The Sword and Laser discussion

And the final round is complete, and the winner is: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

View the Full Bracket: here
Summary of Round 4: here
Summary of Round 3: here
Summary of Round 2: here
Summary of Round 1: here

Yay! This was already on my 'to be read' list, since somebody recommended it in one of the 'What else are you reading' threads last year.

Glad to have the 'excuse' of reading it with the group.

Wow, not the result I expected, but I'm cool with. :)
Looks like I'll be procuring the Kindle edition with add-on audible for an extra $4.49.

Yes! I needed a book that starts with I! (Don't say it, Rob.)

U sure make it sound like it's all about U. Y don't you keep an I out for things that benefit the whole group. ;-)

Trike wrote: "Yes! I needed a book that starts with I! (Don't say it, Rob.)"

lol

Trike wrote: "Yes! I needed a book that starts with I! (Don't say it, Rob.)"

Technically it starts with T ;-)

But, your reading list, your rules :-)

Trike wrote: "Yes! I needed a book that starts with I! (Don't say it, Rob.)"

There's also I, Robot, The Illustrated Man, or if you want to go obscure, the book written on a dare, The Iron Dream

Vaginal Fantasy read this while the group was on baby hiatus. You can read the comments here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

So, because I finished Gateway, I started listening to this. The narrator has an accent that makes it sound like she's saying "li-barry" or "li-berry." It's totally making me laugh every time.

Sean wrote: "Vaginal Fantasy read this while the group was on baby hiatus. You can read the comments here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..."


Oooh the fact they read it makes me even more excited :P

Welp. I bought the wrong audiobook. HURRAH FOR PAYDAY

terpkristin wrote: "The narrator has an accent that makes it sound like she's saying "li-barry" or "li-berry." It's totally making me laugh every time."

I noticed that too on the preview, but I found it annoying rather than funny! Almost all the reviews on the Audible (UK) site are critical of the reading, so I was taking a 'try before you buy' approach.

(... with the result that I'll be using my monthly credit elsewhere.)

I'm a few chapters in, and Irene has already been described as saying things "flatly" around four times. Perhaps she is a robot?

I read this with my VF group during the hiatus. Didn't really care for it, but I'm excited to hear other opinions.

Hannah wrote: "I read this with my VF group during the hiatus. Didn't really care for it, but I'm excited to hear other opinions."

I'm with you Hannah. I had to create a DNF shelf for this one. I didn't want to rain on anyone's parade so I didn't say anything during voting but this was the one book of the 16 I hoped would get knocked out. Ah well. If anyone cares to read my review here it is: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Hannah wrote: "I read this with my VF group during the hiatus. Didn't really care for it, but I'm excited to hear other opinions."

Tagging along with Hannah and Ivy. I read this for VF too, and I was pretty tepid about it. Didn't hate it, but didn't love it either. I am actually really curious to hear thoughts from the group here, though, since I really enjoy reading all the deep discussions that usually occur for each book.

While I wasn't excited that it won, it does give me an incentive to read the second book this month. Otherwise, I may never have gotten around to it.

It seems a lot of the VF readers have non-passionate opinions about this book. I will not say that I found it tepid, like Liz, because I did have fun reading the book. It wasn't completely boring, but it wasn't anything I would go out of my way to recommend to people either. I do think there are a lot of elements that could have made it great, signs that the author is on the right track or something, and I did order the second book at my local library just to check if I'm right or wrong!

The world building is a bit incoherent and the dialogues are funny, but not in a good way. Yes, the main character is a bit flat. She wants to do the right thing, she tries to follow rules and she tries to be as tough as she can be. She's not a complex character but she's not one-dimensional either. I'll give her 2 layers :)

She reminds me of myself...!

Can't wait to read other people's comments :)

I'm surprised that the VF bookclub read this book. From my early reading (5% in) and the description, it seems quite tame.

Am I wrong? (or a sexist male pig ;-) ) for thinking that the Vaginal Fantasy book selections were mainly books that had a lot of hot steamy sexy sections.

Offhand estimate (totally freewheeling here) - I'd say over five years of the Vaginal Fantasy book club there have been maybe 15 percent steamy to the point of raunchy (and at times disturbing), 45 percent lots of story with lots of sexy times, 30 percent romance with mild or implied sexy times, 10 percent no sex or romance.

I'm really enjoying it so far!

At the most basic, Day used the VF, VSF, etc tag to designate a book with a female protagonist. The group has morphed into more of the romance/erotica element.vcj

Tassie Dave wrote: "I'm surprised that the VF bookclub read this book. From my early reading (5% in) and the description, it seems quite tame.

Am I wrong? (or a sexist male pig ;-) ) for thinking that the Vaginal Fan..."

yes, this would be in Serendi's 30% of very mild romance.

Tassie Dave wrote: "I'm surprised that the VF bookclub read this book. From my early reading (5% in) and the description, it seems quite tame."

Well, to be fair. It was read during the hiatus, and chosen by the community, rather than the hosts directly.

Has anyone got this on audible? Lot's of the reviews there say that the narrator severely detracts from the story/book. Looking for a bit of confirmation before I burn a credit on this one.

Not familiar with the book or the author, so coming to it about as unburdened by expectations or other related baggage as one can reasonably expect to be.

Enjoying it so far...

I'm two chapters in and it just sucked me into the world(s). A really good start so far!

It may help a bit that the main character is a bookworm...easy to relate to ;-)

Caleb wrote: "Has anyone got this on audible? Lot's of the reviews there say that the narrator severely detracts from the story/book. Looking for a bit of confirmation before I burn a credit on this one."

Caleb, I think the audible performance is quite good. I gave it five stars.
Perhaps the negative comments come from folks who don't care for British accents. ??

I started this in audio, but it got distracting at one point (see above about "li-berry", plus there are other quirks), so I've switched to Kindle. But I'm enjoying it as a light read.

Just picked it up yesterday and can't wait to start it

Clyde wrote: "Caleb, I think the audible performance is quite good. I gave it five stars."

I listened to it on Audible and thought it was good also. There is definitely an accent but for me it didn't interfere with the story.

Are there other S&L people in Lancashire, just been pushed to third in the queue at the library :-). Funnily enough it is classes as "Book. English. Thriller. Suspense fiction." Lucily there are five copies available s just have to wait for delivery.

Count me among the VF people who are resoundingly 'meh' on this book. It's..... fine I guess. I read it last month and I can't remember much about it, it's just not particularly memorable.

I'm 65% in and finding this a really fun read. OK this isn't deep and meaningful, but it is a good fun adventure with the added enjoyment of figuring out whodunit and the details of the world.

I've recently read a lot of "serious" books, including Gateway, and that's great, I got a lot out of them, but after contemplating the deeper meanings of existence it's nice to have a bit of a romp with dragons, detectives and zeppelins for a while.

You can never have too many zeppelins :-)

About the audible version. The overdone whispery narration put me off at first. Now that I am a couple of hours in she has mellowed some or I'm not noticing it as much. It's probably just me.

I'm in VF, read this book, and I really liked it. Irene is a smart character, which I like, and Kai (her de facto romantic interest) is a person of color. In fact, Genevieve Cogman does a good job of making the world and characters diverse... it's not a totally Euro-centric bubble. I also liked the audible narrator. I felt like she did a good job.

I thought this was just okay. The madcap action was fun, but I couldn't help but compare this to other properties that do the multiworld adventure/light and bubbly paranormal adventure thing better; Thursday Next, namely, but also Doctor Who, the Parasol Protectorate series, The Librarians, the Magic Ex Libris series.

This book touched on a lot of the same concepts but without the depth and humor of those other works.

It wasn't really my thing.

I just finished it. This was the review I posted:

A really fun, fast paced adventure with an interesting setting and an intriguing whodunit.

To be fair this isn't a deeply meaningful serious read that'll change your world - but if you are looking to get sucked into an adventure involving detectives, magic, zeppelins and book-loving-hero-librarians ... then this is the book for you.

Personally I don't think you can ever have enough book-loving-hero-librarians, or zeppelins. Zeppelins are cool ;-)

Kate wrote: "I thought this was just okay. The madcap action was fun, but I couldn't help but compare this to other properties that do the multiworld adventure/light and bubbly paranormal adventure thing better..."
I found myself thinking of Thursday Next too, even though they aren't really the same.

I found the plot to be well crafted, the world building good, and the characters grew as the story progressed without dragging. I enjoyed the style of writing. There was a lot of dithering and dialog, but I felt it built suspense and added to the intrigue. Although they were kind of polite to each other as they were about to smite each other. It reminded me of a Hanna Barbara cartoon. "Excuse me while I drive this stake through your heart. Don’t take it personally or anything."

My only criticism is that the stakes weren’t higher. It's kind of hard to take it seriously. Anyway, a great read and I highly recommend it.

Having just read and thoroughly enjoyed the somewhat similar Bookburners, I'm finding that the dialogue here comes across as stiffer and more awkward than it already is. It has a sort of herky-jerky feel to it.

I really like the concept, though. It's a nice variation on The Librarians TV series (which was renewed for a new season, btw) and some of the action scenes have been well done.

I went for whispersync audio with the book and just started reading/listening to it. It's the same narrator as The Rook.

I really liked it.. It's a fun fast read.

Now that I'm past the 2/3 mark, it's really picked up for me. We finally get to hear the real reason why the Library wants books, as opposed to the stated reason.

I enjoyed it, too. Enough that I'm going to read the other books (though not immediately).

I read this a few months ago and remember both liking it and thinking that I should pick up the next one... but I haven't. Thus, for me, it's more a 3.5 star/good, not outstanding book. Books that are 4 and 5 stars will almost always have me grabbing the next book in the series right off.

Well, I managed to lock myself out today, but fortunately the package containing this book was poking out at the top of my mailbox. Got about 1/3 into it while waiting for my neighbor to get home. I quite like it so far, it moves at a good pace and has a bunch of fun concepts. The author bio says she's written for RPGs, which makes a lot of sense - I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out there's an Invisible Library Sourcebook somewhere out there.

I agree with some of the other comments about the narrator on the audiobook...she's a little too breathy for me