book that wouldn't burn

Yes, I've changed gears. After learning that Samantha Shannon has book 6 of her Bone Season series due out next year, and who knows when book 7 will be out (or if there will be more!) I decided to swap over to Mark Lawrence's Library Trilogy. I bought book 2 at some point at a used book sale, and didn't realize it was the second in a trilogy until I got home and cracked it open to read. So I borrowed book 1 from the library; The Book that Wouldn't Burn. I haven't read any of Mark Lawrence's stuff before and this was pretty good. The story arc is built around a library, that in the point of this story, seems to have been developed thousands of years ago, but a much more advanced society than the current one, but the reasons for that may be that the culture the present story takes place in is either new to the library or is possibly a newer culture that is developing after some post-apocalyptic event, or something. Its a little vague, but I wouldn't tell you what it was here in any case as I try to avoid spoilers.

The library itself reminds me a little of the library in Asimov's Foundation Series, but only in its abstract, font of all knowledge, people in service of the library vibe that story gave me, at least as far as I can recall. its been a while!

I actually finished this a few days ago, and I've been working on book 2. Its a smaller volume, so I don't think it will take me too long before I go grab book 3 from the library. I guess this probably fits into the fantasy genre, but there are also SciFi aspects to it as well, and it also reads a little like historical fiction, but that may be because the culture in which this takes place is slowly transitioning from edged weapons to firearms, and the customs, dress, architecture, societal norms, nobility etc. seem to reflect a historical era.

The writing is pretty tight, and there are some interesting twists and loops that creep in that I wasn't expecting, and some others I could see coming, but I think I could see them because Lawrence wanted me to.