Isaac Vainio is a Libriomancer, a member of the secret organization founded five centuries ago by Johannes Gutenberg.  Libriomancers are gifted with the ability to magically reach into books and draw forth objects. When Isaac is attacked by vampires that leaked from the pages of books into our world, he barely manages to escape. To his horror, he discovers that vampires have been attacking other magic-users as well, and Gutenberg has been kidnapped.

With the help of a motorcycle-riding dryad who packs a pair of oak cudgels, Isaac finds himself hunting the unknown dark power that has been manipulating humans and vampires alike. And his search will uncover dangerous secrets about Libriomancy, Gutenberg, and the history of magic. .

For me this is one of those "it's really good but..." reads.

Fantastically written, edited and plotted.  Smudge, of course, rules the pages and steals the scenes.  Great characterisations too.  I was able to lose myself in the story and forget for brief moments the back pain that has left me hobbled and cranky these past couple of weeks.  As a biblionerd it goes without saying how much I love the world-building Hines has done.

But...

Something failed to catch me completely; as engrossed as I was in the story, I never became emotionally attached to any of the characters.  I still really enjoyed it but it didn't leave me wanting more at the end.

Speaking of the end, while that final scene is definitely not my cuppa, in other books I've at least been able to walk away thinking "kudos for not being afraid of taking things is a different direction", but this time it just felt weird.  Personal inclinations aside, this whole conclusion didn't work for me; I came away feeling like it was purposely done to be all "look how progressive I am!", or worse, some sort of weird teen age wish fulfilment.  Neither is likely fair to a very talented writer, but for me, it just didn't work.

That scene with the moon - oh jeez; he almost completely lost me at that point.  Lots of eye-rolling on my end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, but not enough to make an effort to read a second one. 

Something every readers knows, and non-readers don't understand.

The ability to reach into books like this?

Every readers dream, at this one.

Although I always wanted to be able to go into the story as well.

I'm using this one as Magical Realism as I understand it.

If it doesn't qualify, let me know.

Obsidian Black Death and I are both past the mid-point of our bingo cards, so we thought it would be fun to do a bit of a retrospective about the books we've read so far. We're starting with our favorite reads of the game!

OBSIDIAN BLACK DEATH

I think my favorite book so far is hands down “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman. He hit it out of the park with that one. Maybe because my book came with illustrations that added to the overall story, and the writing at times transported me along with Nobody (Bod) Owens as he explored the graveyard with his parents, guardian, and friends.

This book has an awesome hero (Bod) with flaws and some many interesting secondary characters, I think Gaiman could have spun this book off if he really wanted to in order to follow the adventures of the Graveyard, Bod, or Silas. Heck, I am still hoping for a sequel one day. Or at least for someone from those books to pop into Gaiman’s other works.

Besides Bod, my next favorite characters were Miss Lupescu and Silas. It took me a little longer than I like, but I finally clued into what exactly Silas was and why he was watching over the graveyard as well.

“You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.”

I read this for the Grave or Graveyard square, but it would also fit the Genre: Horror, Supernatural, Full Moon, and Young Adult Horror squares as well.

MOONLIGHT MURDER

Truth be told, The Graveyard Book was one of my favorites, as well. In addition to that one, though - since I can't pick the same one as OBD, I really, really loved Libriomancer by Jim Hines.

I thought the magical system in this book was terrific, and Hines really used it to its full potential. His references to books, and the way that they created magic and altered the mythology in a way that actually affected manifestations was elegant and fascinating. His wry humor, especially about vampires and the Twilight phenomenon made me laugh.

Plus, I can't forget Smudge. I am no spider fan, but he was an awesome contribution to the story. That's the other great thing about this book - without it, I would've struggled with finding a book to fill the creepy-crawlie square!

Which one is your favorite so far?

Review:

Oh, I just loved this book, weaknesses notwithstanding!

"Libriomancy was in many ways a lazy man’s magic. There were no wands, no fancy spells, no ancient incantations. No hand-waving or runes. Nothing but the words on the page, the collective belief of the readers, and the libriomancer’s love of the story."

There were so many inside jokes in this book, it is difficult to catch them all. I spent most of the book smiling, even though I'm sure I got maybe 20% of the total! The way that he incorporated the Twilight phenomenon was hysterical - they are their own breed of vampire, called Meyerii, which "had only begun popping up back in 2005."

"Back in the days of Dracula, humans had a fighting chance against the undead. But the more they evolved from monsters into angsty, sexy superheroes, the more the odds of a human being surviving an encounter with an angry vampire shrank to nothing."

Hahaha. Seriously, that's hilarious. And there are references to the healing cordial from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and of course, Excalibur of Arthurian legend fame:

"Next, I proceeded to arm myself much the same as I had at the Detroit nest, with garlic, crucifix, and a pair of pistols. I also created a sheathed broadsword with a gold, jewel-encrusted hilt. “Excalibur number seventy-three.” We had more than a hundred versions of Excalibur cataloged in our database. “Cuts through just about anything.”

The MC, Isaac, is a libriomancer who has basically flunked out of training when he massively effed up a mission and ended up practically self-immolating. Because the more that a libriomancer uses a book for magic, the more that the book possesses the libriomancer. Too much magic and poof goes the libriomancer.

Someone - or something - is in the middle of trying to cause a magic war, and Isaac and Lena - a dryad who was pulled from a book as an acorn and grew into a - I kid you not - a erotic, slightly plus-sized mythical tree creature who has no choice but to be someone's love slave, are trying to figure out how to stop it and save Lena's lover, a psychologist who treats libriomancers.

While I liked Lena, I felt like she, and the relationship with Isaac, was the major weakness to this book. No offense, guys, but there aren't very many male fantasy writers who pull off romance very effectively (is that sexist? If it is, sorry). Their relationships tend to be heavy on the heavy breathing and light on what actual makes two people fall in love. And this is one of those cases - there seemed to be no deeper than surface attraction between these two people. I liked her, but a dryad sex slave is sort of yucky.

And the end, where she proposes what is basically a three-way relationship made me laugh out loud because it felt so contrived and inauthentic and like some sort of a male theory of what a female fantasy would look like. But that's a small quibble, really, because overall, I loved the magic, I loved the references and I loved the world. 

And now let us speak of Smudge, who might be the best character in this entire book. I hate spiders, but I want my very own Smudge to sit on my shoulder and eat chocolate covered ants and warn me of danger. Sure, I don't really have occasion to need my very own fire-spider warning system, but, seriously, he's cute, he's fuzzy, he has eight legs, and he might burn my house down by accident. Want.

This book is pure fun. If you're still looking for something to fill the creepy crawlie square, I highly recommend Libriomancer.

The midpoint:

I'm a bit over half-done with this book. Hines has created a very interesting magical system that book lovers who enjoy UF will find delightful! Libriomancer's are able to magically pull items from books through the power of belief that coalesces around beloved stories.

There's a lot of literary namedropping, from LOTR to Mira Grant's Feed and the most powerful books also must be magically locked by Gutenberg - yes, that Gutenberg - to prevent them from escaping the bonds of the books and becoming manifest in our world. 

Smudge the fire spider is an entertaining side kick (he catches on fire at the first whiff of danger), which is why I decided to read this for the creepy-crawlies bingo square. This is a fast, entertaining read and a fun piece of urban fantasy.