Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries, and Lore
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Portals to all the knowledge in the world, libraries are also created universes of a multitude of imaginations. Librarians guide us to enlightenment as well as serving as the captains, mages, and gatekeepers who open the doors to delight, speculation, wonder, and terror.
This captivating compilation of science fiction and fantasy short fiction showcases stories of librarians—mysterious curators, heroic bibliognosts, arcane archivists, catalogers of very special collections—and libraries: repositories of arcane wisdom, storehouses of signals from other galaxies, bastions of culture, the last outposts of civilization in a post-apocalyptic world . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anthologist extraordinaire Guran compiles 24 fantastical reprints that are linked by libraries and librarians. Ellen Klages's charming "In the House of the Seven Librarians" is about the librarians who inhabit the abandoned Carnegie Library, and an orphaned baby girl who changes them forever. In Norman Partridge's nightmarish "Special Collection," a murderous librarian comes face to face with a vicious killer right out of the history books. Ray Bradbury's delicate, dreamlike "Exchange" tells the story of a librarian who, through books, helps a soldier remember his golden childhood, then ushers him on to his next destination. Ken Liu's tender "Summer Reading" imagines a future Earth that's a museum with robot curators; when a seven-year-old girl asks CN-344315 to read one of the physical books that he fastidiously maintains, they escape to another world, if only for a short, precious time. "A Woman's Best Friend" by Robert Reed features a librarian of many worlds who helps a man after he saves an angel's life on Christmas Eve, putting an otherworldly twist on a classic film. This solid collection has something for everyone and includes a comprehensive introduction by Guran.
