Monday, March 26, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Bookburners Season 3 by Max Gladstone, Mur Lafferty, Margaret Dunlap, Brian Slattery, & Andrea Phillips





  The Bookburners series has been one of a few series that I've enjoyed over the past two years simply for being a light, fun SF/F series, without being too deep.  For those who don't know the series, Bookburners technically isn't a series of novels - it's part of Serial Box Publishing, which publishes "serials" or seasons of stories in various genres.  By "serial" I mean it publishes each chapter separately and charges for each chapter separately, basically as if each chapter is an episode of a TV Show.  I really enjoyed the first Bookburners season, which was compiled and released in a compilation as a print book, but was a little less high on the second season (which was collected digitally but has not been collected in print yet).   This third season has yet to be collected in any form, but the Hoopla Digital Library acquired each episode as it came out, ,and I've spent the past few months borrowing 2-4 episodes a month until I completed Season 3 this month.

  For those new to the Bookburners series, the story follows the Vatican's Team 3 - a team dedicated to investigating various instances of magic and demon activity throughout the world and trying to prevent it from going awry, while also trying to keep it hidden from the world (Much of the magic comes from magic books, which is how the team got the slang name "Bookburners").  The team consists of Father Menchu - the Guatemala leader and a priest;  Liam, an American whose involvement with a group trying to integrate technology and magic once got him possessed; Grace, a former Chinese agent of the early 1900s whose life is magically tied to the burning of a wax candle; Asanti, the archivist of the team who wishes to explore more of the uses of magic; and Sal, an American who joined the team when her brother Perry became possessed by a demon.

  Obvious Note:  Like a TV Show, you shouldn't start Bookburners with Season 3, as it builds very much on the developments in the prior two seasons.  Start with Bookburners Season 1 and 2, then go to this.

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------
Team 3 is in disarray.  Grace has left for Team 1, leaving the team without a powerhouse fighter.  Asanti and Frances are secretly conducting magical experiments on the new Team 4.  And the ultra-conservative Cardinal Fox is watching the team like a hawk to ensure they don't go out of line with the use of magic.

But they can't afford to not be on the same picture for long, because a figure from Menchu's past has re-emerged: the angel that destroyed his village in Guatemala, now going by the name Hannah, has reappeared, and keeps popping up at sites of magical disturbances.  Menchu knows that Hannah is up to something big, but exactly what is she up to?  And Sal's half-Angel brother Perry also keeps popping up to help...but can he be trusted?

Team 3 will need to find a way to get over their issues with one another and find some answers quickly or else it could spell disaster - perhaps for the entire world.  That's assuming that the new Team 4's magical experiments don't kill them all first.
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  Season 3 is the first season of Bookburners that I consumed as basically it was originally intended, as if it was a TV show with various episodes.  Ironically, the first season I was consuming piecemeal  was probably the most cohesively plotted season of the three so far.  More importantly, it was a stronger Season than Season 2 (which felt in the end like kind of a placeholder season), especially coming together in the last few episodes.

  Season 3 builds on the sequel hooks of the prior two seasons - the fate of Sal's half-angel brother Perry and Asanti and Frances's efforts to clandestinely restart Team 4 and experiment with magic.  The end result is a fun plot that has a lot of surprises in how it turns out and that builds upon what we've learned about the team we already have learned to love.  It also takes some of the characters in some new directions, building a new romantic relationship between two of the team and really establishing a new understanding of the relations between some of the others.  I'm not sure the romance works too well at first - it kind of comes out of nowhere? - but the Season makes it work.

  Basically, I still love the characters in this series quite a bit and that carries over to this Season.  And the plot is really well done and intriguing - again I was reading this basically by reading 3 episodes a month, and I had to resist borrowing future episodes the moment I finished a month's allotment.  And then it finishes on a satisfying but tantalizing cliffhanger (more than either of the two prior seasons), making me want more.

  Again, is the season anything particularly special or particularly deep?  No, not at all, although this probably comes the closest of any of the seasons by virtue of its character work.  But it's a fun romp that I can't help loving, and I really look forward now to Season 4.

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