2021 alternate-world fantasy, eighth and last of its series. Irene is
trying to do something about the situation she's discovered, but
forces within the Library seem to be working against her.
Well. There was really only one way Cogman could salvage this
world, and she does it: to say that not only has the Library's
leadership been acting strangely, but that it's been affecting our
heroine, who's found herself justifying the Library's odd priorities
to herself and to her allies.
Some of this is digging into the past, with an unsurprising attempt to
rehabilitate the series' long-term scary villain Alberich that Cogman
does more or less pull off: he's still not a good guy, but one can at
least understand what drove him to do the things he did (if not,
quite, why one particular piece of information supposedly drove
everyone who learned it into screaming insanity).
That said, there's still a sense of padding and preparation for
something like the first half of this book. Irene's pushed into one of
those secret missions where everyone is made to think she's a traitor,
except nobody much seems to believe it and it's quickly resolved. When
things do finally get moving, though, it's great: new forms of
threat, new ways of responding to those threats, whole new classes of
problem to be solved.
(Also it's now claimed that "The Library sends copies of books back to
where they came from and to other worlds." It's rather little, rather
late, and still feels a lot like theft and hoarding to me, but at
least it shows that Cogman is aware that these supposed book
enthusiasts have been spending the previous volumes taking the best
for themselves and never sharing. Hey ho.)
All right, it's all still a bit rough. Cogman's actual writing is
pleasant, but the characters don't come together as well as I'd liked
even in their last appearance, being first too unwilling to listen to
evidence and then far too willing to drop cherished positions in the
face of the same evidence.
But while I never quite fell in love with this series it does have
some fine moments, and I'm glad I read it.