My review of The Invisible Library

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a good solid three stars, and highlights how wide the three star rating is for me.

I enjoyed reading this book.

Maybe it was not good to read it so soon after The Aeronaut's Windlass but that is how my reservations came in at the library.

This book is about a library (or rather The Library) and the collection policy for it which does not appear to be written down anywhere. Okay, that is one interpretation of what is it about, but it is what drives the story forward - how to obtain a very specific book for the collection. As we see how one book is obtained, we hear stories and rumours of other items being obtained in similar or different way.

There are librarians (or actually Librarians - the capitalisation is important) who travel to parallel worlds, collecting near identical editions (mainly of fiction). There are a range of procurement methods, including theft, and this becomes a slightly discredited method through the book. This theft is off putting (and I don't agree with libraries using theft or theft like practices to develop their collections, and yes I know this is a work of fiction).

There is a dragon, stylish dressing, zeppelins, vampires, werewolves, fae and some very interesting action sequences in the steampunk mix. All of the characters can deliver surprises (and I won't mention exactly what they are because of spoilers). There is character development which works well. This also turns out to be yet another political thriller in my accidental year of reading political thrillers.

It is the first in the series and I will be very interested to see what happens next and look forward to reading the next title.



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