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conulyAs always, an enjoyable read - and the author finally tied up some glaring plot threads that had been left dangling for the past several books. Specifically, about Irene's parentage and also about the Deeper Implications of the Library Brand.
But somehow, in the process she raised a whole new disturbing dangling plot thread, and I'm not actually sure she intended to. Namely, at no point in the past few books, apparently, did anybody think about these plot issues. At all. Irene comes across a strange retelling of the villain's backstory which hints darkly that there's something very bad going on with the Library and the brands - and she doesn't think about it again. She's asked if the history of the Library is contained within the Library, says "no, definitely not" - and nobody presses anybody on this issue or has any sort of follow-up. The villain tells her that librarians can't have children, she's informed that she was adopted - and apparently not only has she never noticed before that none of the other librarians have kids, but she also doesn't care to ask a few more pressing questions about this adoption. Most strangely, neither she nor her allies nor the villain ever follow facts like "her blood works to cancel out his blood even though there's no way that ought to have worked" and "she looks a lot like he does" and "her very existence dovetails neatly with his backstory" to their logical conclusion until they're positively forced to by our Sherlock expy... who apparently only made that conclusion himself when it was absolutely unavoidable any more.
There's only so much that can be excused with "she didn't want to think about it". Either this is really poor writing, or it's a big hint that there's some good old-fashioned mind control going on. Could go either way, and that concerns me.
But somehow, in the process she raised a whole new disturbing dangling plot thread, and I'm not actually sure she intended to. Namely, at no point in the past few books, apparently, did anybody think about these plot issues. At all. Irene comes across a strange retelling of the villain's backstory which hints darkly that there's something very bad going on with the Library and the brands - and she doesn't think about it again. She's asked if the history of the Library is contained within the Library, says "no, definitely not" - and nobody presses anybody on this issue or has any sort of follow-up. The villain tells her that librarians can't have children, she's informed that she was adopted - and apparently not only has she never noticed before that none of the other librarians have kids, but she also doesn't care to ask a few more pressing questions about this adoption. Most strangely, neither she nor her allies nor the villain ever follow facts like "her blood works to cancel out his blood even though there's no way that ought to have worked" and "she looks a lot like he does" and "her very existence dovetails neatly with his backstory" to their logical conclusion until they're positively forced to by our Sherlock expy... who apparently only made that conclusion himself when it was absolutely unavoidable any more.
There's only so much that can be excused with "she didn't want to think about it". Either this is really poor writing, or it's a big hint that there's some good old-fashioned mind control going on. Could go either way, and that concerns me.
