Book Review: Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library
A seemingly endless Library, with books from across multiple worlds. A library with connections and portals to endless worlds. It can take hours, even days, to get to locations within the library. It is a Library of the first order, in the same tradition as Pratchett’s multidimensional and universe-spanning idea of L-Space in his Discworld novels. The Librarians are devoted to the love of books, their acquisition and preservation. They travel to alternate worlds in search of rare books, of key books, of special books to add to their collection. This process does not always go well, especially with the rarer finds. Irene is a junior librarian of the Library. When she is assigned a new assistant (who is clearly more than he appears) and a seemingly simple task to find a book in an alternate London, things start going wrong immediately.
My Superpower: Peter Newman (The Vagrant)
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Peter Newman to talk about how the power of escaping reality relates to The Vagrant. As it happens, I have a few superpowers. I instinctively know where to stand in order to get in other people’s way (this is doubly true in Forbidden Planet and other people’s kitchens), I can relate most things to He-Man in three steps or less, and when the universe needs me, I can summon the appetite of ten tigers. However, none of these things were any use in writing The Vagrant.
