Wednesday, July 28, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu

 





The Library of the Dead is the genre debut of Zimbabwean (and now located in Edinburgh) author TL Huchu, previously known for two acclaimed non-genre works (as Tendai Huchu).  It's also a book I'd seen a lot of hype from authors I trust (and perhaps non-coincidentally, from European authors of color), so I was very much looking forward to it, and even reserved a physical copy from the library.  

And I was very impressed by The Library of the Dead, as a new (arguably YA) Urban Fantasy series taking place in what seems to be a near-future or alternate & dystopian Edinburgh, featuring as its protagonist a teenage Zimbabwean dropout, who spends her time trying to support her family by talking to ghosts.  Naturally she gets involved with a library that teaches magic as well as a case involving missing children who turn up occasionally withered and abnormally aged, and has to use all her wits, skills, allies, and luck just to survive.  It's a really well done opening novel in a series, although it seems to hint at or set up a lot of themes and ideas that it never really goes into, leaving those for possible sequels.  


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Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghosttalker, passing on the messages of the dead to their living loved ones....for a price.  And she needs every bit of money she can earn for it - for her blind grandma and sister live in a slum on the outskirts of Edinburgh, with a property owner demanding of his rent, and the costs of her sister's education and grandma's medicine aren't getting any lower.  Ropa loves her family, even if she can't bear to tell her grandma the truth of how on the edge they are, or how impossible Ropa finds her grandma's lessons on magic.  

But when Ropa is browbeaten by a ghost into looking into the disappearance of her son, she finds herself on the trail of something mysterious: a phenomena that is disappearing some kids and causing others to turn up like aged husks.  And when the occult library she discovers seems unwilling to help, Ropa knows that she, plus a few friends of her age with some magical skill, is the only one who is willing to do what's right and figure out what's going on.  

But can a girl with basically no magical skills other than being able to commune with and go to the planes of the dead handle a mysterious foe that is taking Edinburgh's unwanted children?  Or will Ropa wind up just like the other kids, an aged husk, forgotten by everyone? 
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The Library for the Dead takes place in an alternate Edinburgh, one in which at least some aspects of magic are common place and regulated, such as talking to the dead, and others are a bit underground (such as the titular library).  It's also one which might take place a bit in our future, in which modern technology is mixed with some lesser types due to some kind of un-specified disaster, in which Edinburgh was supposedly saved by a King (resulting in everyone's greeting to one another being "God Save the King," "Long May He Reign"), and which is hinted at being far more dystopian and police state-y as a result.  Still, there's plenty of elements of our real world issues in this version of Edinburgh, from corrupt racist police to elitist, racist, and passive aggressive gatekeepers to worlds both magical and mundane.  

Into that world is Ropa, a black girl (from an African family) who lives with her grandmother and younger sister in what's basically a shantytown, paying rent to an exploitative land owner and just trying to keep her family alive.  Ropa is incredibly easy to like - she's smart, snappy, caring, and pragmatic, she wants to learn more about the world but dropped out of school to help support her family, tries to ensure her sister stays in school and tries hard, and also tries to keep her troubles from worrying her Gran even as things get more out of control.  She also is desperate to use her ghost talking ability to make money to support her family and not to get caught up in a charity case.....but guess what happens anyway?  And when she finds a library that could possibly provide better instruction in magic than the bits that her Gran tries to teach her, she dives right in, thrilled that some instruction might finally make sense.  Her good nature, cleverness, wisecracking, and yet still pragmatic attitude makes her an incredibly fun protagonist to root for.  

And she's an incredibly solid protagonist to contrast with a world and plot that is incredibly crapsack in how it treats people like Ropa - poor, minority, and not fitting into a typical scheme.  So you have the titular library, which would seemingly want to kill someone like her from getting in through a back entrance, and then tries to charge her a usurious rate in exchange for admittance....and then even her savior and benefactor provides microaggressions like denying the value in her gran's magical teachings as being "old and discredited".  And of course the main plot has Ropa dealing with missing children who no one but a man who leads one of the slums seems to care about, that the snobs at the library refuse to do anything about, forcing Ropa, and her two friends, most notably her Indian wheelchair-bound friend Priya (who is a delight by the way), to get over their heads in trying to figure out what's going on and save the day.  

Still, this is very much a first novel in a series and its hard to ignore that, with a lot of those themes I mentioned in the prior paragraphs only being dealt with to a small extent, being built up for later volumes to come (for example, the conflict between Ropa's Gran's attempt at magical teachings and the snobbish Scottish library's?  Yeah that never comes into play).  And the culprit behind the scenes here - not counting the real big bad who remains unrevealed - is the obvious one you will guess from the very beginning, so this isn't exactly some tremendous mystery.  But it's still really fun, and creative in how Ropa gets herself out of trouble to defeat the bad guys for now, and the themes are strong enough that it's hard to mind too much.  

Very enjoyable, and I'll be back for book 2 next year.

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