As sad as I am that Jim C. Hines' Magic ex Libris series is ending, Revisionary is actually a fun ending to what's been a great series. This is not to say it's exploring new ground, but it does so in a fun and inventive way.
At the end of the last book, Unbound, Isaac Vainio revealed the existence of of magic, libriomancy, and the Porters to the world at large. We pick up, as should be expected, with congressional hearings.
Whole Isaac's real intention was to provide the good things to the world, like draughts of Lucy's healing cordial from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to kids with terminal diseases, certain governments are much more interested in weaponry and military applications, as well as making sure magic isn't going to unbalance the current state of affairs.
Of course, the realization that magical creatures exist isn't helping things all that much either, since find out early on about Michigan's solution for taking out the vampire nest under Detroit in the abandoned salt mines. Which mainly involved sealing, collapsing, and setting fire to the nest.
Isaac and the Porters in the US have developed a compound outside Las Vegas in order to work on peaceful application of magic named New Millennium, all while being supervised by various government agencies.
Which is good for his niece, who's part of the clinical trials to get her amputated leg back.
The plot really gets rolling though, when four separate but simultaneous assassinations play out across the US, including the death of the Governor of Michigan by angry Werewolves. An organization of supernatural creatures appears to be behind the attacks, thus leading Isaac and Lena to chase down Vanguard with the help of former libriomancer now Renfield vampire Deb. This chase leads several different directions, including to off shore Atlantic area as the Coast Guard tries to get rid of a Siren colony.
We delve deeper into off the record detention facilities for non-humans, where any semblance of rights are suspended. We find out Vanguard's basic principle is one of getting non -human entities to safety via Underground Railroad style techniques.
(I'm glazing over quite a bit, including several supporting characters, but I really can't talk about them without hitting serious spoiler territory.)
As the threads of the conspiracy start unraveling and we finally get a good look at what's actually going on, the true ugliness of the plot comes across and we, like in a quite a few other stories, begin to wonder who the REAL monsters are.
As I said, I'm sorry to see such a fun series end, but it's not as though the author is planning on retiring any time in the near future, so....
Showing posts with label Jim C. Hines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim C. Hines. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Feeding Pop Rocks to a fire spider
A few years ago, two series started around the same time, although subsequent volumes haven't exactly been synchronized. The first one I ran across was Jim C. Hines's Magic ex Libris and the second was Jacqueline Carey's Agent of Hel. Both first volumes were a little rocky, but lots and lots of fun. Then came volumes 2, when Agent of Hel came out ahead, mainly because Libris got a little too serious in parts, leading to a few tonal issues. And now, having finished Jim C. Hines' 3rd volume, Unbound, he's back in the lead in this not very real competition. (Seriously, I love both series. And my issues with book 3 in Hel are on here on the tag.)
Now, thanks to following Hines' blog, I came in forewarned that about the first third of Unbound would be concerned with Issac's depression following Gutenberg destroying his ability to do magic at the end of Codex Born. And it does tend to be rough reading until things pick up a bit. Jeneta, Issac's former student is evidently possessed by an alien intelligence that caused her to board a plane for parts unknown at the end of the last volume. Issac can't do magic and has been kicked from the Porters. Bi Wei, of the Oriental version of the Porters, has revealed the existence of both the Porters and Magic by making a note appear in every copy of A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin. (I have to wonder how many people ended up checking their copy to see if life imitated art there.) Issac's in danger of losing his job at the Copper River Library.
About the only stable thing in his life is his girlfriend Lena, the dryad drawn from The Nymphs of Neptune, and her girlfriend Nidhi. Bound and determined to help find Jeneta and fix everything despite losing nearly everything, Issac goes to see a siren hypnotherapist. (Here we get our first real laugh as the siren's song is described as something akin to a suicidal whale song sung by Stevie Nicks.) Here, we get the name of the commanding force behind the Devourers of the last book, Meridiana.
Meridiana, it seems, has a convoluted back story involving being brought back from death by a pope, only to try to take over the world with an army of hungry ghosts. By hooking up with a black market Ramanga, Issac winds up first in space then in Rome with a bit of vampire blood that allows him to communicate with said Pope's ghost. It's here in Rome where we find out Meridiana, through Jeneta's magic, is turning her army of ghosts into monsters. We also meet Ponce de Leon, who in turn drags Johannes Gutenberg back into the picture .
The interactions between Ponce and Johannes are some of the best parts of the book. Passages arguing security versus freedom entwine with the revelation that Gutenberg has been writing Harry Potter fan fiction. And we also get Issac trying to solve Gerbert d'Aurillac's puzzle of where he hid the celestial sphere holding Meridiana's soul.
Interspersed withing the text are passages from things contemporaneous with the main narrative, as the existence of magic becomes widely known. Things like coaches being suspended for allegedly using magic for the team, Issac's brother's nastygram about how Issac could have used magic to save his nephew's limbs....
It's a much more fun volume than the last book, more in tune with Jim Butcher's Dresden Files sense of style. (Tio be fair, Issac is a lot less hard boiled than Dresden is. Although I could totally see Issac yelling "Parkour!" while navigating the gates of Hades.)
Honestly, one of the best reads I've had in a while.
Now, thanks to following Hines' blog, I came in forewarned that about the first third of Unbound would be concerned with Issac's depression following Gutenberg destroying his ability to do magic at the end of Codex Born. And it does tend to be rough reading until things pick up a bit. Jeneta, Issac's former student is evidently possessed by an alien intelligence that caused her to board a plane for parts unknown at the end of the last volume. Issac can't do magic and has been kicked from the Porters. Bi Wei, of the Oriental version of the Porters, has revealed the existence of both the Porters and Magic by making a note appear in every copy of A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin. (I have to wonder how many people ended up checking their copy to see if life imitated art there.) Issac's in danger of losing his job at the Copper River Library.
About the only stable thing in his life is his girlfriend Lena, the dryad drawn from The Nymphs of Neptune, and her girlfriend Nidhi. Bound and determined to help find Jeneta and fix everything despite losing nearly everything, Issac goes to see a siren hypnotherapist. (Here we get our first real laugh as the siren's song is described as something akin to a suicidal whale song sung by Stevie Nicks.) Here, we get the name of the commanding force behind the Devourers of the last book, Meridiana.
Meridiana, it seems, has a convoluted back story involving being brought back from death by a pope, only to try to take over the world with an army of hungry ghosts. By hooking up with a black market Ramanga, Issac winds up first in space then in Rome with a bit of vampire blood that allows him to communicate with said Pope's ghost. It's here in Rome where we find out Meridiana, through Jeneta's magic, is turning her army of ghosts into monsters. We also meet Ponce de Leon, who in turn drags Johannes Gutenberg back into the picture .
The interactions between Ponce and Johannes are some of the best parts of the book. Passages arguing security versus freedom entwine with the revelation that Gutenberg has been writing Harry Potter fan fiction. And we also get Issac trying to solve Gerbert d'Aurillac's puzzle of where he hid the celestial sphere holding Meridiana's soul.
Interspersed withing the text are passages from things contemporaneous with the main narrative, as the existence of magic becomes widely known. Things like coaches being suspended for allegedly using magic for the team, Issac's brother's nastygram about how Issac could have used magic to save his nephew's limbs....
It's a much more fun volume than the last book, more in tune with Jim Butcher's Dresden Files sense of style. (Tio be fair, Issac is a lot less hard boiled than Dresden is. Although I could totally see Issac yelling "Parkour!" while navigating the gates of Hades.)
Honestly, one of the best reads I've had in a while.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
And we're back across the Mackinac bridge.
Ah, Libriomancy. Once again, we're with Isaac in the Upper Peninsula dealing with the magick of pulling things out of books based on the amount of belief readers have put into them over time.
As some of you might remember, I reviewed the first book a while back, and became ecstatic when Book 2 came out.
We start Codex Born about a year after the climax of Libriomancer, with Isaac training a new student who's learned to do something thought impossible. Namely Jeneta has figured out how to magically pull items from her e-reader. And no one can figure out HOW she's able to do so.
Jeneta soon falls by the wayside as the plot starts picking up, as Isaac and his Dryad companion Lena get called out to investigate the slaughter of a few Wendigos not far from Isaac's house. What follows is a greater exploration of the magic in Jim C. Hines' world, as we discover the followers of Bi Sheng who fled into books as a way to survive a purge by Gutenberg during the early years of the Porters. They survive in books, with their books being read several times a day by a reader, constantly pouring belief into the text.
We also have several meditations on family and relationships throughout the course of the book. Each chapter opens with part of Lena's story, which is not exactly a pretty one, and one of the main villains is the father of a dead Porter who pretty much abused the hell out of his son growing up.
We also have the nebulous Devourers, who are trying to reach through the magic and invade the Earth. We met them briefly in Book 1, in this one, we get a bit more on them, and by the end, we have a brief glimpse of a face and a name.
While this book had much better pacing than the first volume, he did leave many things unresolved. Which is good, since it gives him places to go in future volumes, but it also tends to make Jeneta seem like an afterthought, as she shows up early on, then more or less vanishes until the epilogue.
Also, one scene around the middle of the book reminded me quite a bit of Jim Butcher's Dead Beat. Also not a bad thing, but I found myself wondering if it was an honest homage (quite common in the series so far) or just a case of serendipity.
As some of you might remember, I reviewed the first book a while back, and became ecstatic when Book 2 came out.
We start Codex Born about a year after the climax of Libriomancer, with Isaac training a new student who's learned to do something thought impossible. Namely Jeneta has figured out how to magically pull items from her e-reader. And no one can figure out HOW she's able to do so.
Jeneta soon falls by the wayside as the plot starts picking up, as Isaac and his Dryad companion Lena get called out to investigate the slaughter of a few Wendigos not far from Isaac's house. What follows is a greater exploration of the magic in Jim C. Hines' world, as we discover the followers of Bi Sheng who fled into books as a way to survive a purge by Gutenberg during the early years of the Porters. They survive in books, with their books being read several times a day by a reader, constantly pouring belief into the text.
We also have several meditations on family and relationships throughout the course of the book. Each chapter opens with part of Lena's story, which is not exactly a pretty one, and one of the main villains is the father of a dead Porter who pretty much abused the hell out of his son growing up.
We also have the nebulous Devourers, who are trying to reach through the magic and invade the Earth. We met them briefly in Book 1, in this one, we get a bit more on them, and by the end, we have a brief glimpse of a face and a name.
While this book had much better pacing than the first volume, he did leave many things unresolved. Which is good, since it gives him places to go in future volumes, but it also tends to make Jeneta seem like an afterthought, as she shows up early on, then more or less vanishes until the epilogue.
Also, one scene around the middle of the book reminded me quite a bit of Jim Butcher's Dead Beat. Also not a bad thing, but I found myself wondering if it was an honest homage (quite common in the series so far) or just a case of serendipity.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
I think I found my new superpower...
Due to the fact I can't renew it and it's due back on the 14th, Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines jumped to the head of my reading list. Book 1 in his new Magic Ex Libris, series, I was originally expecting at best a Mary Sue (Mary Ellen, Sue Ellen...whatever the term is. Maybe not Sue Ellen, that kind of character is the one that shows up and demands the deed to your oil field.) story, wherein the author was more or less writing himself into the story. At worst...
And then I started reading. My initial reaction to the start Issac's story was one of jealousy. Issac, out narrator is a libriomancer, a magician who can literally reach into a book and grab something out, as long as the object is big enough to fit through the book. (Examples so far include a disruptor ray, a lightsaber, the winged sandals of Hermes, a sonic screwdriver...) The jealousy directed not only at the ability, but also that I wrote a very similar power into characters about 20 years ago. Then again, I bet that most avid readers wish for very similar powers most of the time.
I digress.
Issac, much like the characters mentioned in my last post, is another one who has fallen from grace. A member of a secret magical organization, Die Zwelf Portenaere, Issac was on the fast track for a research position when he screwed up his field work. As such, he starts the book as a cataloger on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, not allowed to use magic except in cases of emergency. (A bit of background here on DZP. It's revealed early on that Johannes Gutenberg founded the order after discovering libriomancy. The magic works on a couple of ideas, mainly that there are multiple copies of the same edition of a book, and that as people read said book, their belief in the story fuels the magic inside.) Mostly, what Issac does is keep a database of what kind of things could be pulled from the books he catalogs. His specialty is Science Fiction and Fantasy, which leads to much name dropping in the narrative. (More side notes. I remain amused at how he's getting around trademarks and copyright on a few items. There's enough description to let you know what it is he just pulled without ever naming it. Second, I'm glad he has a small bibliography at the end, because a few of these I want to read now.) Should something be in the book that should be locked (for instance, the miniature black hole from David Brin's Earth or the weapons grade rabies from a book created for this narrative), Gutenberg will "lock" the text to prevent anyone (especially awakening libriomancers) from grabbing something really bad out of a book.
Well, after getting attacked by "Sparklers" (vampire species Sanguinious Meyerii, caused by people getting vampirism from Twilight novels) and being saved by a hamadryad, we find out that not only are vampires of several species attacking libriomancers and the other types of magicians in DZP, but Gutenberg and his immortal automatons have gone missing. Lots of investigation and visiting a vampire nest in Detroit later, we're suspecting that Gutenberg himself is behind the war between the factions (the vampires are saying they were attacked first), particularly since a few locked books are suddenly semi-unlocked. To a point where Issac just violated a whole bunch of rules of magic by more or less trying to enter a book that has its lock ripped out to try to find the person who destroyed the lock. This was a bad idea. However, the person who ripped the lock out seems to be suffering from what the psychiatrists libriomancer being held by the vampire nest in Detroit describes as a cross between Dissociative Identity Disorder and possession. Namely, the bad guy just identified himself as about 5 different people, including Moriarty, Norman Bates, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
I love his shameless name dropping, and I love the powers on display here. Although I honestly think Issac would be well served by pulling Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden's trench coat out of a book at this point.
On a personal note, I'm trying to make this blog look prettier than it does now. I seem to have not inherited the fabulous allele when I got the gay gene, which is making the process more difficult.
And then I started reading. My initial reaction to the start Issac's story was one of jealousy. Issac, out narrator is a libriomancer, a magician who can literally reach into a book and grab something out, as long as the object is big enough to fit through the book. (Examples so far include a disruptor ray, a lightsaber, the winged sandals of Hermes, a sonic screwdriver...) The jealousy directed not only at the ability, but also that I wrote a very similar power into characters about 20 years ago. Then again, I bet that most avid readers wish for very similar powers most of the time.
I digress.
Issac, much like the characters mentioned in my last post, is another one who has fallen from grace. A member of a secret magical organization, Die Zwelf Portenaere, Issac was on the fast track for a research position when he screwed up his field work. As such, he starts the book as a cataloger on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, not allowed to use magic except in cases of emergency. (A bit of background here on DZP. It's revealed early on that Johannes Gutenberg founded the order after discovering libriomancy. The magic works on a couple of ideas, mainly that there are multiple copies of the same edition of a book, and that as people read said book, their belief in the story fuels the magic inside.) Mostly, what Issac does is keep a database of what kind of things could be pulled from the books he catalogs. His specialty is Science Fiction and Fantasy, which leads to much name dropping in the narrative. (More side notes. I remain amused at how he's getting around trademarks and copyright on a few items. There's enough description to let you know what it is he just pulled without ever naming it. Second, I'm glad he has a small bibliography at the end, because a few of these I want to read now.) Should something be in the book that should be locked (for instance, the miniature black hole from David Brin's Earth or the weapons grade rabies from a book created for this narrative), Gutenberg will "lock" the text to prevent anyone (especially awakening libriomancers) from grabbing something really bad out of a book.
Well, after getting attacked by "Sparklers" (vampire species Sanguinious Meyerii, caused by people getting vampirism from Twilight novels) and being saved by a hamadryad, we find out that not only are vampires of several species attacking libriomancers and the other types of magicians in DZP, but Gutenberg and his immortal automatons have gone missing. Lots of investigation and visiting a vampire nest in Detroit later, we're suspecting that Gutenberg himself is behind the war between the factions (the vampires are saying they were attacked first), particularly since a few locked books are suddenly semi-unlocked. To a point where Issac just violated a whole bunch of rules of magic by more or less trying to enter a book that has its lock ripped out to try to find the person who destroyed the lock. This was a bad idea. However, the person who ripped the lock out seems to be suffering from what the psychiatrists libriomancer being held by the vampire nest in Detroit describes as a cross between Dissociative Identity Disorder and possession. Namely, the bad guy just identified himself as about 5 different people, including Moriarty, Norman Bates, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
I love his shameless name dropping, and I love the powers on display here. Although I honestly think Issac would be well served by pulling Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden's trench coat out of a book at this point.
On a personal note, I'm trying to make this blog look prettier than it does now. I seem to have not inherited the fabulous allele when I got the gay gene, which is making the process more difficult.
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