The Destruction of the Books

Rating:
Summary: engaging epic fantasy
Review: Dweller hero, Jugh, is apprentice librarian to the Grandmagister of the Great Library, Edgewick the Lamplighter. However, Juhg finds his work tedious and ennui is a prob;em for him as working inside the Vault of All Known Knowledge is boring for an adventurous ROVER like him though he admits to himself that his mentor the grand Wick seems contented in his role. Juhg goes on a sea voyage when he hears rumors of a book in the possession of Goblins, a race that would never possess anything written except to use as fuel.

He decides to take the tome from the goblins and Juhg succeeds. He brings the book to his learned Grandmagister, but when Edgewick and the wizard Craugh inspect it they open a magical portal that enables Dread Riders, Blazebulls, and Grymmlings, to enter their realm. Juhg, Edgewick, and Craugh battle the book's evil spell, but destroy much of their library and even if they succeed they have just started the quest because they will need to trace back to the source who might be a powerful malevolent Goblin Wizard Aldhran.

This is an engaging epic fantasy that reaches out to a wide range of readers with its amusing often ironic humor (especially satirizing Mel Odom's own works). The story line is action-packed with many of the typical genre elements, but also contains characters that seem real so that Mr. Odom's various species appear as genuine. Set in the same universe of his previous works (like ROVER); Mr. Odom provides a terrific opening gamut of a series that will please the young teen crowd as well as aging boomers.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: UNDER WHELMING
Review: For those of you who were expecting/hoping for a sequel to THE ROVER stand by to be disappointed. Maybe you were hoping to follow the further exploits of Wick Lamplighter, maybe even to have a few of the loose ends tied up that were just left hanging. Well keep hoping because DESTRUCTION OF THE BOOKS isn't what you were looking for. Yes Wick had those adventures, but you don't get them here except by inference. The story has shifted a good number of years into the future and now centers around a new character, Juhg, who is an ex-slave turned librarian.

I won't go into the plot or the principal characters except to say when compared to THE ROVER they seem to be shallow, listless and, well, ok, boring. In fact the entire book is somewhat of a struggle to complete, not that it's difficult it just wasn't vary interesting.

Every so often a sequel can equal or even outshine the original, this isn't one of those times. Taken independently it comes off as only fair to slightly dull entertainment. When compared to it's predecessor, the ROVER, it fairs even worse.

Not necessarily bad, it's far from good, so I'm going to stay NEUTRAL on this one.


Rating:
Summary: Mel Odom's sequel to "The Rover" is better than the original
Review: I have been waiting to read Mel Odom's sequel to "The Rover" for a long time, which brought an element of trepidation to finally having "The Destruction of the Books" in my hand. At last I would be able to find out what happened next with Edgewick Lamplighter, Third Level Librarian at the Vault of All Known Knowledge, and read about his next encounter with the Embyr, the fascinating flaming female that Wick encountered while out and about with a band of Dwarf pirates. However, as I started reading this book I found that I was not reading about Wick, the Third Level Librarian, but another dweller named Juhg, a First Level Librarian, who is aboard the "Windchaser" in Kelloch's Harbor. Wick, it turns out, is now the Grandmagister. Things have certainly changed at Greydawn Moors.

In other words, what happens in "The Destruction of the Books" is nothing like what I expected or wanted to read. I recalled the same sense of disappointment at had at the beginning of "The Fellowship of the Ring" when suddenly Bilbo was replaced by Frodo. However, there is a more important similarity to that experience in that I liked "The Destruction of the Books" more than I liked "The Rover." It seems to me that Odom has built upon the elements presented in that first novel to develop a much more compelling world and a decidedly less predictable narrative.

This is a world that was shattered long ago by the great Cataclysm in which Lord Kharrion's forces of evil were defeated by an alliance of men, dwarves, and elves. The Vault of All Known Knowledge is the great depository of all the books that were preserved or discovered after the Catacylsm, for Kharrion's collection of Dark Riders, Grymmlings, Boneblights, and assorted goblinkin made a point of destroying all backs. That is why the rumor that there is a book aboard a goblin ship puts Juhg in a position where he has to try and retrieve the volume. There must be something very special about a book that the goblinkin have not destroyed.

Juhg was rescued by Wick in "The Rover" from the goblin mines, and while he respects the Grandmagister above all others, he does not share Wick's vision for the world. Perhaps what most impressed me about this novel was that the most memorable sequence was not the adventures on the Blood-Soaked Sea or the battles at Greydawn Moors, but an argument that Juhg has with Craugh the wizard in which the dweller questions some of the basic assumptions of the world in which they live. The debate forces not only the wizard but also the reader to rethink what we know about Wick's world. Things are not turned upside down, but they certainly get a whole lot more interesting in this book.

The claim will be sounded once again that Odom is providing a pastiche of Tolkien in this series. Given that we are talking about a world inhabited by wizards, dwarves, elves, dragons, and goblins, while focusing on creatures half the size of humans, those comparisons are inevitable. But there is enough creativity here to warrant taking the series on its own terms and enjoying the story rather than connecting all the dots on possible connections. There are plenty of nice little details to appreciate, such as the axe and anvil formations used by the dwarves when they fight. Besides, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" reshuffled the qualities of the original "Star Trek" characters and that turned out to be pretty good as well.

Actually, the person who keeps coming to my mind as I finished "The Destruction of the Books" was George Lucas, who always maintained that he intended Darth Vader to be Luke Skywalker's father when he made the first "Star Wars" film. My big question is whether Mel Odom knew what this second book was going to be when he wrote "The Rover" or did he, like Juhg, look at the world that had been created and see both its flaws and its possibilities. What was a minor part of "The Rover" becomes a major part here and the changes are rather exciting. The bad news is that now I have to wait again for Odom to write his next book in this series. I guess I am going to have to get used to these waits for a long time on the basis of what he has done in "The Destruction of the Books."



Rating:
Summary: Books -- the good, bad and ugly
Review: Mel Odom's "The Rover" was a fun, light fantasy peopled by the stereotypical dwarves, elves, medieval humans and hobbitlike dwellers. Its sequel, "Destruction of the Books," is very different -- darker, nastier, and taking on the promise of epic battles that were only hinted at in "Rover."

Librarion Juhg is the apprentice to the Grandmagister Wick of the hidden Library. When he hears a rumor of a rare book aboard a goblin ship, he and his ship's crew manage to get the book away -- but not without grappling with the goblins and an evil wizard. He brings it to Wick and the wizard Craugh, who try to figure out what is up with it.

But the book is booby-trapped -- it allows horrifyingly evil creatures to swarm into the Library and destroy it from the inside out. The Library is in ruins, and four-fifths of the books are gone. With the dwellers refusing to help, and evil undead armies descending on them, Juhg must do whatever he can to save his friends -- and what remains of the Vault of All Known Knowledge.

As evidenced by the big blinking "To Be Continued" on the end of this book, there's going to be much more. And it feels like a gradual windup to a spectacular battle, rather than part of the battle itself -- lots of talking, with the odd action scene. But in the last third of the book, Odom makes the plot suddenly spark to life, promising excellence in whatever comes next.

Odom's writing is pretty good, descriptive and sometimes downright chilling. He does tend to launch into long conversations that talk about A) the importance of books, or B) how destroying books destroys civilization/history, and that gets annoying. However, when those conversations drop out of sight, the narrative speeds up and gets tenser, complete with the climactic battle with the undead goblin-beastie Boneblights. Though his good guys aren't terribly original (forest-y elves, tough dwarves, timid halfers), his villains are on par with the best of dark fantasy.

Juhg is in some ways a better character than Wick was -- he has more doubts, more internal conflict, and a more tragic history. Wick also appears, older and substantially wiser; a young human sailor, Raisho, adds an upbeat note to the story. But the scene-stealer is Craugh, a grumpy wizard who is one of the few things standing between the Library and destruction.

Though it takes awhile to get where it's going, "Destruction of the Books" is a passable middle volume in the trilogy that started with "The Rover." Flawed deeply in places, but still entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining read, but with a few rough edges . . .
Review: This book has very uneven pace. In the opening chapters, some adventurers raid and loot a goblin ship. The pace here is glacial. It takes several chapters to accomplish this raid.

Contrast this to the book's conclusion. In just a few pages, the library is raided, a quarrel-filled town meeting occurs, and a battle takes place with wicked forces for control of the town, all blurring by at a dizzying pace.

There are a few structural problems, too. Jugh, the protagonist of the book, is a blurred composite of adventurer and mousey librarian. The different sides to his personality seem to clash-- they don't jell well. In any given scene, will he hide like a timid mouse or will he pick up a weapon and fight like a banshee?

Jugh's best friend, Raisho, is a swashbuckling, swordfighting human. At least Jugh, for all his contradictions, comes alive pretty well as a character. Raisho, unfortunately, seems almost a cardboard cut-out character. Perhaps a walking, talking, sword-swinging stereotype would be more accurate.

There is a good "sense of place" in the book. The locales are well described and seem very real, anchoring the story. The evil forces are well done. Mr. Odom creates some new and entertaining monsters. The world in which the story is set has a lot of originality. The evil forces are devoted to destruction of books, learning, and the arts. Jugh, late in the story, tells his friend Craugh the Wizard WHY he believe the dark forces want to destroy all books. This development is quite interesting, and promises the reader some interesting turns in the next volume of the series, not yet published.

A reviewer on the book's cover compares THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BOOKS to the novels of Tolkien or Terry Brooks. This is a bit "too much" -- Mr. Odom's novel is just not that good. However, in fairness, the novel is a good read. While it has some flaws and in some ways one might wish it better, it is good enjoyable entertainment for a lazy Sunday afternoon, or better yet, as a good read on a long airline flight.

Since this is only the first installment of a multivolume effort, the book sort of leaves us in limbo at the end. So many of these "installment" novels are appearing in recent years, this sort of let down is coming to seem acceptable. However, as a way of writing a unified piece of fiction, it does little service to the reader. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BOOKS has just been published -- copyright 2004. How long would a reader have to wait to learn how the story comes out-- two more years? As I said, far from an ideal situation, and far short of a true courtesy to Mr. Odom's readers.