Once I got into the hang of this book, I couldn’t put it down. I had to find out what was going down with this mysterious mystery surrounding the murder of various Porters and who was behind it all. It was a fortuitous chance that I picked this book up along with The Eyre Affair (not having heard of either of these titles before, and only happened to chance upon them while browsing through library shelves) because their premises run along the same lines (book magic, basically).
The tone of this book was decidedly darker than The Eyre Affair, though not so much that it dims the pleasure of reading (I usually prefer a light-hearted narrative tone unless it is incompatible with the plot). This book deals with libriomancy, a nicely crafted magic system whereby naturally talented users (libriomancers, of course) can reach into books and access the book’s world. Unlike The Eyre Affair, they do not actually immerse themselves into the book’s world and interact with characters in it, but depending on what page they flip to, they may be able to pull out various useful items from the books (a lightsabre, anyone?). While The Eyre Affair dealt mostly with classic literature, Libriomancer was more focused on the current pop culture books (vampires known as ‘sparklers’ make a cameo appearance…), which made it very relatable since it was only published 3 years ago.
P.S. I love Smudge. Move aside, Aragog, you weren’t even in the running to begin with. Smudge is my new favourite fictional spider.
(Avast ye, down there be spoilers!)
Unravellations; 