Libriomancer (Magic Ex Libris Book 1)

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Brief appearances by a few different Porters are interesting and give a picture of complex beings doing a challenging job. In a book about the magic of books, the magic of words, I would expect to have that feeling more strongly, and it isn’t here for me until Isaac and Lena begin studying one of Gutenberg’s automatons, two-thirds of the way through the book. The other bonus that this magic system brings to the book, is that the story is filled with inside comments and cameos from real books big and small (along with a few fake ones), and it just brings the Urban Fantasy World of Libriomancer even more to life. It was an uncomfortable read at times with regards to Lena but that made the book less mindless fun and a lot more impacting and affecting for me. The Porters were founded by Johannes Gutenberg, the father of moveable type, and the first libriomancer.

Hines throws characters and dilemmas at us fast and furious in the first fifty pages and it was a little too much. Isaac is all of these things, but he’s also joyful and transparent and emotional and has somehow maintained an innocence that is incredibly sweet.I mean, what could you possibly expect from a book where the magic of reading is not only metaphorical but a literal thing? Actually, so good I'm afraid of reading the second book 'Codex Born' in the series in case it falls short of this one. After becoming infected, each new supernatural's characteristics depend entirely on the mythology of the infecting book, resulting in many different types of vampires and shifters.

Born decades ago from the pages of a pulp fantasy novel, Lena was created to be the ultimate fantasy woman, strong and deadly, but shaped by the needs and desires of her companions. After all, the Libriomancers' ability to reach into books and pull out objects has got to be like the most over-powered superpower ever. Isaac Vainio is a Libriomancer, a member of the secret organization founded five centuries ago by Johannes Gutenberg. Lena was brought forth from a book – a book that was part of a series of books famed for its portrayal of sexual servitude.Together with the dryad Lena, Isaac finds himself tasked with solving the mystery of the attacks as well as the kidnapping of Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the movable-type printing press. And because he’s a fantasy/sci fi fan, the tools he uses are instantly, joyfully recognizable to many of us. The first thing the guy did with it was use The Bible, pull out the Holy Grail, make himself immortal with it and then lock the book's magic so that nobody else could do the same. All kinds of sf references, many that only true fans would recognize (particularly Doctor Who stuff), and Firefly is one of his top two shows. It's definitely very pulpy, but Libromancer is really a love-letter to Science Fiction and Fantasy books, or just books in general.