With the help of his fire-spider, Smudge, and Lena—a motor-cycle-riding dryad who packs a pair of wooden swords—Isaac finds himself hunting the unknown dark power that has been manipulating humans and vampires alike. His search will uncover dangerous secrets about libriomancy, Gutenberg, and the history of magic…
Two years ago libriomancer Isaac Vainio was forced to give up magic after badly misjudging a field operation. Now he just catalogues books, looking for ones that need to be locked lest their contents escape. No one would want the One Ring, or worse, out in the real world, would they? He has just about resigned himself to his fate when three vampires attack. Suddenly he's on the run, helped only by his fire spider and Lena the dryad, hunting down a rogue libriomancer who might just end the world.
The is fun. It's probably most fun if you are a fan who recognises the books that Isaac uses during his adventures (although I was disapointed to discover that the Ann Crispin novel mentioned is fictional: I was about to look it up on Amazon). But even without that, there's action, a magical system that at first seems too powerful but we then see has sensible limiting rules, and interesting characters, Lena particularly: a fictional character trying to survive in the real world under some very limiting constraints.
We get a good conclusion, but there are clearly more stories to be told in this world, and indeed there is a sequel due out later this year.
