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What I'm reading
Apr. 14th, 2019 03:18 pmFinished The Burning Page, third in Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library series.
I'm still enjoying this series enough to continue, though I see elements that should have been smoothed out by her third published novel. Too much info-dumpy "as you know" dialog, even from Irene's novice librarian to Irene herself!
I was glad to see that my main concern - whether stealing rare books and archiving them in a place where no one but librarians will ever see them is justified as means of stabilizing the order/chaos balance - was at least acknowledged in this book.
This installment explored a bit of a world slanted more towards the Order end of the spectrum, and it turns out worlds like that tend to be totalitarian. Which I hadn't expected, but it makes perfect sense. In those worlds it is also much harder for Irene to wield her meta-Language. I'd like a better understanding of *how* that ur-language is different from the magic the Fae use. I'm afraid Cogman is playing with the net down when it comes to the Language: it seems able to do what the plot requires and no more.
I want to meet Irene's parents. I want to know how librarians die, if they retire to a place where they stop aging. I want to know whether Bradamant is really shady or just prickly. Looking forward to the next book.
I'm still enjoying this series enough to continue, though I see elements that should have been smoothed out by her third published novel. Too much info-dumpy "as you know" dialog, even from Irene's novice librarian to Irene herself!
I was glad to see that my main concern - whether stealing rare books and archiving them in a place where no one but librarians will ever see them is justified as means of stabilizing the order/chaos balance - was at least acknowledged in this book.
This installment explored a bit of a world slanted more towards the Order end of the spectrum, and it turns out worlds like that tend to be totalitarian. Which I hadn't expected, but it makes perfect sense. In those worlds it is also much harder for Irene to wield her meta-Language. I'd like a better understanding of *how* that ur-language is different from the magic the Fae use. I'm afraid Cogman is playing with the net down when it comes to the Language: it seems able to do what the plot requires and no more.
I want to meet Irene's parents. I want to know how librarians die, if they retire to a place where they stop aging. I want to know whether Bradamant is really shady or just prickly. Looking forward to the next book.
