The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes

The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes

Update (10.22.13): This is an old review, and so I wanted to say that as far as I know the Kindle version has since been corrected and is now free of the formatting errors and typos. The publisher even contacted me after see this review and was awesome enough to replace my old copy with the fixed one! Plus I'm aware that this book also just got "re-released" so I'm sure everything should be perfect now! Go read it, it's a fun book! ~Mogsy

A band of thieves plot to pull off the greatest heist ever -- fantasy style! What an awesome book this was -- though, I would like to give a couple heads-ups beforehand:

1) If you are planning to read this on the Kindle, be forewarned that there are quite a few formatting errors and typos in that version, which the author explained to me over Twitter were introduced by the publisher's scanning software. Ultimately these errors weren't too bad, just mildly distracting, and I certainly can't fault Weekes for those. I was told the Kindle version will be fixed in the near future. (Edit: See my update above)

2) However, I also found the writing to be a bit rough, though this might be attributed to the author's own unique style. Patrick Weekes is perhaps best known for his writing work for the video game company BioWare and their popular Mass Effect series, and perhaps not surprisingly, often when I was reading this book it almost felt like Weekes was describing a scene from a movie or cinematic sequence, one that only he can see in his head. There were parts where I found descriptions to be lacking; for example, there were a few scenes with lots of conversation bouncing between multiple characters. These were especially tough on me, since they work well on a big screen when the audience can follow the speakers visually, but they don't fly so well on the written page. And in a book like this, there certainly were a lot of characters to keep track of.

Those were the two main obstacles I had to overcome, but apart from them I have to say this book was very enjoyable. I was sucked in completely somewhere between the first couple of chapters -- after prisoners Loch and Kail escape their sentences and start planning their heist by recruiting other thieves and other talented individuals to their cause. No shocker that this book has been described as Ocean's Eleven meets fantasy, as that's pretty much the whole story, with a magical twist.

The first quarter of the novel was probably my favorite part, as it comprised all the character introductions. We have two ex-soldiers-turned-thieves, a tinkerer/lock picker extraordinaire, one talented acrobat, a shape-shifting unicorn, a death priestess and her magical talking hammer, a wizard, and his young friend with a big secret. It's a colorful group of players, and like I said before, lots of characters to keep track of. With such a huge cast, I wasn't expecting much terms of character development which under these circumstances would be understandable, but I should have had more faith. I ended up being very impressed, especially given the restraints the author had to work with, and I liked how each of the characters were unique, provided an interesting background and an important role to play. Surprisingly, though? My favorite character was not one of the thieves. Instead, that honor belonged to the justicar Pyvic, the "inspector" in this story who is tasked to track them.

One other thing I want to mention about the characters: I find "group" heist stories and their casts are often male-dominated (I mean, look at Ocean's Eleven, Reservoir Dogs, etc.) so I have to say I feel like giving Patrick Weekes a big kudos for writing a book featuring an ensemble which includes quite a few women -- women who aren't solely there for token purposes or just to be romantic interests, I might add! In fact, not counting the talking warhammer, half the team is female. Anyway, this observation did strike me as different as well as a welcome change, so I just thought I'd throw that out there.

As I was saying, I realize a big cast necessitates taking away from character development somewhat, but I also want to note that it might have taken away from the world-building as well. Though don't get me wrong, what we are given about the setting and its background is adequate and more than enough to follow the book, but I wouldn't have minded a little more description. I gathered that we have a world here which is populated by humans, dwarves and elves. The humans are comprised of different races, defined by geography and history. There's an established political system in place. Multiple tongues are spoken by the people, but at some point one of the characters also spoke French, which was referred as an ancient language. I love it all, and Weekes obviously put a lot of thought into this world. It's just a shame he didn't get a chance to fully flesh it out, but then again, I understand there's a story to be told and that takes full priority.

And that is what drives everything in the end, after all. The story. Full of political intrigue, twists and turns, double crosses and hidden agendas, it's actually quite amazing to me how the author managed to cram all that goodness into this average-length book. It definitely makes up for everything else.

Bottom line: this book is clever, humorous and a lot of fun. If you're looking for a light read with a good action-filled and fast-paced story, you won't be disappointed.

Final Verdict:

 4 of 5 stars