When I was home a few weeks ago, I talked my parents into watching Logan Lucky by describing it as “hillbilly Oceans Eleven.” It’s hard to not like a good caper – underdogs taking on the man in increasingly clever ways. My reviews on the Gentlemen Bastards series mostly bemoaned the lack of that cleverness and unkindly compared them to the Rogues of the Republic series so here I am, finally reviewing the ones I liked better. It’s Oceans Eleven, but with unicorns!
Weekes manages the tough job of creating a wide cast of characters who are all fundamentally very good people without making them boring and honestly, they’re even all pretty distinct! Renegade turncoat and thief Loch is on a mission and she needs to assemble a top notch crew. In a brief and delightful book equivalent of a montage she brings together her second in command, a death priestess, a failed wizard, a foreign acrobat, a sassy lockpick, a seemingly useless farmboy, and, yes, a g-d unicorn. They need to steal the mostly Heavily Guarded McGuffin and they need to do it while being pursued by heavy hitters both above and beneath the law.
And they’ll do it with the assist of the driest zombie you’d ever want to caper with.
The books themselves can become a little interchangable (I’ll get to that more in the review of book 2) but you won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time. Mouthbreathers offended by diversity need not apply – the book has starring roles across gender, race, and sexuality. They’re a fun romp and I hope some of y’all will read them so we can chat!
A good friend of mine recommended this to me recently. It’s on my list.