Book of the Week: Bookburners.

Bookburners is this ensemble novel written by Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, and Brian Francis Slattery, or perhaps ‘episodic’ is more the right word.  It reads a lot like a season-long television series would (the subtitle is even ‘Season One’), which is not actually a bad thing in this context. You see, the Bookburners in question work for a secret anti-magic Vatican task force that captures evil books before the books in question eat any more people*; which, you have to admit, is not a bad concept for a TV show.  You get the feeling that the authors would very much like to get optioned for this one, and I freely admit: I’d watch it.

And so, adieu to The Warlock In Spite of Himself.

Moe Lane

*Magic is bad, or at least it’s bloody freaking dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing, and ‘knowing what you’re doing’ is apparently just a short jaunt away from ‘going completely nuts.’  There’s complications and counter-arguments involved, but magic use generally ends in tears and tentacles.  I find this a refreshing contrast to the standard fare.

One thought on “Book of the Week: Bookburners.”

  1. Wait. You mean magic isn’t just wish fulfillment with no obvious cost to the user?
    .
    Just in case you haven’t run across it, Michael Stackpole’s “Dark Glory War” handles the theme of the hidden costs of magic excellently, as well as being a great read.
    I wouldn’t recommend the later trilogy that used the standalone as the launch point. Parts of it were really good, but parts were also badly forced. I probably wouldn’t judge it so harshly if it hadn’t been for the promise of the standalone.

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