At its core, “Republic of Thieves” is really a character study of Locke, which after being with him for two books is poignantly beautiful. He emerges out of the white-collar criminal into Locke the Human. While we’ve seen snippets and snapshots of his humanity throughout the first 2 novels, Locke’s deepening relationship with Jean, and Sabetha’s return to his life brings out a push-pull to his character that we haven’t seen before. As in his previous books, Lynch weaves the Bastards’ childhood stories in with their […]
A Disaster at the end of this Book
I picked up this novella as part of a Humble Bundle sale, because there were other books I was more interested in reading. But it’s short (99 pages) and I figured since I just finished reading something a little bit on the heavier side I could use a little light reading. Alas. This was not the book I hoped it would be.
Fun story. But fire the editor, please.
Eiji Miyaki is a young man in search of his father. In a modern, Japanese, coming-of-age tale, he doesn’t meet his father but if his goal in meeting him was to learn something about himself, well that happens in spades. Eiji’s father is fiercely protective of his paternity and keeps a watchdog lawyer and assorted Yakuza goons to keep Eiji from meeting him. The story meanders through derailments on Eiji’s journey. When Eiji hits a roadblock, or is planning a next step, he frequently diverts into […]
When You Can’t Change the Past, Try to Learn From It (and also Avoid Creating Paradoxes)
The penultimate collected volume of Joe Hill’s Locke & Key series (illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez) provides some history regarding the Lovecraft residence, the history of the magical keys, and how the patriarch of the Locke family became implicated in the history of the house and what is occurring now, back when he was just a teenager. Unlike the previous volumes of this dark and inventive series, past events are the focus of “Clockworks,” and we get some answers as to what the house and keys […]