Libriomancer

Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines

(Book #1 of the Magic Ex Libris series)

Rating: 🍁🍁🍁🍁

Link to Blurb

Overall: Libriomancer is a love-letter to readers everywhere. Plus, it features a kick-ass magic librarian. What's not to love?

The Good Stuff:

1) Libriomancy. Seriously. Magic based on books. I. LOVE. THIS. Hines does a good job of creating a magic system that makes intuitive sense and is comprehensive enough to forward the plot without getting too bogged down in science-y explanations (more on that later).

2) To understand why this next point is a big deal, you need to know that I'm terrified of spiders. Not so much that I can't kill the icky things, but enough that I must kill the icky things if they are in my house. Or anywhere where I am. Don't judge me - I was traumatized by spiders as a child. *shudder* Fear is the mind killer...I will face my fear... What was I talking about? Right. Understand that I don't say this lightly: Smudge, the Jelly Baby eating Fire Spider is awesome. He doesn't speak, but he's a wonderfully colourful character in a book chock full of other wonderfully colourful characters.

3) What would happen if the female characters written by early SF/F authors existed in the real world? Especially one of the more obviously misogynistic authors? And how would we, as human beings, interact with that person? Hines explores these question with talent and respect in the character of Lena, a tree dryad who is forced to need a lover and then become the personification of that lover's ideal mate. The highly problematic nature of such an existence is brought to light, and I love the way Lena tries to find a way to choose her responses herself, rather than conforming to the choices of her lover, while accepting herself for who she is.

4) Libriomancer is riddled with references to other works in numerous genres, which adds a little extra of fun to the experience of reading it. And thanks to the handy list of references found at the end, my to-read list has grown a bit longer. *sigh*

5) Yay for lots and lots of different types of vampires! From the sparkly Sanguinarius Meyerii to the more traditional Sanguinarius Stokerus and more - it was a lot of fun. In fact, the whole book was just pure fun.

The Not-So-Good Stuff:

1) Like many series' first books, Libriomancer does suffer from an overload of info-dumping, as well as repeated explanations of the same thing. This bogged the story down at certain points, especially when Isaac is explaining the ins and outs of libriomancy, but overall it didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the book too much.

2) As much as I enjoyed Lena and Hines' treatment of her, I was a little squicked out by the way Isaac responded to her. I mean, I like the fact that he was willing to let her go if that was what she wanted. Yay for non-stalkery heros! But I never really understood why he was so into her in the first place, other than that she was HAWT and could kick ass, which was also HAWT.