The Invisible Library

Irene is an agent of the Library, a literary superspy trained to work undercover in a multitude of worlds to retrieve unique books for the Library's collection. Assigned a new apprentice, Kai, and a new assignment, she is startled to find that the world she is to retrieve an 1812 Grimm manuscript from is riddled with chaos, the force which opposes the Library's philosophy; hardly the right place to break in a new Librarian. Before long, Irene has made a local ally in amateur sleuth Vale, but is faced by a rival Librarian and the Library's near-legendary renegade operative, Alberich.

The Invisible Library is the first book in a series, and the sense of worldbuilding is palpable. Lapsing occasionally into tell-not-show, overall the nature of the Library is explored organically and - deliberately - incompletely. This first volume establishes that it exists between dimensions, has apparently sole access to the fundamental Language of creation, and secures its links to the many worlds of the multiverse by means of the books in its collection. Irene states that its purpose is 'to protect books', but there are hints that there is more to it than that.

Aside from anything else, the Language - and thus the Library - is the intrinsic enemy of Chaos, a force which manifests in the form of supernatural entities and a creep from physical laws to those of narrative. This is one of the most intriguing aspects of the story, that the Library is all about books and not about stories (although clearly the Librarians themselves, all of whom take literary or folkloric pseudonyms, are as romantic as anyone.)

Overall, I enjoyed The Invisible Library, although it did seem odd that a book so hung up on text and grammar should harbour quite such a grudge against run-on sentences. Cogman rattles out the prose in a machine gun stutter of simple sentences, reminiscent of the staccato stylings of Dashiel Hammett and suggestive of some early trauma involving semicolons. Other than this, my only real criticism is that neither Kai nor Vale ever seemed significantly dangerous or untrustworthy, even when the narrative was concerned with whom, if anyone, Irene could trust.