SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ash and Quill (The Great Library #3) by Rachel Caine: https://t.co/hHvhOYJcbJ
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 10, 2020
Short Review: 8.5 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): The Third Great Library novel features Jess and his friends now on the run from the Great Library among its dangerous enemies, all of whom seek to use them and their knowledge for their own purposes. Still so good.
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 10, 2020
2/3
Ash and Quill is the third book in Rachel Caine's five book "The Great Library" alternate world fantasy series, which began with Ink and Bone. Set in an alternate history in which the Library of Alexandria not only survived, but amassed great power via its control over knowledge, which it controls via some magic as well as an iron fist, its a dark tale of a group of young adults/teens fighting for freedom and knowledge. The first book left me thrilled with the setting but not with where the characters wound up, but the second book (Paper and Fire) made me come around, so I was excited to get back to the series as soon as possible.
And Ash and Quill is utterly tremendous, all the while being the darkest book yet. The characters, from main protagonist Jess, to the rest of his friends and family, have grown tremendously over the course of the first two books and grow further still in strong well plotted ways, and the action moves forward tremendously with the plot as well. And themes of power, of control, of symbolism, and freedom, to say nothing of the horrors of war and PTSD, are once again hammered here brilliantly. It doesn't all quite work for me with the setting, but it almost does, and I can't wait in two weeks to start book 4 as I have planned.
Spoilers for Books 1-2 are inevitable, so be warned.
-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
Jess Brightwell and his friends may have done the impossible - rescued their friend Thomas from a secret Library prison and escaped, taking Morgan from the Iron Tower as well....but now they find themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire - as their escape has been coopted by the Burners - the anti-Library rebels known for burning books and themselves in service to their creed: A life is worth more than a book. And now, trapped in the besieged Burner city of Philadelphia, they find themselves under the control of people who want not to reform the library, but to destroy it...and who are totally willing to destroy them if they can't take out the library itself.
To survive and to escape, Jess and his friends will need to finally build the device that nearly brought Thomas and Wolfe to their knees - the printing press - which will give them enough time and tools to maybe make their escape. But even if they all can escape Philadelphia, the city is besieged on all sides by Library forces, so where else is there to go? And if the Burners can't be made to see reason in helping them against the library, how can they, a group of 8, manage to take down the library's corrupt leaders on their own?
The answer will rely upon Jess and his friends pushing their skills to and beyond dangerous limits, and will require Jess to consider a betrayal of everything and everyone he holds dear.....
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Ash and Quill picks things up immediately after Paper and Fire (unlike the few month-long time skip that interposed itself between books 1 and 2), with our heroes in an utterly new setting: Philadelphia, a city under siege by the Library. But this is a very different Philadelphia, and a very different United States (or well, "United Colonies of America") than the one we know - its a poor besieged city on the brink of starvation, instead of a proud bastion of freedom. We know from small snippets of dialogue in the prior books that the US, being a prominent base for the Burner movement, is almost a police state in terms of how the library treats it (with automata being extremely common), but seeing here Philadelphia be a city on the verge of starvation, with only temporary structures for the most part, and a people barely surviving, really brings the differences home. One other difference of course from our US is that this seems a more diverse city than the one we know - Natives live among the settlers in prominent positions among the Burners (Including one very important doctor), and queer love is not even remarked upon when seen by our heroes. It's not a perfect city in this way- an Islamophobic guard is very prominent at first - just different.
The prior books have featured the Burner rebels in small amounts, and most readers will have long expected Jess and his friends to team up with them at some point: after all, they have the same enemy in the corrupt library. But as with much in this series, things aren't quite that simple, for the Burners' reaction to centuries of oppression is to reject the idea of the Library's existence at all: to ask for it to be completely destroyed, not simply reformed. Given what we see in our own modern world today with police, and how the Library here essentially serves a similar purpose in a lot of ways in the story, that's not an unsympathetic viewpoint...but it doesn't leave room for our heroes to comfortably ally with them.
And so the plot is harrowing here right from the start, unlike in the first two books where it takes time for things to get extremely tense, as Jess and his friends must find a way to make themselves indispensable immediately - and to remain so throughout - if they want to prevent themselves from either being turned over to the Library or made an example of....in painful fashion. But again, this is a dark series, and so doing so will require our heroes to take actions in very dark shades...which, due to the circumstances, they're more than willing to do for the most part - whether that be Jess with his smuggling skills and sharp mind, Morgan with her dangerous (and proven to be very dangerous) obscurist powers, or any of the rest of the team...and this book very much tries to break the last of them of their naivete and belief in good, in particularly again...brutal fashion.
Ash and Quill picks things up immediately after Paper and Fire (unlike the few month-long time skip that interposed itself between books 1 and 2), with our heroes in an utterly new setting: Philadelphia, a city under siege by the Library. But this is a very different Philadelphia, and a very different United States (or well, "United Colonies of America") than the one we know - its a poor besieged city on the brink of starvation, instead of a proud bastion of freedom. We know from small snippets of dialogue in the prior books that the US, being a prominent base for the Burner movement, is almost a police state in terms of how the library treats it (with automata being extremely common), but seeing here Philadelphia be a city on the verge of starvation, with only temporary structures for the most part, and a people barely surviving, really brings the differences home. One other difference of course from our US is that this seems a more diverse city than the one we know - Natives live among the settlers in prominent positions among the Burners (Including one very important doctor), and queer love is not even remarked upon when seen by our heroes. It's not a perfect city in this way- an Islamophobic guard is very prominent at first - just different.
The prior books have featured the Burner rebels in small amounts, and most readers will have long expected Jess and his friends to team up with them at some point: after all, they have the same enemy in the corrupt library. But as with much in this series, things aren't quite that simple, for the Burners' reaction to centuries of oppression is to reject the idea of the Library's existence at all: to ask for it to be completely destroyed, not simply reformed. Given what we see in our own modern world today with police, and how the Library here essentially serves a similar purpose in a lot of ways in the story, that's not an unsympathetic viewpoint...but it doesn't leave room for our heroes to comfortably ally with them.
And so the plot is harrowing here right from the start, unlike in the first two books where it takes time for things to get extremely tense, as Jess and his friends must find a way to make themselves indispensable immediately - and to remain so throughout - if they want to prevent themselves from either being turned over to the Library or made an example of....in painful fashion. But again, this is a dark series, and so doing so will require our heroes to take actions in very dark shades...which, due to the circumstances, they're more than willing to do for the most part - whether that be Jess with his smuggling skills and sharp mind, Morgan with her dangerous (and proven to be very dangerous) obscurist powers, or any of the rest of the team...and this book very much tries to break the last of them of their naivete and belief in good, in particularly again...brutal fashion.
It's in this context that we see Jess' mind working towards answers, and they are tremendous to see come about, with it all finishing with a 3 chapter final sequence where the book hints at a terrible choice being made....and then things come together in a way that still hits hard with all the tremendous foreshadowing. Things are moving towards their conclusion, even with two books to go, and while not all that works - there's one development in the setting in the Ephemera which just seems a bit too convenient honestly and was a bit jarring as a result - it almost all does, and while the series is now somehow at a grimmer point than at the end of book 1 (where I almost dropped the series), I'm now even more fully invested and can't wait to see how things turn out....
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