Libyrinth (edition 2009)

Alas, it contains prophecy. Also some questionable moral compasses. These are two of my anti-kinks.

Add some religious fanaticism, some sledgehammer subtletly, and I'm walking away quickly. Oh well.

I don't use star ratings, so please read my review!

Avid readers often describe books as telling them the tales they contain, but imagine what it would be like if books actually talked to you. Libyrinth takes readers to a faraway world, in an unimaginable future where books are a threatened resource.

Haly was born in the Libyrinth, and is well on the way to being settled there for the rest of her life. But she keeps an unusual secret: She hears books talking to her, reciting their words. This makes it difficult for her to endure the yearly ritual in which the Eradicants – those who believe printed words are dead, and must be released – come to the Libyrinth to burn books.

But this year is different, as the hidden “Book of the Night” may have been discovered. This tome contains the lore of the ancients who made vast weapons of destruction.

Only Haly’s unique talent can unlock this book’s secrets, and thus she becomes a prize that both sides would kill to possess.

Although this is a young adult book, it speaks volumes on the subject of censorship. The Libyrarians and Eradicants both advocate the preservation of knowledge, but they take different approaches. While this does lead to a portrayal of book-burning, it also allows the author to show varying methods of saving and sharing information.

Such methods allow for some wonderfully sly jokes that reference familiar stories and rhymes in our own world. All the quotes that the books whisper to Haly are referenced at the end of this novel, so see how many you can identify before peeking!

Libyrinth also is a satisfyingly complex action story. More factions than just Libyrarians and Eradicants want the lost book’s forbidden knowledge, and the vast Libyrinth itself holds more secrets than are contained within books.

While a few aspects of the narrative are a bit abrupt, perhaps the upcoming sequel will address some of these issues.

Libyrinth is a thought-provoking look at censorship, and at how truly precious knowledge is. All bibliophiles should have this on their shelves.

This review originally appeared in the Davis Enterprise on September 17, 2009.

Haley works as a clerk to the Libararyians, a group of people who preserve the history of the old Earth through books. They work in the Libyrinth, a massive library of sorts that contains every book ever written.It is so massive, in fact, that several people, Haley’s parents included, have gone missing within its massive corridors.What no one knows about Haley is that she has the rare ability to hear books, as in they actually speak to her.

When Haley learns that the Eradicants (another group of people on her planet who hate books and feel they lessen the worth of their usage of song to bind life) plan to do away with the Lybirinth once and for all, she sets out to try and stop them. Haley learns of an ancient prophecy which tells the story of the elusive Book of the Night which is buried deep within the Libyrinth. The Eradicants know about the book and believe it will aid in their quest to do away with the Lybirinth once and for all, and when they learn Haley can actually hear books, they capture her to help them find it.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I started this one. The premise sounded very intriguing, but I was wary because I was afraid it would be more of a high fantasy book and I’m not really a fan of that genre. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. In fact, there was a lot of sci-fi thrown in. This isn’t a total fantasy world, this is a futuristic world, and the books mentioned are actual books from today’s earth. It was fun and interesting to see quotes from familiar books pop up whenever Haley would “hear” a book.

I was also intrigued by the struggles between the Libararyians and the Eradicants — the written word versus the spoken word. I was surprised that the divide between the two groups wasn’t totally black or white. It wasn’t as easy to take a side as I’d originally thought. Both groups are flawed and have valid reasons for believing what they do.

My biggest problem with the book was that I never connected with either Haley or Clauda — the two narrators. They both felt kind of flat to me. I’m not sure what it was. I really tried to connect, but it just didn’t happen.

I also felt the pace was a little slow. It wasn’t one that I would set down and immediately feel the pull to pick it back up again. Still, the premise is interesting, and it is worth checking out. There are two more books in the series and I may pick them up in the near future to see where this series goes. ( )

This review was also posted on my weblog here.

(I took care to give no obvious spoilers about the story, but there are some in the back cover description)

Title: Libyrinth (on Librarything)
Author: Pearl North (pseudonym of Anne Harris)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 332
ISBN: 9780765320964
Back cover text / first alinea of chapter 1:
The wind howled and the flames roared,
but the books, as they died, merely fell silent.

The Eradicants had arrived before dawn, erecting their bonfire outside the Libyrinth's main entrance as they did every year. For weeks the Libyrarians and their clerks had been collecting books for the annual sacrifice.
Now Haly, clerk to the Libyrarian Selene, stood with her people in a ring around the bonfire, watching the black-robed, masked Eradicants file out from the vaulting, ornate archway of the Ancient library to feed the fire with words. Dead words, according to the song the Eradicants sang.

When a word is spoken, it is born, when it is written, it dies.
Sacred fire of life, free the shackled dead.
The meaning of the murdered word, by Yammon may it be said.

The low, sonorous chant droned on as the smoke from the burning books frew thicker, spreading an acrid cloud across the flat, rocky Plain of Ayor. The rising sun painted the Libyrinth's great central dome, towering spires, and massive curled walls with flames of its own. The structure was one of the greates sites the Ancients had left behind; a library so cast that even after generations, Haly's people had yet to catalogue all the books it held.

Review:
Story:
The story takes place on another planet (probably) on a continent with three "countries": the Libyrinth, a large library (not so much a maze) located in the area Ayor, Ilysies, a country with a queen and female warriors and a palace full of women with almost no men/boys, and the area where the "Eradicants" (or "Singers" as they call themselves) live. The Singers have an oral tradition (singing all their information), the Libyrarians obviously have books and texts, and the people in Ilysies also have a library in the palace, but I don't know about the rest of the population. I expect they also have access to books, as it was written in the beginning of the book that the Libyrarians traded information for food with Ilysies, so I expect they traded books. There are a LOT of Earth books in the Libyrinth, but judging from the descriptions in the book, the planet wasn't Earth. So sometime in the past, all those books must have been transferred to another planet. Which makes me wonder why...
The "Ancient" in the back cover text refers to the "Ancients", the people who lived on that planet before these three countries were formed. They left behind some technology things which reminds me of the Ancients in Stargate... but here they also left behind this library. The only things in the story about the Ancients are a few things about their technology and devices they left behind, which also play a big part in the story.
The book burning from the back cover text happens for a reason: the Eradicants are looking for a specific book (the title of which kept reminding me of Diane Duane's The book of night with moon; the actual title was "The book of the night") for a reason having to do with their religion, which I'm not going to expand on. Almost all events and problems in this story are caused by the Eradicants' search for the Book of the night.
Also interesting to note is that the main character Haly can hear the books speaking in her own language, no matter what language the books are written in. So a library isn't a quiet place for her at all! This ability is unique in this story (AND it has an explanation) and also connects nicely to the Eradicants' book search.
The book is the first book in a trilogy, but it reads like a stand-alone book - the story has a good conclusion. It concludes the main storyline, but I still wonder a bit about the Ancients (though those questions can be answered by doing a Stargate-crossover :P).
Writing style:
Recently I'd read a few books with detailed descriptions (Michael Scott's Nicholas Flamel books), so when I started reading this book it felt "light" - there were hardly any descriptions compared to my recent reads. The author described basic things like the main characters' appearance, though at first I thought Nod was a little boy, but after a few descriptions I started doubting that. It turned out that Nod was the little brown/red creature on the girl's shoulder on the front cover image. The introduction/description of Nod could've been better. For the rest of the descriptions (normal people, surroundings, items) everything was clear. I did see one typo and a double "the".
Rereadability: Yes.

Haly is a Libyrarian, dedicated to the preservation of the future world’s dwindling stock of books, constantly under threat by the Eradicants, who believe that words should be free (cue, horror of horror, book burnings, oh noes!). She also has a secret: the books talk to her. I’m glad my books don’t talk to me, they would say things like “ Dust me, please,” and “Can you stop that damn cat eating our corners?” Anyway: decent concept, dull execution; the title (‘Libyrinth’ – ‘cos it’s a maze, geddit?) is probably the best thing about it. The books Haly hears are a strangely random bunch, too, ranging from the only-too-predictable (no dystopian future would be complete without comparisons with 'Diary of a Young Girl') to the plain old ‘whuh?’ ('Glenn’s Complete Bicycle Manual'). ( )