Libriomancer: A Review
Aug. 5th, 2012 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetSo, guess what book I just finished? 8D Ahahaha, yeah, pointless question.
Before I get started, I'd like to offer some general Content Notes for the book itself, for those who choose to read it and might have triggers to deal with. They are pretty significant spoilers for the book, so I've hidden them under spoiler blockers. Highlight to read. [Content Notes: Violence, consent issues. Scroll to the sixth big paragraph under the cut for more detail on the latter.]
Now, be warned for YET MORE MASSIVE SPOILERS as I go over some details of the book itself 8) They're hidden under a cut, so if you don't want to be spoiled, go no farther.
Libriomancer is the story of Isaac Vainio, a former libriomancer who was removed from his post due to an Incident (we do get to learn all about it) and is now relegated to only cataloging books for their magical potential - except in extreme emergencies. Like the one when the book starts, where a trio of Sanguinarius Meyerii, nicknamed "sparklers", attack him in the library where he works. (And may I just say that I love the hilarious pseudo-Latin names Jim came up with for the various vampires?)
Luckily for Isaac, Lena Greenwood, a dryad (or tree nymph) who is both brown and fat-ish, shows up just in time to save his ass. Together they learn that something - or someone - has been killing vampireswithout a permit unlawfully, and that the vampires at large suspect the Porters (the organized body of libriomancers). Lena and Isaac must find out what's really been going on, or there could be worldwide war between the Porters and vampires.
Now that the summary is out of the way, here's my thoughts!
See, here's a thing. Since I have a huge fondness for supernatural stuff and fantasy and sci-fi that's more closely tied to the world I know than your average high fantasy or space opera, I feel like I should be perfectly predisposed to liking urban fantasy. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I've tried really just doesn't tickle my fancy. The Dresden Files, the October Daye series, the Greywalker series - little to nothing, and I ended up ragequitting for various reasons. (The October Daye series was probably the only one of the three that was basically entirely personal pet peeves. I liked the Greywalker series fine until the zombie book, which, er, strayed rather into unfunny territory; the Dresden Files practically wallow in Unfunniness, and not even the promise of a modern wizard riding Sue the T-Rex skeleton through downtown Chicago with the help of a dancing guy could get me through the third book. ...Back on track!) I don't even dare try with the popular urban fantasy romances.
Derek Landy's Skullduggery Pleasant seemed to be the exception, though even the most recent of those is edging slowly into darker territory - kinda like how Harry Potter got darker and darker as the books went on. I'm currently in Not Sure If Want Land with that, even if Val and Skullduggery do have some downright hilarious banter. (I have frighteningly specific tastes, okay. And with the number of books in the world, and the fact that it's a number that keeps growing, it only makes sense to be selective.)
So I guess I was leading up to say that it shows how much I trust Jim as a writer that I picked up Libriomancy without even a moment's hesitation regarding the content. I admit, I had a brief blip during the pre-release period when Jim first mentioned the genre, but he made it clear that he was writing a parody, and one of Jim's ongoing literary themes is genre-awareness and building on/reaching beyond standard tropes. (This is a favorite theme of mine, BTW.) Libriomancer did not disappoint there in the least. There were geek jokes aplenty, and I reveled in them!
And now comes the humorless feminist part of this post. In addition to writing in a trope-aware way, Jim also likes to deal with serious feminist issues in a realistic and honest way. In Libriomancer, Jim addressed the issue of consent from several angles. There was Smudge, who only even existed out of loyalty and whom Isaac thought returning to the book would be tantamount to killing. There were the automatons, who were driven by the stolen souls of individuals, at least one of whom had crossed Gutenberg in the past. There was the villain, whose ability to use magic was blocked without his consent in order to keep magic from being discovered, and who erased his own mother's memories so he could disappear. And perhaps most pronounced was Lena Greenwood herself.
See, Lena is not just any dryad; she's a dryad created from a very specific book; accidentally created, but created nonetheless. And, in the book she's created from, "[c]entral to a nymph's nature is the inability to refuse her lover." She was programmed in such a way that she doesn't mind not being able to say no, but that's not even remotely comforting. In essence, she is a character who is incapable of meaningful consent.
I'm rather torn about this whole thing. As I mentioned above, two of Jim's more common themes are addressing literary tropes and feminist issues. The creation of exactly Lena's sort of character is definitely the former, while consent falls firmly into the territory of the latter. I can only surmise that Jim wanted to explore the issue of authors who create characters like Lena and how they might conceivably deal with consent, and if it was in fact possible in the first place.
Several times in the book, Jim reinforces that a libriomancer cannot change the inherent traits of certain magically created items or beings (literary-source vampires, Smudge, and the other dryads from Lena's source book). Lena's inability to consent is one of these things. What she can do, something she actually does do, is choose a lover whose desires she is already aware of.
The idea itself made me squirm a bit. After all, even if he was doing so to explore the trope in more meaningful depth, Jim was ultimately responsible for creating Lena. I really couldn't see a way out of the horrible consent issues at hand aside from either a magical fix-it at the end of the book or blanket acceptance that we have to deal with Lena as she is, not how we would have her be.
For the first third-ish of the book, Lena believes that her previous lover, Doctor Nidhi Shah, had actually died and was looking for someone else to help sustain her life. Isaac was already attracted to Lena and she apparently was rather fond of him in general, even though she had already been in a relationship with someone when they'd last met, so he was her choice. Just when he had reconciled himself with the idea that Lena's only ability to choose lay in whom she chose, the two of them discovered that Dr. Shah is actually alive. So, while Lena and Isaac had begun to bond, the bond between Lena and Dr. Shah is stronger, and all of them assume that Lena will end up with Dr. Shah at the end of the book.
This further complicated my feelings on the whole thing. Somehow this book was going to end with Isaac either romantically involved with Lena - which left a bad taste in my mouth from a QUILTBAG perspective, even if Lena was given the ability to choose for herself at the end of the book - or not romantically involved with her but at peace with it. The more time the two of them spent together, the less likely it seemed that either of these things was going to happen.
And then I got to the end, completely right: neither of those things actually happened. Instead, due to her dual bond with both Isaac and Dr. Shah, Lena chose both of them. The fact that Isaac's and Dr. Shah's desires did not completely overlap allowed her some form of choice for the first time in her life/existence. As a bisexual-identified possibly polyamorous OT3er, I was delighted, even if I do generally prefer true triangles to hinges. As a feminist, I'm still somewhat troubled: does this really count as meaningful consent? Would taking more lovers allow Lena to define herself more fully, or would that just wreak havoc on her psyche?
In the end, it is the only option available that is not actually overwriting what Lena is, whether she would want that or not. It's a third way that follows the rules as laid out. I was rather pleased to see the beginnings of Isaac and Dr. Shah navigating their relationship with one another as well as with Lena; Isaac still has to deal with jealousy, and neither he nor Dr. Shah are romantically interested in each other, so my beloved true triangle is truly out of the question, but it has the trappings of a healthy polyamorous relationship to the best of my very limited knowledge of the subject.
One final note. I was delighted by Isaac searching fanfiction for the name of a potentially obscure literary character, just as I was delighted by the slashy potential of Ponce de Leon and Johannes Gutenberg. Jim, be prepared for those two to take over a small chunk of fanfic space if fandom at large gets wind of this ;) (Yuletide, I'm looking at you!) We've done far stranger things than read huge numbers of biographies in order to write slash.
Edit: I'd like to personally thank Jim for PMing me to address some of my concerns. It's very reassuring for me as a fan to know that he's been thinking about these things and plans to address them in the future. (I mean, I figured, but there's always that chance, you know?)
Before I get started, I'd like to offer some general Content Notes for the book itself, for those who choose to read it and might have triggers to deal with. They are pretty significant spoilers for the book, so I've hidden them under spoiler blockers. Highlight to read. [Content Notes: Violence, consent issues. Scroll to the sixth big paragraph under the cut for more detail on the latter.]
Now, be warned for YET MORE MASSIVE SPOILERS as I go over some details of the book itself 8) They're hidden under a cut, so if you don't want to be spoiled, go no farther.
Libriomancer is the story of Isaac Vainio, a former libriomancer who was removed from his post due to an Incident (we do get to learn all about it) and is now relegated to only cataloging books for their magical potential - except in extreme emergencies. Like the one when the book starts, where a trio of Sanguinarius Meyerii, nicknamed "sparklers", attack him in the library where he works. (And may I just say that I love the hilarious pseudo-Latin names Jim came up with for the various vampires?)
Luckily for Isaac, Lena Greenwood, a dryad (or tree nymph) who is both brown and fat-ish, shows up just in time to save his ass. Together they learn that something - or someone - has been killing vampires
Now that the summary is out of the way, here's my thoughts!
See, here's a thing. Since I have a huge fondness for supernatural stuff and fantasy and sci-fi that's more closely tied to the world I know than your average high fantasy or space opera, I feel like I should be perfectly predisposed to liking urban fantasy. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I've tried really just doesn't tickle my fancy. The Dresden Files, the October Daye series, the Greywalker series - little to nothing, and I ended up ragequitting for various reasons. (The October Daye series was probably the only one of the three that was basically entirely personal pet peeves. I liked the Greywalker series fine until the zombie book, which, er, strayed rather into unfunny territory; the Dresden Files practically wallow in Unfunniness, and not even the promise of a modern wizard riding Sue the T-Rex skeleton through downtown Chicago with the help of a dancing guy could get me through the third book. ...Back on track!) I don't even dare try with the popular urban fantasy romances.
Derek Landy's Skullduggery Pleasant seemed to be the exception, though even the most recent of those is edging slowly into darker territory - kinda like how Harry Potter got darker and darker as the books went on. I'm currently in Not Sure If Want Land with that, even if Val and Skullduggery do have some downright hilarious banter. (I have frighteningly specific tastes, okay. And with the number of books in the world, and the fact that it's a number that keeps growing, it only makes sense to be selective.)
So I guess I was leading up to say that it shows how much I trust Jim as a writer that I picked up Libriomancy without even a moment's hesitation regarding the content. I admit, I had a brief blip during the pre-release period when Jim first mentioned the genre, but he made it clear that he was writing a parody, and one of Jim's ongoing literary themes is genre-awareness and building on/reaching beyond standard tropes. (This is a favorite theme of mine, BTW.) Libriomancer did not disappoint there in the least. There were geek jokes aplenty, and I reveled in them!
And now comes the humorless feminist part of this post. In addition to writing in a trope-aware way, Jim also likes to deal with serious feminist issues in a realistic and honest way. In Libriomancer, Jim addressed the issue of consent from several angles. There was Smudge, who only even existed out of loyalty and whom Isaac thought returning to the book would be tantamount to killing. There were the automatons, who were driven by the stolen souls of individuals, at least one of whom had crossed Gutenberg in the past. There was the villain, whose ability to use magic was blocked without his consent in order to keep magic from being discovered, and who erased his own mother's memories so he could disappear. And perhaps most pronounced was Lena Greenwood herself.
See, Lena is not just any dryad; she's a dryad created from a very specific book; accidentally created, but created nonetheless. And, in the book she's created from, "[c]entral to a nymph's nature is the inability to refuse her lover." She was programmed in such a way that she doesn't mind not being able to say no, but that's not even remotely comforting. In essence, she is a character who is incapable of meaningful consent.
I'm rather torn about this whole thing. As I mentioned above, two of Jim's more common themes are addressing literary tropes and feminist issues. The creation of exactly Lena's sort of character is definitely the former, while consent falls firmly into the territory of the latter. I can only surmise that Jim wanted to explore the issue of authors who create characters like Lena and how they might conceivably deal with consent, and if it was in fact possible in the first place.
Several times in the book, Jim reinforces that a libriomancer cannot change the inherent traits of certain magically created items or beings (literary-source vampires, Smudge, and the other dryads from Lena's source book). Lena's inability to consent is one of these things. What she can do, something she actually does do, is choose a lover whose desires she is already aware of.
The idea itself made me squirm a bit. After all, even if he was doing so to explore the trope in more meaningful depth, Jim was ultimately responsible for creating Lena. I really couldn't see a way out of the horrible consent issues at hand aside from either a magical fix-it at the end of the book or blanket acceptance that we have to deal with Lena as she is, not how we would have her be.
For the first third-ish of the book, Lena believes that her previous lover, Doctor Nidhi Shah, had actually died and was looking for someone else to help sustain her life. Isaac was already attracted to Lena and she apparently was rather fond of him in general, even though she had already been in a relationship with someone when they'd last met, so he was her choice. Just when he had reconciled himself with the idea that Lena's only ability to choose lay in whom she chose, the two of them discovered that Dr. Shah is actually alive. So, while Lena and Isaac had begun to bond, the bond between Lena and Dr. Shah is stronger, and all of them assume that Lena will end up with Dr. Shah at the end of the book.
This further complicated my feelings on the whole thing. Somehow this book was going to end with Isaac either romantically involved with Lena - which left a bad taste in my mouth from a QUILTBAG perspective, even if Lena was given the ability to choose for herself at the end of the book - or not romantically involved with her but at peace with it. The more time the two of them spent together, the less likely it seemed that either of these things was going to happen.
And then I got to the end, completely right: neither of those things actually happened. Instead, due to her dual bond with both Isaac and Dr. Shah, Lena chose both of them. The fact that Isaac's and Dr. Shah's desires did not completely overlap allowed her some form of choice for the first time in her life/existence. As a bisexual-identified possibly polyamorous OT3er, I was delighted, even if I do generally prefer true triangles to hinges. As a feminist, I'm still somewhat troubled: does this really count as meaningful consent? Would taking more lovers allow Lena to define herself more fully, or would that just wreak havoc on her psyche?
In the end, it is the only option available that is not actually overwriting what Lena is, whether she would want that or not. It's a third way that follows the rules as laid out. I was rather pleased to see the beginnings of Isaac and Dr. Shah navigating their relationship with one another as well as with Lena; Isaac still has to deal with jealousy, and neither he nor Dr. Shah are romantically interested in each other, so my beloved true triangle is truly out of the question, but it has the trappings of a healthy polyamorous relationship to the best of my very limited knowledge of the subject.
One final note. I was delighted by Isaac searching fanfiction for the name of a potentially obscure literary character, just as I was delighted by the slashy potential of Ponce de Leon and Johannes Gutenberg. Jim, be prepared for those two to take over a small chunk of fanfic space if fandom at large gets wind of this ;) (Yuletide, I'm looking at you!) We've done far stranger things than read huge numbers of biographies in order to write slash.
Edit: I'd like to personally thank Jim for PMing me to address some of my concerns. It's very reassuring for me as a fan to know that he's been thinking about these things and plans to address them in the future. (I mean, I figured, but there's always that chance, you know?)
