The Book That Wouldn’t Burn
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4.2 • 161 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
All books, no matter their binding, will fall to dust. The stories they carry may last longer. They might outlive the paper, the library, even the language in which they were first written.
The greatest story can reach the stars . . .
This is the start of an incredible new journey from the internationally bestselling author of Prince of Thorns, in which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned…
Evar has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities.
Livira has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.
The world has never noticed them.
That’s about to change.
As their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time, each will unlock vast secrets about the world and themselves. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another.
Reviews
Praise for Mark Lawrence
‘An excellent writer’
George R.R. Martin, #1 SUNDAY and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of GAME OF THRONES
‘Dark and relentless…A two in the morning page turner. Jaw-dropping’
Robin Hobb, the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of THE ASSASSIN’S APPRENTICE
‘Excellent – on par with George R.R. Martin’
Conn Iggulden, author of GENGHIS
‘Mark Lawrence gets better with every book. It has a drive to it, a pulse, a gearshift that kicks higher and higher.’
Fantasy Book Review
‘This tale of knowledge and its cost flies by thanks to the gripping mystery and beautiful worldbuilding…readers will be desperate for more.’
Publishers Weekly
‘Lawrence works with many threads here, but none feels misused or insufficiently explored. Rather, the author unspools them masterfully, leaving behind a tightly woven tapestry that readers will ache to see finished even if they can predict one or two of the tale’s myriad twists and turns. Gripping, earnest, and impeccably plotted.’
Kirkus
About the author
Mark Lawrence is married with four children, one of whom is severely disabled. His day job is as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. Between work and caring for his disabled child, Mark spends his time writing, playing computer games, tending an allotment, brewing beer, and avoiding DIY.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lawrence (the Broken Empire trilogy) draws readers into a vast subterranean library in this thrilling romantic fantasy and Library Trilogy series launch. After monstrous sabbers attack Livira Page's village in the backwater known as the Dust, she finds refuge in the big city, where she adjusts quickly despite prejudice against "dusters." Meanwhile, Evar Eventari and his four siblings live in the mysterious library that stretches beneath the city. It's the only home they've ever known and they share it with a mysterious Mechanism that transforms books into "something to be physically experienced, walked through, partaken in, interrogated, shared." The quintet spent decades trapped inside the Mechanism before being spit back out again, though they did not age a day in all that time. Each of the siblings gained skills and knowledge from the books they brought into the Mechanism except for Evar, who emerged only with the vague knowledge that he is missing something—or someone—and now he needs to find her. Told over the course of years for Livira and mere days for Evar, this tale of knowledge and its cost flies by thanks to the gripping mystery and beautiful worldbuilding, ending on a devastating cliffhanger. Readers will be desperate for more.
Customer Reviews
Enigmatic and lyrical
I feel like this book perfectly sat just at the edge of my understanding; clear enough to follow, but hinting at a larger universe as expansive as the chambers of the author’s library. The rare sort of book that invites you to inhabit it. Read it.
Written well but it’s a lot
Lawrence’s prose is excellent and the relationships make sense, and Liviria is a great character but this was a workout to read. It is quite surrealist at times and feels like playing 4D chess especially when reading the second half of the story. There are great themes about compromise and creating connections past race (I still need to get used to Evar and Livira which in that sense I just prove I overtly focus too much on the paradigms we expect to follow and believe in which the author’s message in this story has pointed out we should try to challenge ourselves against). I’m not sure I’m going to read the next one personally, but the library world in this book is incredibly well thought out and it is definitely in a literary category of its own I believe. One of the most unique multi-timeline (multiverse?) fantasies I’ve ever read.
Painful read
The plot is weak. Author interrupts characters conversations to write pages of meaningless descriptions.