Fin­ished Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. This is the sec­ond book in his Gen­tle­man Bas­tards epic fan­tasy series.

Thief Locke Lam­ora and his part­ner Jean are plan­ning their biggest heist yet — to rob a noto­ri­ous casino known as the Sin­spire. They’re also still on the run from the Bonds­magi. Locke and Jean tor­tured one of the group’s pow­er­ful wiz­ards, and now the Bonds­magi want revenge. Along the way, Locke and Jean get involved in loads of polit­i­cal intrigue and end up lead­ing a crew of pirates. That sounds like a lot of plot, and it is, but this is also an epic fan­tasy book. It’s to be expected.

Let me start off by say­ing that I don’t think this book is as good as the first one, The Lies of Locke Lam­ora. Why not? Because of the struc­ture of the book. Red Seas basi­cally feels like two books to me. First of all,  you have what hap­pens to Locke/Jean as they try to rob the Sin­spire. That part of the plot basi­cally serves as two book­ends to the mid­dle sec­tion, which is all about pol­i­tics, pirates, and sail­ing. I didn’t think that the two meshed so well.

Also, I have to say that I got a lit­tle tired of all the world build­ing after a while, espe­cially when it came to the sail­ing sec­tion of the book. There are lots of terms and lots of tech­ni­cal details included. I’m sure some folks will find that fas­ci­nat­ing. I’m all for world build­ing in books, but I find myself get­ting tired of all the intri­cate, minute details that come along with lots of books in the epic fan­tasy genre. I think you can world build and not be so wordy and long-winded about it. Also, there was no map in this book, which I think would have helped a great deal.

That’s the neg­a­tive stuff, but there’s also lots of good stuff in this book too, namely Locke and Jean. They are at times charm­ing, ruth­less, bril­liant, morose, heart­bro­ken, cun­ning, down on their luck, and more. They really are two great char­ac­ters, and they play off each other bril­liantly. There are also lots of great dia­logue, descrip­tions, and turns of phrases. Some of the best lines come from the pirates when they’re curs­ing each other.

I liked the Sin­spire plot much more than the pirate stuff, but Lynch does tie the two together well in the end. There are sev­eral nice twists in the last thirty pages that make the whole book worth­while and have me look­ing for­ward to the third book, which I hope is com­ing out next year. (Every time I look on Ama­zon, the release date keeps get­ting pushed back.)

Over­all, if you’re look­ing for a new epic fan­tasy series to try, you can’t go wrong with Locke and Jean. They’ll steal your hearts. Thumbs up.

Up next: One Shot by Lee Child.

Books in my TBR pile: About 15.

Fin­ished McK­et­tricks of Texas: Austin by Linda Lael Miller. This is the sec­ond book in Miller’s con­tem­po­rary west­ern tril­ogy about three McK­et­trick brothers.

When the sen­a­tor that Gar­rett McK­et­trick works for becomes involved in a polit­i­cal scan­dal, he heads back to the fam­ily ranch in Texas to sort some things out. To his sur­prise, Julie Rem­ing­ton and her young son are stay­ing at the ranch while their house is fumi­gated since Julie’s sis­ter is engaged to Garrett’s brother (the tril­ogy focuses on three sis­ters and three broth­ers). Gar­rett and Julie become involved, but Julie fears that Gar­rett will soon leave the ranch to go back to work for the senator …

Miller is one of those authors whose books are like com­fort food to me. They’re just warm and fill­ing. You know where the story is going every step of the way, but Miller’s writ­ing style and the emo­tions of her char­ac­ters really ele­vate the books to another level for me. I like her style so much that I feel a major glom of her back­list com­ing on.

Julie and Gar­rett are both lik­able char­ac­ters with real prob­lems — the father of Julie’s son now wants to estab­lish some kind of rela­tion­ship with the boy, while Gar­rett feels betrayed and embar­rassed that the sen­a­tor is not the man that he thought he was. It’s a plea­sure watch­ing how these two over­come their prob­lems and forge a new life together.

I like this one even bet­ter than the first book in the series. Thumbs up.

Up next: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch.

Books in my TBR pile: About 15.

Is over at Rom­Com. Enjoy!

So I dragged Whee­z­ley off to see The A-Team movie this week­end. I’m a huge fan of the old TV show, so I’ve been look­ing for­ward to the movie for a while now.

It didn’t disappoint.

For those of you who remem­ber it, the TV show was about four Viet­nam vets who were accused of a crime that they didn’t com­mit — Han­ni­bal Smith, Tem­ple­ton “Face­man” Peck, B.A. Bara­cus, and H.M. “Howl­ing Mad” Mur­dock. The movie updates the premise to make them Gulf War vets.

The movie is really an ori­gin story of how the A-Team came together and starts out in Mex­ico with Han­ni­bal and Face on a mis­sion. Along the way, they meet B.A. and Mur­dock, and the team is born. Flash for­ward sev­eral years, and the boys are tasked to retrieve some trea­sury plates that have fallen into the wrong hands. The mis­sion is a suc­cess — until the gen­eral who gave them the assign­ment gets mur­dered and the plates van­ish. Before you know it, the team is in prison, but that’s not going to stop them from clear­ing their names …

One of the things that I loved about the TV show was that it was just fun. Lots of action, lots of dar­ing escapes, lots of stuff blow­ing up. The movie really nails that same fun vibe. It’s def­i­nitely a sum­mer pop­corn movie, and it doesn’t take itself too seri­ously, some­thing that I always appre­ci­ate. The actors all look like they’re hav­ing fun (espe­cially Sharlto Cop­ley as Mur­dock), and there’s a nice lit­tle twist near the end that I didn’t see coming. There are also sev­eral lit­tle nods to the show that I appre­ci­ated, like some of the names that were used (Lynch, espe­cially) and the fact that the team has to knock out B.A. to get him on a plane.

Over­all, if you’re look­ing for a fun way to spend the after­noon, check out this movie. It’s much bet­ter than Prince of Per­sia and a lot more fun than Robin Hood. I hope there’s a sequel.

My grade: B+.

What about you guys? Any­one seen any­thing good this sum­mer? Share in the comments.

Besides Robin Hood, the other movie that I’ve seen so far this sum­mer is Prince of Per­sia: The Sands of Time, which of course is based on the pop­u­lar video game.

In this movie, the orphan boy Das­tan is res­cued from the streets by the king and raised as one of his sons. Flash for­ward sev­eral years, and Das­tan has mor­phed into Jake Gyl­len­haal (love the abs, hate the hair). Das­tan and his broth­ers decide to go against the king’s wishes and sack a holy city. Even­tu­ally, Das­tan comes into the pos­ses­sion of a mys­ti­cal dag­ger that lets its owner turn back time. The dag­ger is guarded by a beau­ti­ful princess, and she and Das­tan spar back and forth as they try to unravel a con­spir­acy about the dag­ger and who wants them both dead.

This isn’t a ter­ri­ble movie, but it’s not a great one either. Some of the fight scenes are cool, and Das­tan and the princess have a good rap­port. Other than that, it’s a lot of Ben Kings­ley chew­ing the scenery as Dastan’s treach­er­ous uncle and Alfred Molina being annoy­ing as a guy who loves ostrich rac­ing (seriously).

Wait for this one on cable. 

My grade: C-.