Rex Libris: I, Librarian

by James Turner, 183 pages (or thereabouts--I had to count!)

Rex Libris is a librarian. A reeeeeally good librarian. In fact, he's the Head Librarian at Middleton Public Library (the real one, underground, and built on ley lines that occasionally cause the books' characters to manifest in the stacks where they cause mayhem and / or innocent fun). He's been around since he was born in ancient Rome and travelled all over the world(s). And he's a member of Ordo Bibliotheca, the International Order of Librarians, a super secret organization that has supported libraries throughout history. His Library Administrator is Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god, who's very particular about the arrangement of dust in the Library and rather put out that he's been supplanted by other deities in modern popular religion. And Rex's roomie is an egomaniac named Simonides who's been cursed into the body of a little telekinetic bird by Circe--you know, the witch from Odysseus's epic journey? The one who seduces him and turns his crew into pigs? Well, now she works at the library. Supposedly, she's retired and reformed and prefers to bake really tasty cookies for storytime, but she still has a sharp pointy sword and some sneaky ways of dealing with unruly patrons (besides turning them into pigs, which, admittedly, she did do once recently, which got her put on probation, but still...). Speaking of unruly patrons, you don't want to be one. Refuse to check your demon spirit samurai sword at the desk and then try to take out Evil Made Easy without a card? Bad idea. Run off to your newly enslaved snowmen planet and fail to return Principia Mathematica on time? First, you get a "friendly" phone call. Then you get a visit. You don't want to get a visit.

The tagline above the title is "The World's Favourite Kick-A** Sesquipedalian Librarian!" I had to look that one up. Hilariously, it means one given to overuse of long words. *snort* This is totally true. Rex (and Thoth and Circe and Rex's comic book editor and everybody else) expends a lot of air talking about everything from classical history and mythology to quantum physics to overdue books. It just makes the short sentences that much funnier. I could not have read this when I was tired (there's a lot of text and it's very small), but it is a nice accompaniment to a hot cup (or two or three) of coffee. The author also suggests a pastry, but I didn't have any on hand. I'll see about remedying that whenever I get around to reading the second installment.