Librarians Only WISH Their Jobs Could Be So Fascinating...

The Masked Library is the second in author Genevieve Cogman's "Invisible Library" series, and certainly has much to recommend it as a follow-up to the first in the series, The Invisible Library. We continue following the activities of Irene, a young (but not too-young) librarian, which... well, let's refresh a bit first, shall we?

In Cogman's well-constructed environment, there are actually multiple worlds (and alternate worlds) in existence, most of which have some level of magical powers present. (Think a sort-of-Steampunk-meets-magic place, as Irene's current base of operations is a Victorian London.) The fae and other magical folk, not-too surprisingly, can move between these worlds; regular humans can only do so with a little magical help. And then, there are the Librarians--normal-ish people who study, intern, and are eventually hired by great institutions known as Libraries--who can move between the worlds (along with being able to do a host of other useful things, when needed) by their use of a special Language (and generally, a proximity to books, if not an actual library). The Librarians' main purpose is to--ehem, acquire--rare books for the particular Library where each of them is employed... by whatever means necessary (and yes, you should draw your own conclusions from there).

In this outing, Irene isn't tasked with finding a book, but rather, takes off on her own when her apprentice--the (only-slightly-younger-than-herself) dragon, Kai--is abducted by a nefarious husband-&-wife fae duo and transported to another world (an alt-version of Victorian-era Venice, as it happens)... one in which his own powers (not to mention, that of his family) are very weak.

Cogman's descriptions--particularly as seen through her protagonist, Irene's, eyes--are sumptuous... but therein lies part of the problem, for me; the author tends to go on, a bit, leaving me to skim long passages while searching for the next thing (as in anything) to happen. Some of the scenes with multiple characters are much the same; after I, as the reader, had "gotten the point" in a scene, it would have behooved Cogman to pick up the pace, again, rather than belaboring said point(s). In other words, another pass of editing may well have tightened things up just enough to omit the definite lags I experienced. (Visuals can only carry one so far, before one wearies of a sight... no matter how breathtaking or fascinating that sight might be.)

Still--provided you're willing to put yourself through a bit of wading-&-skimming--I'm give this book a strong recommendation, on the basis that it's a competent continuation of an interesting, compelling series which sets itself apart from other Steampunk-ish/historical-urban-fantasy tales by sheer dint of originality.

~GlamKitty

Comments

  1. MarielleApril 27, 2017 at 9:25 AM

    So excited to see a review from you!!! 💜

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. GlamKittyApril 27, 2017 at 9:05 PM

      THANK YOU!! After looking at all of the half-finished reviews sitting on my desktop, I decided it was time to stop sticking my toe in the cold water and just plunge right in, again. :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

No ads or shilling, please. And always, always be polite.

Popular posts from this blog

Prowling the Streets in Search of Justice: A SuperHero is Born

Image
Growing up, I idolized Wonder Woman. She had it all--awesome strength and beauty, intelligence and kindness. To me, she was female perfection. Ever practical, I knew I’d never achieve that ideal (she was just fantasy, after all), but following her tireless quest to rid the world of evil and replace it with love and peace allowed me to envision a place and time in which women enjoyed real power and respect (and could fix problems without a lot of senseless bloodshed). It's never all about thrilling feats of derring-do, of course.  There’s a bit of melancholy attached to any superhero story too-- sometimes a sense of loss, and always feelings of loneliness. Nothing comes without a price.  Raymond Benson explores what it would be like to become an all-too-human superhero in his new book, The Black Stiletto . ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ Martin Talbot is a just a regular Joe. Ordinary-looking, middle-aged, and divorced (with shared custody of an only daughter), he’s not the sort to inspire...
Read more

Werewolves in London? Try Bloodsuckers Down Under (Aussie urban fantasy/thriller REVIEW)

Image
Aside from a few dozen or so songs--the unremittingly-cheery sort of dreck I can only charitably term “uplifting”--there seems to be something of a universal consensus that life can be pretty awful. Sound overly harsh? Let’s look to some experts then, shall we? Consider that the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths is that “life means suffering”. Think back to John Hobbes, who concluded in his 1651 book Leviathan that life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. “ Of course, if you prefer your proof to be of the less-erudite variety, there’s always that late-20th-century classic, “Life sucks, and then you die”. (Lacks a bit in the eloquence department, but it gets the same point across, in inimical Bill-&-Ted fashion.) With such depressing thoughts bearing down on us like so many dark, angry stormclouds--and the fact that most of us have just seen too much bad to fall for the false promises in those sappy songs--it's no wonder a lot of people look for ways to escape t...
Read more

A Nightmare Without End: Abduction & the Long Road Back

Image
Danger takes many forms. Most of us--once we’ve become rather uncomfortably aware of our own mortality--make an effort to take at least a few precautions to ward ourselves from some of the dangers we face.  At a bare minimum, we look both ways before crossing the street. We inoculate ourselves against deadly diseases. We bolt our doors and lock our windows to all the scary things (and bad people) that go bump in the night. We fasten our seat belts before setting out on the roadways in our little hunks of metal (although statistics show that a lot more of us could stand to be doing that ). Taking such measures is empowering; we’re proactively doing something to safeguard ourselves. So many other things, of course, are completely outside the realm of our control. We’re unable to prevent cancers or illnesses that we’re genetically predisposed to getting. We’re at the whims of Mother Nature when it comes to floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and such. We can’t predict if a random stran...
Read more