strong as the world expands and the number of characters and motivations increase, and the city of Tal Verrar is a fun, fun city. If Camoor was Fantasy Venice, this was Fantasy Montenegro, a small citystate whose rule is a tense relationship between a group of rich merchants and a military dictator in all but name, where gambling is the order of the day. And Locke and Jean's plan, to get their feet back under them after losing their entire crew to the Gray King, is to rob the greatest casino in the city, The Sunspire. And of course, things immediately get complicated.

The military dictator of the city, thanks to the Bondsmagi our Gentlemen bastards left angry, is made aware of Locke and Jean's true identity as confidence men and decides to...employ them to start a pirate rebellion. The logic being, he can then consolidate power by bilking the merchant council for tax money to rebuild his navy and then use the navy to squash the rebellion, thus also gaining popularity from the populus, leaving the merchant council both broke and without political capital.

The first chunk of this book, in the setting of up the city of Tel Verrar and exploring the time directly after the events of book one are admittedly a bit slow, but they are carried by the fun of the gambling of the Sunspire and the wonderful relationship of between Jean and Locke. However, once the boys get to sea, and especially the last 200 pages or so of this book, are nigh un-put-downable.

The one and only issue I had with this book, and it's happened in both books now, is

Spoiler

the introduction of a woman who is or becomes close to one of the main characters (Locke in the first book, Jean in this one) who meets a horrible fate. Stop killing women for your men's character development. It's cheap, boring, terribly tropey and bad.

worth a full star off.