Isaac is a libriomancer, someone who can use their magic to pull things out of books and make them real, a librarian, and fan of "Dr. Who" and "Firefly". That, alone, was more than enough to make me pick up this book; not to mention the pretty cover and the possibilities it hints at with a man pulling a magical sword out of a book.
Yes, this was a cover buy. I succumbed to the "shiny" of the cover. So much so, in fact, that I neglected to notice the tarantula perched on the shoulder of the main character pictured on the cover. That's right, it's not just a spider, it's a tarantula. Oh, and when he gets angry or anxious? He bursts into flames.
I hate spiders.....like, HAAAATE spiders. And they made this one pyrotechnic.
Despite that, by the end of this book, Jim Hines had me rooting for Smudge - that's little pryo-spidey's name - which is pretty miraculous. Convincing me to like spiders is about as likely to happen as someone convincing Voldemort to give up his life of villainy to open a chic pastry-shop. Never gonna happen.
Vampires are trying to start a war, someone is taking control of vampires, and the most powerful libriomancer they've got just up and disappeared, along with all his enforcers.
The tone of this book is light-hearted, filled with characters making quips at one another and cracking jokes - most of which are funny. Pretty much any magical creature you could think of is in this story. (No unicorns, yet, but I'm holding out hope for the rest of the series.) If you've ever read any of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, these are similar in tone and pacing. And although the story mostly takes place in modern-day Michigan (with a pit-stop on the moon), we're thrown into the magical pretty much from chapter 1.
"Normal?" she repeated. "Yesterday you fed me cake from Wonderland so we could ride your spider into a magical basement and fight a vampire."
By the way, that's Wonderland...as in Alice's Wonderland. Lovers of books will delight in seeing some of their beloved stories brought to life as Isaac, and other characters, pull objects from well-known and loved novels. It is completely obvious Jim Hines is a fan of books.
"This place...bookstores, libraries...they're the closest thing I have to a church."
Can I get an "A-men!"? Be still my beating heart. I think I fell in love with Isaac after reading that.
"By entering our territory, you acknowledge that you are leaving human law behind. Any act of aggression-"
"Can we get the short version please?" I asked.
The woman rolled her eyes. "Behave, or we eat you."
"Got it."
This is a book about book lovers, for book lovers. There are many books mentioned by title throughout this book and most of them are real. (There is a bibliography in the back of the book, indicating which titles were made up for the purposes of this book.) I've already picked up the next 3 books in the series, and each of them contain bibliographies, as well.
Hmmm....Maybe someone should create a reading challenge. We could call it The Libriomancer Reading Challenge. How many have you read?
This sounds like a great book for teaching or reading clubs. It just invites you to go into 'what would you pull out of a book?' 'which book is the most powerful for this situation?' Very cool concept for discussions!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely! In fact, there are a few times in this book when one of the other characters will challenge the main character on what he chose to pull out of a book. They can be a little snarky about it sometimes, too.
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