Revisionary

For security reasons, no books will be permitted in the chamber during your testimony.

Revisionary is a fascinating work. It takes the world building of the first three Magic Ex Libris books and explores what happens when magic comes out in the modern world. It's probably the best example I've seen of this, right up there with the Mercy Thompson books (and honestly does a better job of showing the changes from the point of view of humans dragged into a new world).

There are a number of really interesting ideas in this book.

How do you treat magical beings such as vampires? Are they legally the same as ordinary human beings?

How would inheritance work? Taxes--on beings that can and may have already lived for centuries?

How do medical show more regulations interact with magical healing? Do you need to go through human trials and years of other studies for a magical healing vial pulled out of a book?

On top of that, we get a bunch of new magical bits and bobs that the Libriomancers have put together now that they don't have to completely hide what they're doing. In particular, I found it particularly interesting how they dealt with the interaction of magic and computer systems, particularly in the case of the Kiyokos--a series of clones acting as networked biological computers. All together, the new magical tech leads to some pretty crazy (and weird at times) action scenes especially towards the climax of the book.

As one downside, Gutenbern only barely shows up (being dead) and de Leon isn't in the book at all. I get that they're a bit over powered being around for so long... although Bi Wei shows up. At least we still get plenty from the main characters we've come to know over the series. Isaac is still my favorite. I see more than a bit of myself in him.

“That’s . . . that’s magic.”

“Pretty cool, isn’t it? If I had more time, I’d tell you how it worked.”

“He would,” Lena said. “Even if you asked him to stop.”

Overall, a fitting end to the series even if I wished it weren't the end. Worth the read.

Random awesome thing: an uplifted crow. I find the idea of uplifted animals fascinating although it has an unfortunate tendency to overpower the story.

He’d discovered his abilities a year and a half ago, and was still in that overenthusiastic phase where he was likely to blow himself up along with everyone within a hundred-foot radius if you didn’t keep a close eye on him.

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Hines' clever concept continues to hold up -- proving that his "libriomancy" world-building is much more than a gimmick. His hero, Isaac Vainio, holds up, too, gaining depth while remaining at heart the geeky librarian we first met in Book One. A geeky librarian who does magic? What's not to love? I wish that Lena had more to do in this book, but the shift in focus is justified by the addition of other supporting characters, some amusing caricatures and just fine in that role, others more complex. The deepening importance and complexity of Deb DeGeorge, in particular, strengthens the story. The post-9/11 context is obvious but well-thought-out, and the plot is among the most exciting of the series so far. Hines seems to relish exploring show more the moral, ethical and political consequences of real-world magic, and so, I expect, will readers. I definitely did. show less

Isaac Vainio has revealed the magic to the world. It seemed he had little choice in the matter and he had some amazing dreams – even now with the New Millenium project he hopes to bring in so many amazing things to improve the world and humanity. Magic can make the world better

Unfortunately for his dreams, people are suspicious, scared, angry, prejudiced, panicked, demanding and also quite creative in the many many ways magic can make the world a whole lot worse.

Between magical terrorists, conspiracies, government crackdowns and growing international chaos – Isaac has to try and bring some level of peace and order before everything completely falls apart.

We had a major game changer in the last book – the existence of magic was show more revealed to the entire world. All world governments are now aware that magic exists and the supernatural exists and everyone is reacting as you’d expect.

With general panic and confusion and a whole lot of chaos

I like how this is presented. Even if we’re focused on Isaac in the US, we do get regularly little inserts letting us know what is happening in different parts of the world. We see many different approaches and a lot of it is unpleasant and a lot of it is complicated. I really like that we have something in between genocidal slaughtering rage and utopian love and acceptance. I think this is very true of the real world. I think humanity would react with fear and hate in many cases… but I also think that at least some humanity, enough, would be…. Uncomfortable with the idea of a whole scale extermination. Certainly many would be on side. And they’d certainly be on side with limits and restrictions – but there would be enough discomfort to make genocide not an automatic go-to.

So we have a lot of complexity. And that includes with Issac is wonderfully idealistic. He wants to use magic to solve all the world’s problems. He has big dreams about the amazing things he can do. He can cure all these diseases! He can make a portal to the moon! He can make everything awesome all the time isn’t it going to be wonderful.

And then we have the ghost of Gutenberg, a senator who is on his side and basic reality slapping him – not with evil (though there’s that as well) but just how short sighted his idealism is. Like he wants to cure all the people – but this effectively means medical experimentation (on children no less!) with no scientific oversight or testing for side effects. It’s alright for Isaac to say “no the book says it’s fine there’s no side effects in The Lion the Witch the Wardrobe” but there’s no way you can expect the greater scientific community to accept that without some level of oversight. Or there’s Isaac insisting he will never weaponise magic – which is fine; but what about when enemies of the United States clearly are? What about China and Japan sabre rattling to war? What about Russia drafting supernatural creatures into the army? In this position can you just decide weaponising magic is completely off the table? On top of all that we have the fact that, as the book points out, the Porters are not an American organisation and there are more Libriomancers in Indian and China than the US – so where does that leave the Porters when one country is weaponising and the whole nebulous concept of sides and positions

I like how Issac’s very earnest, very well meaning moral positions are just severely challenged because things are rarely that simplistic. It works so well with the world building and bringing a heavy dose of reality to Isaac’s very hopeful stance.

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And yet more consequences.

This brings the story arc to a close, there's room for more should Jim decided he needs to but there's also an end to the stories, an end that I found satisfying. Isaac has his magic back and he's fighting the government for his freedom and the freedom of those who are magical in the world, he's a man who can't leave a good cause alone and is willing to fight for it. The law of unintended consequences keeps applying her and he keeps trying to keep his family and friends from danger. At the same time he realises that sometimes sacrifices have to be made and sometimes that's his job. He cares deeply and wants the best for everyone around him, and sometimes that can't happen.

I really liked this series, as a show more librarian and a reader and understood the problems that Isaac came across, he's quite a sympathetic character and one that I'd really like to share a drink with. show less

3.5/5 stars. Isaac's great plan to reveal magic to the world? Not so great. Because now he has the U.S. government in his offices, monitoring everything, and trying to figure out ways to weaponize magic. All Isaac wants to do is use magic to help people and society but he's got red tape and bigoted, violent people opposing him.

This book was a great way to shake up the series and keep it fresh and the ending was a great way to shake it up again. A great read.

[I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.]

I enjoyed most of this book. I really like the magic system and well as exploring the possibilities that magic could do should it ever arise in a real world setting. Isaac continues to be a pretty likable and relatable character, and the supporting characters are good, with the standout for me being Smudge. And I absolutely loved the interactions between Isaac and Gutenberg. Give me a short story with just that.

I had two main problems with the book, however. One was the very liberal interpretation of Isaac's power. He's supposed to be able to pull things out of books. That's his power. In this book, he's able to see anything magical as text and can dismantle it if he wants (similar to John Taylor from the Nightside series). This show more includes other magical beings. To me, it felt tacked on just to give Isaac another weapon for when he couldn't access books.

The other problem is Isaac being captured by Kiyoko. In a world now filled with magic it felt very out of place to have Isaac's mind uploaded to a network and spliced. That whole scene just put me off.

Even with these, the series as a whole is good and well worth reading, especially for someone who is into urban fantasy...or just fantasy in general. show less

Loved it. This book was something I wish more authors would do. Give us a final book that shows what happens in the world after the main events; especially with something so world shattering as magic being real. The government investigations, the mystery that the main character has to solve on a deadline, it was all so delightful.

I would love to see more stories from this world, but if there isn't any to come, I feel the author wrapped things up nicely.