Wednesday, January 26, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman

 


The Untold Story is the eighth book in Genevieve Cogman's "Invisible Library" series. one of the most fun and enjoyable scifi/fantasy (sort of a hybrid) series to come out over the past couple of years.  The series, which features an interdimensional library that steals unique books from various worlds, worlds caught up in the conflict between chaos (fae) and order (dragons), is a blast to read, and I've basically read each book in a single day because I've been unable to put each installment down.  It helps that protagonist Irene is an inventive, fun and easy to root for and care about character, as she tries to deal with Fae, Dragons, Rogue Librarians, and anyone else who gets in her way as she tries at first to track down unique copies of books in the multiverse and then - as the series develops - to help keep the balance of power between the Fae, Dragons, and the Library.  

The Untold Story is book 8 of this series, so unsurprisingly it's not a place to start this series, as this story follows up on major plot developments at the end of the last book, The Dark Archive.  It's also - to my surprise - the end of the series' major story arcs, although the author makes it clear in the acknowledgements that she hopes to one day return to the series for further stories in this multiverse.  

And more importantly, the Untold Story is still tremendous fun, with great dialogue, a still terrific set of main characters, and a plot that once again kept me riveted and forced me to keep reading until I finished the book in a single day (on my morning commute, my lunch break, and my commute home).  So yeah, still highly recommend this series if you want some fun SF/F and look forward to what Cogman puts forward next.  

Spoilers for the rest of the series below (although the major spoiler is one you could've guessed after book 1):

-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
Irene is still reeling from the revelations about herself and Alberich, and what that truly means for her - but the Library has conveniently kept her busy since then so as to prevent her from truly asking about it.  But the stalling can only go on so long, especially when Alberich keeps sending her messages to try and talk to her.  And then the elder librarians give Irene a special mission - pretend to go rogue so that she can get close to and finish Alberich - her father - once and for all.  

And so Irene, with the help of Vale, Kai, and Catherine, will be forced on the run to confront the evil that is her biological father once and for all.  But in the process of doing so, Irene will be forced to discover long hidden truths about the worlds and the Library, truths that once drove Alberich mad.  

Is Irene destined to go mad just like he was?  And when the keepers of those secrets turn their focus upon her, will Irene be able to survive and remain the Librarian she wants to be?
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The Dark Archive ended with a cryptic teasing epilogue: three unnamed individuals inside the Library celebrating Irene getting a Fae into the library for the first time, plotting their next move and to send Irene after Alberich to get rid of them both.  It solidified something readers have long since suspected - and what has been hinted at quite overtly since the epilogue of Book 6 - that the people behind the Library are up to no good and that Alberich wasn't entirely wrong to go wrong.  So naturally the Untold Story wastes little time in forcing Irene to confront that fact, sending her on that mission after Alberich, resulting in that shadowy epilogue coming into the light here.  

The result is still very very fun mind you, even as things get dark (real characters we've known for books actually die in this book!), as Cogman's prose and dialogue remain very readable and enjoyable.  I don't really need to say much more about our main trio - Irene, Kai, and Vale - as they are still just as fun and easy to understand and enjoy as before (well the Kai/Irene romance has never really worked for me, but whatever at this point).  And fourth member Catherine, introduced last book, really fits in well now especially as Irene is forced to confront what's wrong with the Library, a place that Catherine wants to be able to explore and enjoy.  

Again, there isn't too much new to say about this book, since a lot of it is the same great fun as in the prior books.  We do deal here with some particular new themes - the importance of family being not who you're blood-related to but who you were raised by and who you chose to be connected to, the ability of good-intentioned individuals to lose their way, the importance of remembering the past so that you don't forget and make mistakes, etc. - that the book handles particularly well (Irene's and the book's reaction to how one deals with an unwanted child, a particularly dark theme for this series, is very well done).  I suppose I could complain that I expected the final act to be drawn out more or that the ending is just resolved a bit too easily, but really it all works very well and is a pretty strong conclusion to the major arcs of this series.  

In short, The Untold Story is another great installment, and if this is the end of the series, it's a pretty good one.  I'll be hoping Cogman eventually finds the time to come back to it though, because I love Irene and the characters just so much.  

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