Ash and Quill - Rachel Caine (The Great Library #3)

No one with a book is ever alone, even in the darkest moments.

Oh dear.  Oh dear oh dear oh dear.  You know that point where a series starts to go downhill?  A series that you absolutely love?  That you want to succeed more than anything in the world?  I think this might be that point in this series.  Here's the thing.  Ink and Bone was amazing.  Paper and Fire was great.  But Ash and Quill?  It was...good.  And that's all.

This picks up right where the second book left off, with Jess and his band of misfits appearing in Philadelphia, the main Burner stronghold in the American Colonies, after fleeing the Library in Europe.  This change of setting had great promise, but unfortunately the book didn't really deliver.  Jess and his friends spend probably half the book imprisoned in Philadelphia, plotting their escape, and the other half of the book fleeing Philadelphia and trapped in a second location, which they also must plot to escape.  Their plan to fight against the Great Library does not really go anywhere.  Thomas and Jess build not one, but two printing presses.  They build a weapon.  They survive Greek fire attacks on Philadelphia by the High Garda.  There's a sense of pieces moving in the larger world beyond the characters, such as the revolt of several countries, but the main characters don't actually accomplish much, and that leaves this book feeling very much like filler--a third book suffering from second book syndrome, if you will.

The sense of world here is still wonderful, but our characters, with one exception, seem to have stagnated.  Jess and most of his band have failed to evolve in the face of their new circumstances.  They are not allied with the Library or the Burners, but want a middle path, and so find themselves surrounded by enemies.  But Morgan, Jess' love interest and the one possessing magical powers in the group, is the only one who seems ready to rise and twist and change to suit the things that arise in their paths.  Additionally, while the world itself is still interesting Philadelphia is not as riveting a location as Alexandria, Rome, London, etc. have been in the series.  It's pretty much stuck in colonial times, with a few exceptions, and without many of the library technologies seen throughout the rest of the world.  It's a city under siege, but this is never really examined and the city seems to lack the depth of the other locales.  And I'm a bit concerned about the end; it seems very likely the group is going to split up and the next book will need to include multiple perspectives rather than sticking with just Jess, and that seems like it could get messy quickly.

I liked this book, but I didn't love it.  It didn't keep me turning pages or gasping for the next one at the end--a good thing, I guess, since the next one probably won't be out until around this time next year, but a bit disappointing at the same time because it just didn't have the same sparkle as the other volumes did.  The diverse cast remains a draw, but I wish they'd grow a bit more as characters instead of remaining essentially the same people we met in the first book.  Some changes came about in the second book, but in this one... None.  This one wasn't bad, but I do still hope that the next one will be better.

3 stars out of 5.

Paper and Fire - Rachel Caine (Great Library #2)

I can't believe I missed the release date for this book!  I'd been hotly anticipating it since reading Ink and Bone earlier this year.  And yet I didn't realize it was released until more than a week after the fact!  Yikes.  Well, I got my little paws on a copy and read it as quickly as humanly possible, and here's the verdict:

It was great.

I don't think it was quite as great as Ink and Bone, but I also don't think it suffered "second book syndrome" which can be a problem with series.  The amazing world continues here, but I don't think it's quite as breathtaking was it was in the first book because it's already fairly well-established.  There also isn't the same sense of awe from the characters due to their new circumstances and surroundings, which means that doesn't transfer to the reader as well.  But the strange quirks of this world ruled by the Library of Alexandria--such as a Paris that is completely populated by Library personnel and French citizens who are forced to take part in historical reenactments of an uprising against the Library--are still dropped here and there, just enough to be a little disorienting and make it clear that no, this is not the world we know.

The plot of this book follows Jess and his friends, who are now employed in different positions throughout the Library in Alexandria, as they try to get information about Thomas and rescue him.  Jess and Glain are recruits in the High Garda, and Dario and Khalila both work in scholarly roles.  Morgan is trapped in the Iron Tower, slaving away as an Obscurist and struggling with the ever-present threat of forced impregnation, but she, too is determined to escape.  (The "threat of forced impregnation" bit is very trope-y, but I think Caine actually handled it well, with many of the Tower's inhabitants, male and female, being against the "program" and others being for it for both logistical reasons like more Obscurists and for more cult-like reasons.  I was so pleased when Caine (briefly) brought in the guy in this scenario, who was clearly just as agonized over it as Morgan was, rather than depicting this as some male-wet-dream-type thing.  Forced sex is not cool for either gender.)  Our group also gets on the move once again here, eventually traveling from Alexandria to Rome and beyond in their quest and its aftermath.  The settings remain breathtaking, with the Iron Tower offering a tantalizing glimpse at what the Library has been hiding for all these millennia, with Rome still showing its pagan roots and using them to hide the Library's nefarious actions, and of course with all the trappings that come with these settings, like the automata, which gain an even more prominent (and, yes, awesome) role in this book than they did in the first.

I'll be honest: a big part of this book hinges on Jess' love for Morgan and his desire to help her, which I totally didn't buy.  I mean, I bought the wanting to help her part, but their relationship honestly doesn't have any chemistry to it, and they feel more like friends, like Jess and Thomas, than potential lovers.  I found the bonds of friends and mentors here much more believable than the romantic ones, though Dario and Khalila and Wolfe and Santi did feel much more natural and complete than Jess and Morgan did.  And again, I think this was an incredibly diverse and awesome cast that were not diverse for the sake of it, but who also weren't painted in as being stereotypes or representations of whole groups.  They're all people, and I think that really works.

Caine's writing in this remained very engaging, but really, it's the world and the thoughts behind it that intrigue me here.  The ongoing discussion about censorship and the power of free thought and speech and press, and how a loss of that can change things, is absolutely fascinating, and it's thrilling to see this discussion being played out in a young-adult-genre novel.  It makes you think.  Who is our Library, what are they really doing?  (I'm not a conspiracy theory fan, I swear, but I think this book is very thought-provoking in this area.)  And, of course, I'm super psyched about where this is headed, because while we have, so far, seen cities in several countries across Europe and Egypt, we haven't yet seen America, which has historically had a basis of the freedoms I've mentioned above, or at least we think that we do, so I'm fascinated with how Caine is going to tackle a Library-influenced America in the upcoming volumes.

This was another great book.  I don't think it was quite as twisty and breathtaking as the first, because it doesn't have quite the same newness, and there were some weirdnesses in logic here (especially with Dario and the High Garda and the Iron Tower; the whole thing just didn't seem to "fit" to me) but I still devoured this and eagerly await the next volume.

4 stars out of 5.

Ink and Bone - Rachel Caine (Great Library #1)

Let me start by just saying this: this book was awesome, way more awesome than I anticipated it being.  I've read Rachel Caine before; her Weather Warden series is a great urban fantasy/paranormal romance one, and I've read some of her Morganville Vampire novels, too.  That said, while I've always found her books enjoyable, I've never thought they were absolutely amazing.  This book was amazing.  Of course, like all books, it has a few weak points--but it was such an amazing world with such awesome characters (I am beyond real words here, can you tell?) that I think its strengths far, far outweigh its weaknesses.

The book takes place in an alternate universe in which the Library of Alexandria was never burned, and in fact spawned "daughter" libraries throughout the world.  Across the ages, the Library has become more powerful than anything else, based on the idea that knowledge is power.  An example of how powerful the library is?  Austria pissed the Library off, so the Library destroyed Austria.  Austria does not exist in this world because the Library destroyed it.  The Library owns all original works and disseminates copies via things called "blanks" which are kind of like Kindles with pages and that you can write on.  The whole system works off of a premise of alchemy.  Owning real, original books is illegal and has led to book smugglers making huge profits when they can successfully find and sell a rare or unique copy of a book.  Meanwhile, people called Burners protest the Library's ownership of knowledge and burn books--and themselves--to draw attention to their cause.  Cities and countries aren't quite as we'd imagine them; for example, Wales and England are caught up in a torrid civil war.  And while the book takes place in the year 2025, there is a pseudo-Victorian/steampunk facade on it.  Automatons protect the libraries and secret areas, carriages are driven by steam, and while guns exist other weapons are still very prominent.  Combined, this makes a rich, fascinating world, and I loved how every detail was carefully placed to build the world, rather than just thrown in because it was "cool."

The main character of this book is Jess Brightwell, a young man who comes from a family of book smugglers.  He doesn't want to take over the family business, so his father buys him a chance to get a position in the Library, which he figures Jess will enjoy and which can be used to help the family get their hands on more rare works to sell.  In short order, Jess moves to Alexandria for training, a process that begins with thirty students competing for six spots at the Library.  Jess' classmates feature prominently in the book, and all of them have their own stories, personalities, strengths, and weaknesses; they all read like real people, which can be difficult for supporting characters to achieve.  The same can be said for Scholar Wolfe, their teacher, and his companion Santi, a member of the Library's elite guard.  I mean, seriously, these are awesome supporting characters.  They're not all white!  They're not all straight!  It's an incredibly diverse cast, but a diverse cast that isn't just window dressing for the story.  They're all fully integrated.  The training process takes up a lot of this book, and while it was interesting--it provides a lot of insight into how and why the Library operates and what might be wrong with it--I think the story really picked up when the students, Wolfe, and Santi are sent on a mission to retrieve a cache of rare books from a daughter library that is about to be crushed in the Welsh/English civil war.  It's at this point that we can really start to see that something is rotten at the Library's heart, and what the characters might be up against if they hope to escape or stop it.

Caine's writing in this one is also super absorbing.  The book is in third-person limited, but between chapters we also get to see some documents from various characters that are circulated around or kept in the Library archives.  In the other Caine books I've read, the writing was good but it was never something that blew my mind.  In this one, I couldn't stop reading.  Seriously, I was wandering around the National Mall in the middle of the cherry blossom festival with visiting family looking for somewhere I could sit down so I could read more.  I was a terribly rude hostess, I'm afraid, but hey, that's what a good book can do, and this book wasn't just good, it was excellent.  The plot was tight, the characters real, and the world intricately intriguing.  The story doesn't go quite where the blurb would make one think--really, the blurb refers to the end of the book more than the content--but it was amazing content nonetheless.  I got this from the library, but I'll be buying my own copy--in hardcover, because owning this on Kindle is a little too ironic for my tastes.

5 stars out of 5.  Awesome.