Wednesday, February 6, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman




The Invisible Library is the first in a fantasy series by Genevieve Cogman which after a new release this year, is now at 5 books and counting.  This is a series in which our heroine travels throughout a multiverse in which some worlds have magic, some have just science, some have a mix of both, and things like chaos exist to throw even crazier fantastical elements into the mix, meaning there's a lot of ideas that can be thrown around in a single book.  It's also a series in which the central character works (naturally) for a Library, and isn't trying to save a world or anything.  I'd heard some raves about the series from the people I pay attention to, so I've always been meaning to get to the series at some point.

And now having read the first book in the series, I can definitely see why the series is well liked.  The setting allows for a lot of fun and crazy situations without the book seeming to go too off the rails, and the characters are really nicely done.  And the fact that the lead character is totally competent from the start and isn't seeking to save the world is a really nice change from many other stories.  And with an ending that's satisfying while also providing some pretty nice sequel hooks, I will definitely be trying out the second book in the series probably some time next month.


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
Irene is an agent of "The Library," a place where books from across the multiverse are kept and cataloged, and it's her job to find rare and unique books throughout the different worlds and bring them back.  As the child of a pair of Librarians, it's the only life she's known, and she likes it quite a bit, despite occasional interactions with her former mentor and now hated rival, Bradamant.  And while she has no magic of her own, she is quite fluent in the Language, which allows her to define things on her missions in order to help her in her quests.

But when Irene gets assigned to mentor a young librarian in training named Kai and to obtain a version of Grimm's Fairy Tales from a world featuring a magic-dominant world, she finds herself maybe over her head.  For this world is chaos infested - meaning dangerous beings such as Fae, Vampires, and more are all present and complicating things in deadly fashion.  And the book she's looking for has seemingly already been stolen - with a number of factions hunting for it.  And then there's the fact that Kai doesn't seem to be anywhere as innocent as he first appeared, with dangerous secrets of his own.

And then the biggest danger appears, as the one and only traitor to the Library shows up in the world also searching for the book.  Irene will need to work with a nosy private eye of great skill, as well as uncertain allies, in order to come out alive from this one....or to even obtain the book she's been tasked with finding in the first place.
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The Invisible Library works, as I've hinted above, because it's not afraid to throw practically everything together in the name of fun.  This is a story which begins with a quick vignette where our heroine escapes from an academy with a tome on necromancy, outrunning junior mages and animated gargoyles.  And then most of the plot takes place within a world featuring vampires, fae, steampunk-wielding crazy people, a sherlock holmes-ian detective, dragons, - you get the point.  And so you really believe anything can happen and it becomes a blast to see what else will happen.

And then there's our heroine, Irene, who is just amazing.  As I mentioned above the jump, she's an incredibly capable protagonist, fully trained in the ways of the Library, if still a junior agent.  And while she's still thrown for a loop more than a little bit by the crazy situation she finds herself in, her quick thinking and knowledge of The Language makes her a really great heroine. It's not that she's unflappable (this is not a Holmes-like perfectly in control hero), but that she's capable despite her shortcomings and able to realize her mistakes, while her love of certain parts of literature and ideas, as well as her own insecurities make her really really easy to love.  I'm really describing her poorly, but she's great.

The secondary characters are also rather excellent.  Kai is an excellent author-surrogate as the young trainee still learning the ways from Irene, and his own mysteries work rather well.  Vale is the crazy worlds' version of Sherlock Holmes (as a literature-phile, Irene and others even reference that) and he's a solid version of that archetype - too smart to trick very easily but not so smart as to be stealing the show from Irene and Kai.  And rival Bradamant is a surprising twist on the bad mentor/rival character, and the way the plot handles her is very different.

As for that plot, it works rather well, with things moving at a pretty great pace from beginning to end.  There's a little info-dumping here and there, but it never boggles things down, and the plot finds creative ways to keep things surprising and yet never verges on to deus ex machina at any point, which is a nice trick.  And the ending is satisfying and yet leaves you with a few questions, which makes continuing with the series very very enticing.

The book isn't perfect and it never quite blew me away, so I don't want to hype it up too much.  But it's an all around very solid book and I will definitely be continuing to see if the series takes the leap to truly greatness, now that it's setup it's characters and world and can expand from there.

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