(no subject)

[skygiants]

Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows is not much at all like the Heist Society books except in the crucial central factors of a.) having a plot that would probably make a lot more sense if everyone involved was at least ten years older but b.) nobody cares because everyone loves TEENS DO A HEIST!!!

Six Of Crows is set in an approximately nineteenth-century-tech fantasy world in which certain people called Grisha are born with moderate magical/telekinetic/healing powers. Somebody has discovered a highly addictive substance that amplifies Grisha powers a bajillionfold and then burns them rapidly out. As a result, a crack team of teenaged criminals from the alt!Amsterdam slums has been hired for an equivalent bajillionfold amount of dollars to break the scientist who invented the substance out of alt!Russian prison!

The team includes:

- Kaz, a notoriously ruthless (sixteen-year-old) gang leader with a genius brain, a limp, and a vendetta against another gang leader whom he holds responsible for his brother's death
- Inej, a (sixteen-year-old) acrobat and aerialist, who's working through her contract with Kaz's gang so she can leave and find the family she was stolen from
- Jesper, a (sixteen-year-old) gambling addict and sharpshooter with a crush on Kaz
- Matthias, a (sixteen-year-old) Grisha-hunting alt!Russian soldier who has spent the last year in prison thanks to
- Nina, a (sixteen-year-old) Grisha with healing powers who has spent the last year trying to get Matthias out of prison
- Wylan, a runaway merchant's son who functions simultaneously as hostage and demolitions expert

...OK, it actually makes a lot of sense for Wylan to be sixteen (and once Wylan is sixteen Jesper also has to be sixteen or else their ongoing flirtation throughout the book gets weird) (and then I guess everyone else has to be sixteen also) (plus OK it's a YA novel) (BUT I DIGRESS)

Anyway, like I said, who doesn't like 'TEENS DO A MAGIC HEIST'? This was a highly enjoyable read with solid worldbuilding, and it's always so refreshing to read a YA fantasy novel in which no super-talented teens seem likely to have a magic destiny or rule a kingdom, they just want to earn a cool bajillion dollars in order to pay off their gambling debts.

(Fair warning though, I did not know this was the first in a series when I picked it up and there is a MASSIVELY cliffhanger ending.)

(Also fair warning, pretty much every single teen has a dramatic tragic backstory, some of which include slavery/harm to children/sexual violence.)

(Also there is one scene with REALLY GROSS EYEBALL STUFF.)

Comments

[inkstone]

It is actually only the first of a duology, which does not help the cliffhanger ending, but at least assuages any fears of series that never end.

[skygiants]

This is a relief to know! (Especially since the next book comes out in September.) I wasn't quite sure whether the remaining plot seemed like it would stretch to a trilogy, but three does seem to be the magic number in YA these days.

[cinaed]

THANK YOU FOR WARNING ABOUT REALLY GROSS EYEBALL STUFF!!! Like, I don't need content warnings for most things (though I appreciate it with like rape and threats of rape), but...eye things. I can't even watch other people put contacts in without feeling sick. I actually fainted at the eye doctor once during a test! ...My eye doctor legitimately laughed in my dad's face when my dad asked when I'd be old enough for contacts. So eyeball trauma is like my one PLEASE WARN ME thing.

But this sounds like a fun read, though I might wait until closer to September to read it to avoid the cliffhanger waiting. Also I feel like I confused Six of Crows with Lisa Bowen's Wake of the Vultures, which is alternate history set in the American West which also sends on an awful cliffhanger, whoops.

[skygiants]

Yeah, eye stuff is one of the few things that'll squick me (for other people, I'm perfectly capable of putting in my own contact lenses.) GOUGING OUT EYEBALLS IS NOT OKAY.

It is a fun read, though! (Looks like they're going for very tidy pairs of two het and one gay couple, though the gay couple right now are in much earlier flirtation stages than the other two.)

[lacewood]

Ahaha, I enjoyed the book a lot, but yeah, the convenient lack of age variety does feel a little... glaring... (at least with Heist Society you've already suspended your belief at the door...? The ages are not even the most implausible element!)

I loved the crew but I felt especially fond of Jesper for not even having much of a tragic backstory. He gambles too much! This is a very legit problem! But it's not Tragic so much as self-inflicted, which was pretty refreshing. XD

That cliffhanger ending 100% deserves the warning. I should have known better than to pick up an incomplete series, WHY DID I MAKE THIS MISTAKE (AGAIN) orz

[skygiants]

Like maybe Nina and Matthias could be like .... in their ealy twenties ....? GIVEN THEY ARE BOTH REASONABLY EXPERIENCED SOLDIERS WHO HAVE TRAVELED EXTENSIVELY BEFORE THEIR SHARED BACKSTORY EVEN KICKS IN?? no, it's fine, whatever, whatever. It's fine.

Yes I was also fond of them all but I think Jesper was my favorite too! Just a normal flunked-out college kid with an ill-advised crush and a gambling problem (and a tiiiiiiiny bit of magic but, like, BARELY. I also loved his deep awkwardness about his tiny bit of magic.)

[fahye]

I have this book on order at the library because I am doing a HEIST STORY for NaNo and have recently realised that despite having watched a bazillion heist movies I am still feeling out how to do it in book form, and I want to do some exploring of how OTHERS have done it. This one sounds fun, teenagers notwithstanding*! Would you recommend Heist Society as well?


*...now all I want is for DWJ to have written a heist novel

[skygiants]

HEIST STORY :DDDD It's definitely harder in book form, I think! For one thing it pretty much demands juggling a number of POVs and doing a lot of playing with/hiding of key information in a way that comes fairly naturally to a visual format, but is harder when you're in people's heads. I'M EXCITED FOR YOURS.

The Heist Society books are a looooooooot fluffier than this, there's basically no substance to them whatsoever, but they're fun reads and probably also an interesting example of how to execute a heist on the page (they're single-POV but tend to slip into omniscient whenever they need to show something the heroine won't see.)

[fahye]

I've been trying to work out my POV and at the moment I THINK i will be able to stick with a single character, not least because I think heists work best and are most entertaining when key information is hidden from the audience and revealed bit by bit. My narrator is not the mastermind; she is in fact the mastermind's younger sister. And I want the audience to accept her view of situations and characters to begin with, but then start to question it. BIASED NARRATORS, HURRAH.

I think this story I am planning is a very Becca-friendly kind of story (siblings! thieves! magic! PROBABLY A THREESOME) and I always enjoy writing the ones where you are my ideal audience.

[skygiants]

yessssss I am excited for this already, I love being the target audience for your stuff >:D >:D >:D

[fahye]

Can you think of any other heists/cons +/- magic narratives I should check out? Someone mentioned The Lies of Locke Lamora.

[skygiants]

Yes, DEFINITELY read Lies of Locke Lamora -- I mean, it certainly has its issue and I don't know that you need to read any of the sequels, but it's very clever and a great example of the fantasy-heist genre.

Have you read Frances Hardinge's Fly Trap? It's the sequel to Fly By Night, but significantly more con/heist-y (and a bit like what it would be like if DWJ wrote a heist book? :D :D?)

Otherwise, I'm coming up surprisingly short on heist books, so clearly I need to increase my repertoire!

[fahye]

I have not! Frances Hardinge books are very elusive here. I will pester my library.

[skygiants]

OK let me try to sell you harder: the Mosca books are kind of like if DWJ wrote books about con artists attempting to run heists around the edges of Les Mis, except the revolution keeps getting in the way

[fahye]

I'M SOLD I AM DEFINITELY SOLD I have read Fly By Night and I loved the hell out of it. I was about to say that my library seems to have every Hardinge book except Fly Trap, SO USEFUL, except I've just realised that it's called Twilight Robbery in non-US countries. And I have requested it!

[skygiants]

OK GOOD THEN MY WORK HERE IS DONE :DDDDD