kindle, epub, 434 pages
English language
Published Jan. 4, 2021 by Numinous Spirit Press.
The books are restless.
At the Eternal Library, books are more than the paper, ink, and thread they're made from--they're full of spirits. Only a handful of people will ever be invited to the Bindery to learn the craft of Illumination: the magical creation of intricate illustrated manuscripts, bound with a secret that will make them last forever.
Tabby is a dreamwalker, a witch who escapes into the stories of sleep to avoid a birth family that's never loved em enough. Amane is a cartomancer, a medium who speaks for the Unseen, but doesn’t know how to speak her own needs. Rhiannon is a psychic, an archivist who can See into the past, but only has eyes on the future.
Their stories intertwine as they discover the secrets of Illumination, the Library's archives, and those of their mentors--the three of whom are competing to be the next Head Librarian, the …
The books are restless.
At the Eternal Library, books are more than the paper, ink, and thread they're made from--they're full of spirits. Only a handful of people will ever be invited to the Bindery to learn the craft of Illumination: the magical creation of intricate illustrated manuscripts, bound with a secret that will make them last forever.
Tabby is a dreamwalker, a witch who escapes into the stories of sleep to avoid a birth family that's never loved em enough. Amane is a cartomancer, a medium who speaks for the Unseen, but doesn’t know how to speak her own needs. Rhiannon is a psychic, an archivist who can See into the past, but only has eyes on the future.
Their stories intertwine as they discover the secrets of Illumination, the Library's archives, and those of their mentors--the three of whom are competing to be the next Head Librarian, the Speaker for all the books. How do you know who's truly worth being part of your family? Sometimes we must forge connections in order to heal; other times, those bonds must be broken.
...which is also very nicely queer-normative, despite being very anglo. Everything in here is about books, and there's a nicely working magic system and religions. Lots of queer polyamory, prominent depiction of hearing-impaired and disabled characters, and a world that caters to all of them. There's also a beautiful accompanying oracle card deck :)
Abandoned 40% through. Good characters. Good writing. Good world-building. Enjoyable use of magic. The problem? One of the main characters is scrying day after day through the history of a book trying to find what happened to it. When ey - the story uses e/ey/eir for most characters - finally do she discovers that it contains some dangerous power that could be terrible in the wrong hands. Instead of going and talking to the people who hid it, or asking /any/ questions at all ey rush to tell their narcisistic boss who the story has established e doesn't like, and doesn't fully trust.
The entire remaining story would be based on something that is completely unreasonable for the main character to have done.
Handling of an agender society.
I didn't mind the idea that it was an agender society, where only a handful of people - mostly from other cultures …
Abandoned 40% through. Good characters. Good writing. Good world-building. Enjoyable use of magic. The problem? One of the main characters is scrying day after day through the history of a book trying to find what happened to it. When ey - the story uses e/ey/eir for most characters - finally do she discovers that it contains some dangerous power that could be terrible in the wrong hands. Instead of going and talking to the people who hid it, or asking /any/ questions at all ey rush to tell their narcisistic boss who the story has established e doesn't like, and doesn't fully trust.
The entire remaining story would be based on something that is completely unreasonable for the main character to have done.
Handling of an agender society.
I didn't mind the idea that it was an agender society, where only a handful of people - mostly from other cultures - declared they had a specific gender. What I did mind was that for most characters clothes were described but not physical attributes that would give any clue if they were biologically male / female / whatever. It would be fine if individuals, or the society were ever described as striving for an androgynous look. Instead it was the opposite. People just wore whatever clothes they wanted, and it wasn't a big deal.
This was a problem for me because I could never guess if I was supposed to be visualizing someone with boobs and hips, or not. Did this person have facial hair? Dunno. When a character was finally described as having "wide hips" I was thrilled that could finally guess how I was supposed to be imagining someone's body. The next sentence promptly described them as having a big beard, and I gave up.
I don't care about the agender stuff. I care that the only thing i have any confidence about when trying to visualize a character is their clothes, and how they wear their hair, and in this society neither of those is a clue towards the sex, and thus physical characteristics, of the body under those clothes.
