Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians

I was playing around on Youtube and was watching some of the Sword&Laser author interviews and came across Brandon Sanderson.

He sounded pretty interesting so I looked up some of his stuff and came across this:

[bc:Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians|623976|Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (Alcatraz, #1)|Brandon Sanderson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1332516621s/623976.jpg|2591148][b:Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians|623976|Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (Alcatraz, #1)|Brandon Sanderson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1332516621s/623976.jpg|2591148]

Now as a recent graduate from Library School I just HAD to read it! And it might have been the best choice I have made (reading wise) this entire year!

I didn't stop laughing the entire time... It had quotes like this:

They are presented attractively for the same reason that kittens are cute -- so that they can draw you in, then pounce on you for the kill. Seriously. Stay away from kittens. Pg. 113

Then there is a portion of the book where he explains theories from Plato and Socrates!! Did I mention this was a children's book? It doesn't matter. It was amazing regardless.

So if you guys get a chance to read this (quick read, maybe 2-3 hours?) DO IT!

I will be looking up more of his stuff to read :) ( )

Good. Not sure all the narrator/author monologues work, but happy to be proved wrong. Very good twists. ( )

4.5 stars!

This books was really clever and funny! I loved the allusions to other works of literature. I REALLY got a kick out of the jab at Harry Potter at the very end... HA! SO TRUE! It was awesome!

Anyway, the premise of the story is that the known world has been taken over by evil librarians and that they are essentially controlling world governments and censoring what we know (by what we are taught in history BOOKS, etc.). Clever clever clever. I loved the Smedry "talents" and the metaphor of "sight"—the whole story was really original and fun, which still having some deeper meaning behind it. :) I'm excited to read the other books in the series! ( )

As a librarian, there was absolutely no way I could pass up this book. Evil librarians? I was so there. And boy did this book deliver the absurdities for which I was hoping. The story is told in a breaking the fourth wall kind of way, wherein the author (Sanderson claims to be Alcatraz who is pretending to be Sanderson so the librarians will not ban the book...or something like that) constantly puts the narrative on hold to talk to the reader. This tactic can seriously backfire and is not one I am generally a fan of. Sanderson pulled it off quite well here, largely because the character of Alcatraz has enough swagger, sarcasm and know-it-all-ness to make it seem appropriate and funny.

Similarly, Sanderson manages to sell the crazy elements of the plot by playing them up. He draws attention to all of the weird things and shrugs his shoulders literarily, making you do so too. (I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it does to me.) For example, I was skeptical of the Smedry Talents. Breaking things had some obvious utility, but tripping and arriving late sure did not seem at all helpful. But Sanderson made it work. So props to him.

Speaking of Sanderson, I got to see him speak at ALA 2010 and he seemed like a nice, nerdy gentleman. He talked in his spiel about how much he loves libraries and what an impact they had on him as a child. He even threw in a quote that I am fairly certain is a nod to himself as a teen. "The rebellious, trouble-making types looked through the fantasy section" (285). No wonder he believes that information is "the real power in this world," and that, since the librarians control the information, they could control the power (97). Awesome! I like the way this man thinks.

Why should you read this book?

-Sarcastic narrator = best kind of narrator
-Opening sentence: "So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil librarians" (1).
-The most kickass character is a 13 year old girl
-Off the wall, hilarious crazy moments
-Book-loving dinosaurs that speak with British accents
-Seriously, did you miss out on the evil librarians? Evil librarians! ( )

I'm shelving this as "fantasy" because, well... I don't want to call the attention of the Librarians down upon my head. They're mean and will probably try to kill me for letting the cat out of the bag. This book was banned, and for good reason. Hopefully, they'll just look at the shelf tags, and not the actual review. I don't want to be silenced.

Alcatraz Smedry (writing as some "Brandon Sanderson" guy as a cover) tells his story, and quite a story it is. Librarians have been keeping us all in the dark about the real way of the world. Seven continents? Try ten. Dinosaurs extinct? Not hardly. They are quite alive, and very cultured and polite. Magic isn't real? Well, ok, that one's true. But only because the people who can use it call it "technology" not magic.

So, I mean, you can kind of see how they'd want their version of "reality" to be the norm. Well it's not the norm. Jeez. Sheep... Don't know anything.

Alcatraz tells his story in unique fashion... essentially talking directly to the reader, telling them about the story, about writing the story, about authors, and about himself. He's bluntly honest, and it's quite commendable. Most authors won't tell you that they write out of pure desire to cause their readers distress... but they do. Only Alcatraz is honest enough to say so, because he wants to prove his honesty about the rest of the "unbelievable" things he's sharing. I trust him. You should too.

One thing that kind of annoyed me was that there were a lot of typos and misspellings in this story. I'm fairly certain that that's just evil Librarians trying to discredit Alcatraz, but it could have been the conversion to ebook as well. Things like spelling "pterodactyl" as "peteridactyl" and then "pteridactle" before spelling it correctly the 3rd time. Or using "remarkable" when it should be "remarkably". Like I said, I think it was the Librarians. They are remarkable devious.

See what they did??

All in all, this is a "fun" adventure "story". I'd definitely recommend it. Read it, and have your eyes opened. They probably need it. ( )