fantasy – Bites of Books

Back in February of 2020 I had my last trip before [insert all.the.things]. I went to Portland and got to visit one of my favorite bookstores: Powell’s. At that time I had no idea it would be the last time in a while that I’d visit such an awesome bookstore so I didn’t buy too many books (if only I had known….). Still, I got one book purely because of the cover and a couple of key words on the back:

Image of a book on a shelf. Other books of various sizes are in the background. The book cover is in sepia, black, and white colors and has written at the top in black "The Good Place meets Law & Order: Bibliophile Crime Unit. This book is so much fun. -- Seanan McGuire. The image on the cover is of an arm coming out of the left side of a dark opening of ripped pages from what seems to be a book. The words on the ripped pages are in french. The title "The Library of the Unwritten" is in the dark opening where the arm is coming out of in white letters. Underneath the title it says "Join the Library. Raise Hell. Underneath the opening it says "A novel from Hell's Library" and under that "A. J. Hackwith" — “head librarian” “Hell” “hero escapes” “author” were the words that jumped at me from the synopsis of the book.

I don’t normally buy books that I’m not looking for but this book just yelled to be picked up! Hell’s library, what’s in Hell’s library?! Is it evil books? Is it books by evil people? What?! I also don’t normally read synopses because I enjoy going into books not knowing much about the plot but this one claimed that this library housed unwritten works, now that’s intriguing! The main character would be the librarian in charge of these unwritten books and that a hero escapes so they have to get him back. With only a tiny bit of unease at stepping out of my comfort zone I bought the book. That was February 2020.

Jump to July 2020 and I figured it was about time to get back into reading since I was stuck at home with not much else to do… Boy it took me a while to get into the book. I don’t blame the book too much though! Middle of a you-know-what and my mental health wasn’t great so my attention span was lacking. I was reading about 20 pages here and there and then I left it for a couple of months until I finally finished it in January of 2021.

Although this book took a while to read I really truly enjoyed it! The story centers Claire, the head librarian of the Unwritten Library. This library is home to all the unfinished works by people on earth. You know, you write half a story and leave it there? Yeah, that story now lives in that library. All the main characters live in those shelves but sometimes they get out of their pages and become “real.” These characters are then put back into their unfinished books by the librarian. But, in one case, a hero escapes his book and manages to get out of the library altogether. Now Claire and Brevity (a retired muse) have to get him back into his book before he meets his author and havoc ensues.

But of course that’s not all! The other big big issue is that someone somewhere has discovered that the Devil’s Bible, written by Lucifer (you know, king of the underworld, head of all things evil, fallen archangel) is somewhere it shouldn’t be. Books are huge sources of power, demons are always going to the Unwritten library to read and borrow some of that power so it is imperative that this particular book doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. So, heaven is making sure they find the book to put it in the proper place and also demons are now after the book! Well, of course Claire and Beverly get mixed into this mystery of where the book is and …well… you’ll have to read the book to find out!

An aspect of this book I really enjoyed also was that we got to visit multiple other afterlife places: Heaven, Valhalla, a random pagan afterlife, etc. The way that one gets there isn’t easy for these characters since one is supposed to be a human soul (I kept forgetting that they were not entirely human throughout the whole book, also a side effect of stopping after a few pages and picking it up again weeks later I bet). There are many challenges and puzzles that they must solve at each turn so that was really interesting.

I highly recommend this first installment of Hell’s Library because not only is it for all book lovers and aspiring writers, it also includes LGBTQ characters. Multiple characters are sexually diverse and the issues that they face through the book (and in their backstories) are treated really well. I did not know this when I read the book but A. J. Hackwith is a queer fantasy and science fiction writer so it makes so much sense now that she was able to write about the identities of the characters so well.

I would like to continue reading this series and perhaps re-read this book now that my mind is more at ease. What do you think? Have you read this book? Do you have an unwritten book that you’ve yet to finish?

An unwritten book is nothing but pure potential, a soul’s potential is power [in Hell]. Power naturally, is all the creatures of Hell care about. They’d descend on the shelves like a swarm of locusts if we let them
The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith

Pop the Popcorn! Here are two movies and a show (well, technically three versions of the same show) that I watched in the past couple of weeks and I really enjoyed!

On May 2nd I watched Bright, a fantasy film that is set in this alternate universe where fantastical creatures live alongside humans. It seems like there was a big battle between good and evil where the Orcs all banded with the evil side so they are now discriminated against by society. Our two main characters are two members of the LAPD: Daryl Ward, a human, and Nick Jakoby, an orc. The trouble here is that Jakoby is the first ever orc who is in the police force so, when Ward is shot point blank while on duty and Jakoby lets the perpetrator go (an orc), things get a bit complicated. In addition, there’s the situation where some group is trying to bring back the Dark Lord by using some old relics. Magic is seen as highly dangerous in this society so people want to get it under control. However, of course, magic = power so everyone is after these relics. The good about it was really the premise, it was very interesting and I really wanted to know more about how the world worked (there was a shot where a centaur was part of the police force, another where a dragon is seen flying somewhere in the background, etc). So many questions!!! Not many of them answered. Bright ends up trying to be funny while having a high stakes plot and it fell a bit flat for me in that sense. Although it is super fun and entertaining, I almost wish it had been darker (ha!). All in all it was pretty good, fun for an evening or afternoon with nothing to do!

The Circle – US, France, and Brazil

I also watched The Circle on Netflix, a reality show where contestants move into an apartment and from there will be able to communicate with other contestants via a social media app called The Circle. I like these types of shows (even if they might be slightly scripted), I think this one in particular was interesting because they have The Circle France and also The Circle Brazil so I was able to see a bit of those cultures and even learn some of their online slang. (I have studied French before so it was kinda cool that I could understand some things as the show went on without having to rely on the captions as much.) My favorite thing about these shows is that it’s probably one of the shows that can be set within the pandemic and it makes sense. Like they’ve been isolated so when they all finally meet for the finale it’s okay! (I actually have no idea when this show was filmed but yeah…) It’s just a great show to escape everything.

From left to right: Bubs, Captain Jang, Kim Tae-Ho, and Tiger Park

Space Sweepers on Netflix was so so so good! This is a South Korean film released this year, 2021. It is a space opera featuring a group of characters that I absolutely loved. This is set in a futuristic world where Earth is no longer able to sustain life and where a new world is orbiting in space. Of course, not everyone is able to go up and live there, they have to be chosen to become UTS Citizens. One of the many jobs that are available in this futuristic world is that of a Space Sweeper, basically there is a bunch of junk out floating in space, which can get off orbit and hit the UTS world or one of the many stations around that world. In this movie we follow Captain Jang and her crew as they sweep space for junk to sell (and basically beat everyone else at the game). One of the things I loved most about this movie is that there is great diversity, there are people who speak different languages (Spanish, Russian, French, English, Korean, etc.) Although there are parts of the story that didn’t exactly get explained, I didn’t care very much because I just enjoyed watching the characters react to all the things that they were encountering. I highly recommend it!

And those are the things I’ve watched lately that I felt were interesting enough to share. Other things I’ve been watching are:

Grey’s Anatomy: Yeah, still making me cry after all these years….
Station 19: Along with Grey’s, in order to get the full picture. Though I gotta say that this show is starting to be better than Grey’s? O.O
The Masked Singer: This show is weird and I love it XD
This Is Us: I mean…. No words, I just love this show.

Have you seen any of the movies or shows I mentioned? What have you been watching lately?

Tag: fantasy

Book Review — The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith

Pop the Popcorn and Watch This!