Tuesday, September 10, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman




Genevieve Cogman's "Invisible Library" series is the rare kind of series for me: it's a series that I wouldn't necessarily consider the best of the SciFi/Fantasy (it's a hybrid) genres....and yet also a series that is so so so damn hard for me to put down once I get into it.  It'd taken me a single day to read each of the first two books in the series so far, so when my library said that this book, which is the third book in the series, was available immediately, I deliberately avoided starting it until I was sure I could afford to spend a single day to burn through it....

And yeah, it took me only one day again to burn through The Burning Page.  Like its predecessors, the book is incredibly well paced, with the book using its multiversal setting of multiple fantasy and scifi based worlds to pose some really interesting challenges for our hero...who remains just so so great as she tries to work her way through them all.  And again, the book is just incredibly fun and creative, culminating in a collision between our protagonist and antagonist that is so so well done.  Yeah, I love this series still and The Burning Page is an excellent installment within it.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
After disobeying Library rules in order to save Kai from a pair of powerful Fae, Irene and Kai have been on probation, drawing only the worst and least important retrieval assignments until the Library deems them forgiven.  But when returning from one such mission goes strangely - and dangerously awry - the two barely manage to escape.  And when there's an attempt on Irene's life, it becomes clear that there's more going on, especially after Irene gets called into an all-hands-on meeting at the Library.

The reason for that meeting?  Alberich, the rogue librarian Irene and Kai barely managed to survive previously, is back, and has begun to take action to destroy the Library itself.  And worse, it appears Alberich hasn't forgotten his earlier meeting with Irene, and has her directly in his sights.  To survive, and to somehow stop the most dangerous person in the multiverse, it will take all of Irene's wits, her friends, and a whole lot of luck and even that may not be enough.....
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As usual for this series, we see the whole book (prologue bits aside) from the point of view of our heroine Irene.  And again, Irene is fantastic, with her quick thinking in practically any dangerous situation always being fun to read, and her concerns for her friends and her home, the Library, making her pretty damn easy to root for.  As you might expect from the third book in a series, the book further develops Irene's relationships between the other characters - most notabaly Irene's apprentice Kai and the Holmes-ian detective Vale.  Irene's attracted to both guys, although her scruples keep her from being interested in any relationship with Kai (as her apprentice) and Vale, while clearly interested, has issues of his own that get in the way.  It's pretty damn frustrating for Irene, and it's hard not to feel for her as the guys in her life don't help these feelings.

But yeah, if you've gotten two books in, you know that the main characters are great - how about the plot this time around?  Dealing again with Alberich as the antagonist works really well, as are the other returning villains and potential villains this time around.  The story that centered the ending of the first book returns here and takes an interesting twist that suggests it might avert the most obvious series turn: gung Verar vf Nyorevpu'f fvfgre'f qnhtugre, nf nalbar jub ernq Gur Vaivfvoyr Yvoenel cebonoyl fhfcrpgf....ohg guvf obbx frrzf gb fhttrfg znl abg or gur erny nafjre.  (Spoiler for Book 1 here, in Rot13).  And the final confrontation between Irene and Alberich is fantastic as the two use the Language in a duel of fascinating proportions.

This is probably the weakest installment so far mind you, just by a little bit, due to the book containing a subplot concerning Library politics that goes.....absolutely nowhere and seems to serve no purpose whatsoever in the end.  The book also ends oddly abruptly - the main conflict is resolved, but how others will react to that is never actually seen, which is just a weird place to end.  It's still a nice ending, with a realization from Irene that's an excellent way to cap things off, but it just felt weird, I don't know.

But yeah, I love this series.  Go read it, if you like fun and creative fantasy.
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