The Library at Mount Char

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After years of fear and torture at the hands of the Father and some of her siblings, Carolyn wants to break free from her living nightmare. She knows that she can't trust anyone, but she also doesn't know all of her Father's secrets. I'm not sure I do either, honestly. I mean, I know what he did to us, but I really don't have any idea why." Well I won't be giving away any spoilers here but basically the novel was one hell of a ride. The central point of the story is the 12 Librarians search for Father, an almost omnipotent, omniscient being who "adopted" them when they were young and raised them, and taught them many things. These things vary among the 12, as each has a domain that is all his/her own to learn and master.

I don't know how to rank it against other amazing fantasy novels I've read this year such as Malazan 1-3, Piranesi and Dark Tower, but I'll say that it's perhaps the most creative one, it has reignited my love for fantasy, and I'll probably consider my fave book read this year. Review on English, followed by the Bulgarian one. Ревюто на английски е първо, следва това на български. Father" taught each of his librarians, but they were only allowed to study out of the books in their fields. Or they suffered the consequences.A first-rate novel… a sprawling, epic contemporary fantasy about cruelty and the end of the world, compulsively readable, with the deep, resonant magic of a world where reality is up for grabs. Unputdownable.”— Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother and Makers Nothing wrong with that- we are all fans for a reason, and sometimes opening a high fantasy book with elves, dwarves and knights set in medieval europe with a farmboy for a main character is comforting; like eating a favourite meal.

I can honestly say this was one of the most bizarre books I've ever read! I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, but this book was so unique and eccentric, it would blow the mind of even the most seasoned readers: And even though the deaths, more deaths, and even more deaths, of world-eating plagues and starvation, of the snuffing out of the sun and the raising of a new one, it's kinda odd... that this is strangely one of the most up-beat and hopeful of Fantasies or Science Fiction or Horror that I've ever read. :) And the final third? Seems to me it was all exposition explaining what the first two thirds were about and what was happening next. It wasn't terrible, and there were still some good bits in there (the memory potion, for example), but overall it felt the book built up to this amazing climax where we'd see all the great powers in a race for control and instead we got hand waving, explanations, and tieing up the loose ends with conversations explaining how the loose ends would be tied up... No Barry O Shea, no The Duke, no Q-33. Carolyn however has a plan, a plan that stretches into the past and future, a plan for the one thing she wants most; revenge! This was my first buddy read with The Wonderful Kristen, but it definitely won't be the last one ! It was a lot of fun discussing theories and comparing notes with you, Kristen! :D

You want to see the training of gods? You want to participate in a war of gods? From their point of view? Well, welcome yourself to this book, my friend. It's not for the weak of heart. The stakes are really high. Maybe higher than any but the strangest and strongest SF or Fantasy out there, and the wrap-up is frankly an even more awesome story than all the action that came before it. sci-fi жанра би си пожелал. Интересни герои, за които да ти пука, страховита ситуация и препускащо темпо на събитията, съчетани с превъзходното авторово въображение и усет към детайла. Като добавим изпипания стил и липсата на разтегливост в текста, се получава приятно, занимателно и дори смешно на моменти четиво. Може и по сълза да се пусне в края, никой няма да ви се подиграе. A pyrotechnic debut...The most terrifyingly psychopathic depiction of a family of gods and their abusive fathersince Genesis." - Charles Stross I was just typing up a reply saying something like "I love playing the recommend-me-a-book game, but it's tough to come up with good recommendations if I only know one book that you--" Carolyn can barely remember being American. When she was eight, on the day her parents died, the nearly omnipotent being she calls Father took her and eleven other children to become Pelapi; that is librarians, to guard The Library which exists outside normal time and space and each master one of the twelve catalogues which contain Father’s vast knowledge. Under Father’s brutal instruction, Carolyn and the other Pelapi have gained fantastic powers, though at costs they cannot fully comprehend. When Father goes missing however, reality hangs in the balance, since cruel though Father could be, there are worse things even than him, dark and hungry beings which have been waiting. Not the least of these are the Pelapi themselves, such is Carolyn’s psychotic brother David, adept in the arts of war and murder, or Margarette who walks the land of the dead.

Now, Father is missing��perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation.A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

That’s as much positive as I can muster before the “BUTs…” begin spilling out. This is a very popular, highly-rated book, and you may enjoy it. I personally wavered between acceptance and true detestation. Perhaps I just don’t “get it”; feel free to tell me so in the comments. Warning - while there are no real spoilers here this is not intended for people thinking of reading the book. If you're thinking of reading The Library at Mount Char, please don't read this. Possibly due to growing up with Doctor Who, possibly due to just me being a fairly eclectic individual, I’ve never cared too much about genre boundaries. Oh, there are times I might fancy a change of setting, and might swap modern day horror for dystopia, or exchange some traditional space sf for a bit of high fantasy, but that is just another destination for my literary Tardis and sooner or later I know I’ll be setting the randomiser and be off somewhen else. Naturally, this also means that I have a distinct fondness for books which don’t fit easily into one category or another.

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That being said, other aspects of Carolyn’s resolution seemed inconsistent, particularly in what atrocities she was prepared to accept, and what atrocities she felt a need to avenge. Yet, maybe this was absolutely intentional since one continual thread which runs through the book is the fact that the concerns of Father and the Pelapi are so far beyond the concerns of ordinary Americans, that even horrific torture and the scars it leaves cannot be approached in a human way. at its most basic level it's a dark fantasy version of a bildungsroman in which orphaned children are schooled in esoteric and powerful arts by a man known as "father," whose lessons are dangerous and frequently cruel. they grow up in the flexible time of his library and are raised according to the ancient rituals of the pelapi, which distances them from the americans they once were. they never break into song like the charming orphans in annie, After several decades of learning their assigned catalog, Father goes missing, and a mysterious trap settles around the Library that causes severe harm (and probably death) to any who get too close. Carolyn and her “family” must find a solution. The knowledge in the Library is vast enough for someone to be a God and truly rule the world; it must be reclaimed before Father’s enemies can take control of it. One problem I did have, is while we get to see a lot of several of the Pelapi, others were only given cursory character sketches at most, whilst others did not appear at all, even though they apparently were present for most of the book’s events, indeed the gamer in me would love to get a break down of all twelve librarians and the nature of their catalogues, whilst the reader in me is sorry that such potentially fascinating characters as Rachel, a prophet who sees possibility through the ghosts of her murdered children barely register, Indeed to say that early on Carolyn mentions that she doesn’t know Jenifer well, it was a little odd that we got to see so much of her and so little of many of the others. initially it is unclear when this takes place, if this is our world or just a version of our world, if there has been some sort of global event that forced people to live …differently and have different associations and only vague memories of something called Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.