Libriomancer

Libriomancer (2012) Jim C. Hines

I really, really wanted to love this story. Instead, I just liked it, but came away with a vague feeling of disappointment–not because the book was bad–it wasn’t–but because I had wanted so much more out of the story, and it didn’t deliver.

Isaac Vainio is working as a librarian in a small town in the U.P. of Michigan. But he’s way more than meets the eye–he’s a libromancer. A Magician who can reach into books and pull out items that exist only between those pages, from a laser gun to a magical sword to an invisibility cloak.

And that’s what immediately sucked me into the story–the idea of being able to reach into a book and pull out anything that would fit through the pages.

Unfortunately, the story fell flat for me in a couple ways. First, the romance just didn’t work at all for me. I felt like it could have been removed completely from the story and nothing would have been missing.

Second, I never quite got the feel for the magic and what it couldn’t do. That may seem a somewhat strange issue, but with magic, limits are important. If someone can do anything, it gets… boring. And I started to get a little bored with the magic. Which was just WRONG.

But there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the story, nothing made me mad, and I tore through the story in a couple hours, so it was obviously readable.

It just could have been more than it was, and not meeting my possibly unrealistic expectations left me with that feeling of vague disappointment. But I still think it’s a book well worth reading–just don’t let your expectations get to high, and I think you’ll enjoy it.
Rating: 6/10

Published by DAW

 
 

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