![]() ![]() And not only fantasy: this is detective fiction à la Sherlock Holmes. The setting of The Invisible Library is Victoriana London, but with all the above elements in play, it’s still very much a fantasy. I’m a sucker for dragons and although they don’t feature much in this book, I love Cogman’s depiction of them as ancient, unknowable, fearsome beings, half wild, half civilised, existing somewhere behind and beyond time. You might be tempted to add dragons to that list, but they are in fact agents of order who work to bring chaotic worlds back into balance. ![]() When a world falls out of balance, it can become infested with the forces of chaos, meaning Irene and Kai have to deal with unpredictable magic, vampires, werewolves and the Fae. The only things non-standard about it are Kai – a trainee Librarian whom Irene is supposed to mentor – and the fact that the world where the book resides is marked as chaos-infested.Ĭogman uses the natural opposites of order and chaos as pillars to support her universe. ![]() Irene is one such agent, a junior Librarian who’s sent on what appears to be a standard mission to retrieve a rare copy of Grimms’ fairy tales. I use the term loosely, as the agents of the Library don’t mind resorting to a bit of larceny when on the hunt for a particular title. ![]() Clandestinely situated between dimensions – and yes, invisible – the Library is a vast repository of fiction ‘acquired’ from myriad parallel worlds. The premise of The Invisible Library is brilliant. ![]()
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