After the events of the last book, The Shattered Lens, Alcatraz Smedry and the ragtag army of relations and allies must make their way to the heart of Librarian power to find the cure to Bastille’s and the Mokian’s comas: The Library of Congress. Alcatraz also has to stop his father, Attica, from implementing his plan of giving everyone in the world Talents like the Smedrys have, well had; Alcatraz broke them all in the big battle at the end of the previous book.
This is a horrible plan on Attica’s part largely because the Talents have already resulted in the destruction of one civilization; he has to be stopped before they possibly destroy another. (Shasta, Alcatraz’s Librarian mother who is being dragged along as a prisoner/walking map to the Library, just suggests shooting Attica; Alcatraz wants to hold that off as Plan B. Great family you have there.). On top of these two near impossible missions, Alcatraz and his allies have to deal with the rising rumors that Biblioden, the originator of the Dark and Evil Librarian Cult has returned, even if he founded his cult centuries ago. This was slightly better than the last book, but still not as good as the first; I’d probably put it with the second in terms of how much I liked it. The chapter headings are still twee leaning towards insufferable; I like snark and humor, but Sanderson’s here is starting to feel a little “An Intentional Decision to Appear Quirky and Relatable”.
No Terry Pratchett reference this book, I had to make do with a Douglas Adams, which I think of as a step down. I will say that having one of the dinosaurs being a Thesaurus was amusing; Brandon Sanderson may not be the first to go there, but it’s still funny. I wonder if Sanderson intentionally made Shasta the far more likable character and vastly superior parent despite her assorted issues than Attica, or if it was accidental. Either way I guess it goes to show why Alcatraz is as piss poor a person as he is; when that’s your nature, it wouldn’t matter what nurture (if he really had had any) would be. (One thing I finally got to wondering about in this book; why would the foster system keep his name Alcatraz? Name kind of stands out a bit). The big reveal in the book was kind of obvious from the offset; the character’s personality was so obviously a Smedry parody it was bordering on being a red herring. I’m glad Sanderson had people actually dying during the big battle scenes; I know this is a series for children, but it would have been straining credulity if everyone had miraculous escapes from any danger (other than the two big character deaths that finish up the book-well, more like one and a half, and that is straining the credulity). One main character death, one that I do not consider a main character; I’m sorry, I understand why Alcatraz has the emotional reaction he does, but I just did not care about one of those deaths. It was an incredibly dark ending for what is supposed to be a children’s book, but then again weren’t all children’s books bowdlerized more for the parent’s sakes than the children’s? Children know how dark and depressing the world is, it’s adults who think they need to be protected from it.
In closing, all I can say is that I am well and truly glad that this was the penultimate book and the next one switches out who the main character is; at last there’s a light at the end of tunnel and the end is in sight. I just hope this was the last book to have a narrator constantly discuss how super-duper wonderful and clever they are while simultaneously proclaiming how terrible they are and how the books were written to show everyone who thinks they’re wonderful that they’re not.