mass market paperback, 672 pages
Published Sept. 24, 2019 by Tor Fantasy.
A hero with an incredible talent...for breaking things. A life-or-death mission...to rescue a bag of sand. A fearsome threat from a powerful secret network...the evil Librarians.
Alcatraz Smedry doesn't seem destined for anything but disaster. On his 13th birthday he receives a bag of sand, which is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians plotting to take over the world. The sand will give the Librarians the edge they need to achieve world domination. Alcatraz must stop them!...by infiltrating the local library, armed with nothing but eyeglasses and a talent for klutzines
I can't say I wasn't entertained, but somehow I wasn't 100% sold. The characters were relatable, and I liked the general comradery of the main characters.
It was a good change from my usual fare, even though the magic system (which was cool) felt a bit too much like science fiction with it's many rules and identifiable patterns.
This was a whole lot of fun! The magic continued to be weird throughout the whole book, but it was certainly unique to me. The pacing felt pretty good, and the events in the book felt natural (i.e. things that actual people might have done in response to things the main characters did actually happened).
I'm looking forward to seeing what the other books are like, because this one ended rather spectacularly.
