SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Paper and Fire by Rachel Caine

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Paper and Fire by Rachel Caine: https://t.co/CXg5uT6Hz2

Short Review: 8.5 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 1, 2020

Short Review (cont): The 2nd Great Library novel follows Jess and his friends as they attempt a desperate rescue mission against a secret Library prison, throwing aside all security in a desperate gamble to save those people and ideas they care about. Really good sequel.

2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 1, 2020

Paper and Fire is the second book in Rachel Caine's "Great Library" series, following Ink and Bone (reviewed here).  The Great Library puts a different spin (for me at least) of a classical SF/F trope - the all powerful library who preserves knowledge for mankind....except here, the Library (of Alexandria in this alternate Earth) is a fascist controlling entity, not a real force for good.  I enjoyed the first book's setting and character work, but it's ending was a bit brutal, even for me, and I was a bit hesitant to continue on given that.  Still, since one of my favorite authors was recommending it, I opted to give it one more book in the series a try before I gave up.

And I'm rather glad I did, because Paper and Fire mostly avoids the tropes and character-usage that I feared after book 1, and continues a story that is hard not to get completely caught up in.  Most of the lead characters remain fascinating to read about and the story continues to drop hints about things going in the background that make it all so hard not to keep reading, so that we can finally see how it all pays off.  And again, we deal with themes about the power of knowledge, the value of knowledge vs that of a life, and more.  It's still not a perfect book with some clear issues, but it's better and I'll be continuing on to book 3 soon enough.

Note 1:  I read this as an audiobook, and the reader is very good, but if as a result I misspell some names/places below that's why.

Note 2:  Again the plot summary on Amazon is bad, so don't read it as it spoils events that occur in the last 10% of the book.  If you liked the first book, you'll like this.  

Note 3:  SPOILERS for book 1 are unhidden below, as they are unavoidable.

---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Jess Brightwell in not in a good situation - given a one year contract with the Library's military (The High Garda), under the close watch of the Artifex Magnus: the second in command of the Great Library who is willing to do anything to secure the Library's power.  His best friend Thomas is dead - killed for inventing the Printing Press - and his love Morgan is locked in the Iron Tower in part due to his own actions, where she is forced to do the library's bidding...or worse.  

But when Jess discovers from a book that Thomas may not be dead after all, but imprisoned and tortured in a secret Library facility, Jess finds a new purpose: to find Thomas and break him out.  To do so, Jess will need the help of his friends: Glain, Khalila, and Dario, not to mention his former teacher Scholar Wolfe and Wolfe's lover, Captain Santi.  He'll also need to discover the secrets of the Library's most powerful weapon, its deadly lethal automata, like no one ever has before.  He'll even need the help of Morgan, the girl he loved and betrayed, who is now locked inside the Iron Tower.   

And even if he can get all that, the mission may still be nearly impossible - for Thomas' mind contains secrets that threaten the very power of the Library, and they will stop at nothing to prevent it from reaching freedom.  And if Jess and his friends try and rescue Thomas, they will be marked forever as enemies of the Library, with their futures....and lives, no longer secure for even a moment longer.....

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Paper and Fire very quickly reverses two of the decisions of Ink and Bone that troubled me the most.  First off there was Morgan, Jess' love interest who was arguably Fridged in the first book, locked away in what is supposedly an inescapable prison, drastically altering Jess' emotions and reactions.  But here, not only is she still able to communicate with the team, she finds a way to get out on her own and become part of the team again, allowing her to have her own character arc (well as much as anyone who isn't Jess does) in this story and to still be an interesting character independent of Jess.  Secondly, the book immediately (from the first few pages, so this is not a spoiler) reverses course and reveals Thomas is alive and imprisoned instead of dead.  

These two changes lighten the story a little - it's still a dark brutal story about struggling against a fascist power that controls knowledge, and people DO get hurt, but our main characters aren't seemingly destined only for misery anymore, which is a big shift.  And it allows Jess to really come into his own, with him being driven immediately to take far more initiative than he ever did in book 1, to obtain new skills and to combine them with old ones to become far more capable, and to have some more character development in the meantime to drive the story.  He's still not quite the best character emotionally (more on that below), but he's a joy to read as he struggles to find a way to right the wrongs he has found.  The rest of the crew, particularly Morgan and Wolfe, but the others as well (Glain gets more highlighting here to great effect), are also again strong characters.

And they all wind up in a plot and setting that remains excellent and twists and turns in ways I definitely didn't see coming.  We see more of the Library in other places of the world and how it controls its power, we see more of how the world outside the Library is filled with strife sometimes, and we once again see how innocents find themselves caught up in it all.  The book is arguably structured in part like a Heist novel (with the target of the Heist being Thomas), and it's pulled off rather well, and then still manages to go into surprising directions in the aftermath.  Along the way we once again see the themes of the sheer power there is in controlling knowledge and knowledge alone, and how that very power not only corrupts those who have it, but forces those without it into desperate desperate actions.  It all works really well.

This is not to say there are not issues with Paper and Fire - there still are.  Jess' tendency to refuse to spit things out to his friends when he has no reason not to still is there and is still really annoying from page 1 (seriously, this starts at the very beginning).  Jess also is still really really annoying emotionally in his relationship with Morgan, which made me want to shoot him, although that's less of a book flaw than a character one.  More importantly and annoyingly, the book has a tendency to ignore plot points that should be more significant than they are as if they never happened - so for example, the plot twist that ended the last book where Jess is forced to be a spy on Wolfe for the Artifex?  That's NEVER mentioned in this book despite it being a big deal at the end of the last one!  The book also sets up a situation where the main characters find themselves conveniently in the location they need to be - so conveniently they all clearly suspect it's a trap....and then no such trap or explanation ever materializes.  It's as if these things were cut from the book, but scraps of their existence still are there to just bug me a little.  

Still what did make it on page is a compelling story with compelling characters, and I will be back for book 3 in two weeks, with one audiobook coming in between.  I can't wait really.