This is my final book of 2019, it took me a month to read (I got distracted with travelling and knitting) and two weeks to post about it—oh well.
Similar to The Masked City, this book starts off with a kidnapping, this time it’s Irene. Well it doesn’t start off with one, it actually starts off with a trip to another highly ordered world (think Nazi’s) and then when Irene has to take a quick solo trip to the Library she gets kidnapped.
This also wasn’t the Dragon companion book I was hoping we’d get after the last books deep foray into the Fae’s political underworld. Instead we were back to the big-bad Alberich for this story. That being said, it does sound like the Dragon’s are still coming with a side comment from one of Kai’s relatives (attendees?), but I won’t hold my breath.
I am starting to wonder if I’ve already determined Cogman’s overall plan for the series. Big bad, little bad, big bad, little bad, all connected, but not necessarily for any other reason than to provide variety. There’s nothing wrong with this, but if it is the case I can see where it will get old pretty quick, especially in a soon-to-be seven (or eight?) book series. Overall, the climactic battle of the novel was pretty underwhelming especially when compared to the first time Irene faced Alberich in the first book of the series.
“Getting killed was incredibly easy. Anyone could do it. Staying safe and alive was much harder.” (Loc. 747)
I’m enjoying the growing relationship between Irene and Kai, and even the confusing addition of Vale and wherever that goes, but I miss the travelling to other worlds//The Library. In both this book and the last book the travelling was restricted to a quick visit to the library/another world, but then primarily stayed in one location. I can see why from a setting standpoint it might be better to keep just one setting, but a larger part of the draw of the series for me was the inter-dimensional travel and The Library’s connections to the worlds through stories with important variations (which of course I want to hear more about)!
We got a bit more insight into the Dragon’s culture this novel and I think even more is coming when Kai and Irene briefly visited a world where some of the Dragon’s inhabit and they detected the visit. I also found Cogman’s inclusion of the following to be weirdly counter-intuitive, but I’m not so sure as I’m typing this.
“Kai had explained, in tones of kindly condescension at human convention, that social gender among dragons was what the dragon in question said it was. And since Li Ming said he was male, then he was male.” (Loc. 1,788)
“Kai might be very non-judgmental when it came to personal gender roles, but he was extremely superior when explaining how non-judgmental he was.” (Loc. 1,791)
It seems odd to me that the Dragon’s would be so accepting of self-identification of gender identity when they care about order and structure. I guess as long as the individual dragon in particular wasn’t moving back and forth or attempting to define themselves outside of the accepted gender conventions it wouldn’t really matter to them as long as they were orderly and decisive. Perhaps I’m showing my own rigid interpretations in assuming that the Fae in their chaotic nature and flare for the dramatic would be more open to those who society may deem as minorities or operating outside what is considered “normal.”
Recommendation: Worth reading if you’re going to commit to the entire series. I wasn’t disappointed in this book, but I wasn’t as enamored as I was with the first book of the series. I’m not sure where the rest of the series will go, but as the glamour wears off I probably won’t read seek them out as quickly and use the more as filler.
Opening Line: “The morning light glittered on the glass windows and on the blades of the guillotines in the central square.”
Closing Line: “They were safe in the Library, and the Library would endure.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
Additional Quotes from The Burning Page
“Panic is the antithesis to good organization. Panic is messy. I am against panic on a point of principle.” (Loc. 1,349)
“It was like one of those Venn diagrams where all the possible Bad Things intersected to provide a Worst Possible Thing at the centre.” (Loc. 1,412)
“The only problem is that it’s difficult to imagine something entirely new. We use the words and definitions of the past to shape our ideas. Something that is genuinely the next evolutionary step is unlikely to resemble anything we can imagine. Even the best books on the subject are limited.” (Loc. 2,915)
“‘That’s where both the Fae and the dragons fail.’ Alberich’s eyes had that hungry look again, though it wasn’t directed at Irene. It was directed at the whole world. ‘They are defined either by narrative or by reality. They don’t go beyond that. The only person who can ever set bounds on you should be yourself.'” (Loc. 2,919)
“‘People do keep on talking about wanting a war so that their side will win. But ultimately all they really want is for their side to be a bit better off. Nobody wishes for their side to triumph completely.’ She paused, considering that statement, and clarified it. ‘Nobody sane, that is.'” (Loc. 4,129)
“The problem with paranoia was that if you let it rule all your decisions, then you would miss some perfectly good opportunities.” (Loc. 4,231)
“Surely this was any Librarian’s hell, full of burning books and smoke and fire. She would have run onwards, but there was nowhere to run to now.” (Loc. 4,608)
I *liked* these books, but didn’t love them. They were worth reading, for sure. I liked the premise very much.