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Book Review #34: Codex Born
Title: Codex Born
Author: Jim Hines
Genre: Urban fantasy
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: Libriomancer and his dryad girlfriend take on an army of steampunk bugs controlled by a dead friend's abusive dad controlled by a cult of possessed books controlled by some kind of evil spirit from beyond that probably wants to eat all that lives.
Thoughts: In the first book in the series, Libriomancer, Hines introduced a wildly creative magic system and a couple really intriguing minor characters.
Unfortunately, this is really more of the same, and some of the novelty is starting to wear off.
They still do magic by pulling stuff out of books, which still results in dozens of hat tips to classic and contemporary works that will delight any voracious reader. Lena the dryad is still a really interesting study in how much agency fictional women are allowed to have, by an author who is extremely aware and careful of what he's doing. Gutenberg is still extremely morally dubious.
But that's it--it's all "still". There are a couple twists on how the magic works, but it doesn't really feel like it changes that much. Isaac gets himself into trouble and self-sacrifices to the point of having his personality disintegrate for a second time. There's not a lot of arc here for anyone--it's very much a middle book. We find out more examples of bad things that Gutenberg did, but it doesn't actually change our view of him.
Each chapter begins with a segment from Lena's point of view, giving her backstory. But it's just fleshing out what we already knew--it doesn't grant that much insight, and it doesn't really tie into the plot. I don't feel like I understand Lena much more than at the end of the last book, and she hasn't really changed much, either.
It's a fun plot, although the real antagonist is buried so deep that the ending has no particular sense of victory--each villain has been dispatched too easily in favor of one who we see for two sentences, undoubtedly to be dealt with in the next book.
I still enjoyed it, but I think this is a victim of my coming in with higher expectations. It's a perfectly nice little sequel. I was just expecting more.
Author: Jim Hines
Genre: Urban fantasy
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: Libriomancer and his dryad girlfriend take on an army of steampunk bugs controlled by a dead friend's abusive dad controlled by a cult of possessed books controlled by some kind of evil spirit from beyond that probably wants to eat all that lives.
Thoughts: In the first book in the series, Libriomancer, Hines introduced a wildly creative magic system and a couple really intriguing minor characters.
Unfortunately, this is really more of the same, and some of the novelty is starting to wear off.
They still do magic by pulling stuff out of books, which still results in dozens of hat tips to classic and contemporary works that will delight any voracious reader. Lena the dryad is still a really interesting study in how much agency fictional women are allowed to have, by an author who is extremely aware and careful of what he's doing. Gutenberg is still extremely morally dubious.
But that's it--it's all "still". There are a couple twists on how the magic works, but it doesn't really feel like it changes that much. Isaac gets himself into trouble and self-sacrifices to the point of having his personality disintegrate for a second time. There's not a lot of arc here for anyone--it's very much a middle book. We find out more examples of bad things that Gutenberg did, but it doesn't actually change our view of him.
Each chapter begins with a segment from Lena's point of view, giving her backstory. But it's just fleshing out what we already knew--it doesn't grant that much insight, and it doesn't really tie into the plot. I don't feel like I understand Lena much more than at the end of the last book, and she hasn't really changed much, either.
It's a fun plot, although the real antagonist is buried so deep that the ending has no particular sense of victory--each villain has been dispatched too easily in favor of one who we see for two sentences, undoubtedly to be dealt with in the next book.
I still enjoyed it, but I think this is a victim of my coming in with higher expectations. It's a perfectly nice little sequel. I was just expecting more.