(no subject)

[bjornwilde]

Dear Lazywebs: I find myself wanting to read a series with a rogue/thief who uses magic. I blame having finished both of the Six of Crow books. I have read most of the Vlad Taltos series (which I should get back to), and the first book in the Legend of Eli Monpress (which didn't quite work for me).

Got any suggestions?

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

*helpfully* You should get back to the Vlad books :) (and I should go back and finish Crooked Kingdom :P)

Mmm, I can't think of another high-magic series with a prominent rogue/thief type who uses magic himself... I like Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora for the roguery, but although magic exists in the world, the rogues themselves don't use it.

But if you get any suggestions, I'll be interested in them too!

[bjornwilde]

You are the second to mention the Lies of Locke Lamora, so that obviously means I should check it out.

I ended up follow up a recommendation for the series of books the video game Witcher is based on. I'm hopeful they are good and it will be interested and likely not Tolkien fantasy as the author is from Poland.

I also go a recommendation for Richard K Morgan's The Steel Remains, but with reading the description it seems very Conan or the like, which isn't quite what I'm in the mood for.

Eli Monpress had potential but it read like a Disney Channel special to me, which isn't what I wanted. I like love able rogues, but not when it's like Disney's live action TV.

Oh, I've also been meaning to mention the Kate Daniels series to you. If you haven't read it, it's an urban fantasy with romance elements, that has a lot of Russian fairy tale/folklore elements to it. I can't say anything about how accurate it is but one half of the writing team is Russian.

[hamsterwoman]

I do recommend 'Lies' and its two sequels currently out -- they're fun books (though the first one is my favorite of the three) With two caveats though: One is out-of-universe -- the author is prone to writer's block, so the doorstopper books come out fairly sporadically/with delays. The other is about the books themselves -- Lynch tends to kill off a lot of characters, so after a while I found it hard to get invested in newly introduced ones.

I've actually read two (and a half, maybe?) of the Witcher books! And, come to think of it, they gave me a bit of a Brustian vibe, actually. There's a lot of tagless dialogue/action through dialogue, and I feel like the dark humour is a bit similar. I read them in Russian, so not sure about the English translation, but I enjoyed what i saw.

I also enjoy the Kate Daniels series! :) Well, parts of it, anyway -- not so much into all the shifter stuff, but I love their take on vampires/the People (and Ghastek in particular), and Kate's hilarious family drama with Roland. I'm a couple of books behind at this point, but fully intend to catch up. (And the Russian folklore and general feel is very good, as far as these things go, yep!)

Actually, have you read Ilona Andrews' other series? I liked her The Edge books as well (they're sort of... a mash-up of high magic secondary world and urban fantasy and 'borderland' sort of fantasy). One of them even has con artist protagonists, which might suit your rogue craving. I prooobably wouldn't start with that one, as that's book #3, although they're patterned on sequences of romance novels, standalone plots focusing on characters who are minor characters in the other books, so can be read in approximately any order. I *did* start with that one, because guile hero(es), but want to reread it with the full knowledge of the first two books, because I know I was missing a lot of fun bits.

I like love able rogues, but not when it's like Disney's live action TV.

yeahhh, that's probably not for me either....

[bjornwilde]

Yeah, the shifter politics got old really fast. I am not a fan of the alpha male power fantasy. I did love Andrea and the Bouda though. I also loved witches and the vulv (sp?), especially Roman. I think I stopped reading them a book or so ago cause I realized Andrea was the character I was reading the series for and she was being pushed farther away from the main story.

It's a curse I have, to fall in love with a character and then they die or are pushed out of the narrative.

I did read the first of the Edge books and it had potential. The Innkeeper is an interesting series, though there is too much of the male power fantasy within, imho.

[bjornwilde]

I had another arcane rogue thought, Delilah Bard from V. A. Schwab’s “A Darker Shade of Magic” trilogy. It had a lot of potential but is very Anglocentric, like it could easily have been an episode of Dr. Who, which I have to be in the mood for. The characters are fun but everything happens in London, despite multidimensional travel and I don’t remember much ethnic diversity. There are gay characters though.

[hamsterwoman]

I started 'Darker Shade of Magic' some time ago but ran out of steam fairly early in the first book. I might come back to it at some point, as i did like the premise. (Anglo-centric or even London-centric is definitely not a problem for me, as I spent one year reading a ton of urban fantasy set in London, chasing a Rivers of London high while waiting for the next book of that, and another year reading a bunch of Victorian-era fantasy :)

Responding to the older comment here, too:

I did love Andrea and the Bouda though. I also loved witches and the vulv (sp?), especially Roman

The Boudas were definitely the most interesting of the shifters for me! And I liked Andrea in the Kate books, but the side stories that I tried that featured her more prominently just didn't work for me, prose-wise.

The witches and the volhv (it's a weird word even in Russian :) were fun -- and it's SO rare to see Russian elements in fantasy done right.

I read the first three Edge books, and while #1 was nice enough, #2 was my favorite by a long shot (if you remember William the werewolf from the first book, he's the protagonist), and #3 (with the con-artists) was also really cute, and featured more of Rose's younger brothers. Since William and Rose's younger brother ended up being my favorite things about book 1, you can probably see haw 2 and 3 would be my favorites :)

I've heard good things about the Innkeeper series, and I like multiverses/crossover-type settings, so I definitely want to check those out at some point.

It's a curse I have, to fall in love with a character and then they die or are pushed out of the narrative.

Me too, but with Lynch it's almost inevitable, from what I've seen. So I've started warning people for that now :)