Review: The Dark Archive

The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's nothing like bringing back an old adversary, especially one the hero thinks they've killed, to ramp up the tension, and that's what we have here. In fact, there are eventually three old adversaries, and they want revenge on Irene the Librarian, but more or less as a side benefit of their larger dastardly schemes.

Once again, the stakes are high: multiversal war and the death or enslavement of billions of humans, but also personal: Irene and her friends are under direct threat, and she's learning things about her own origins, the dragons' origins, the Library's origins, and how everything works that are highly disturbing both individually and collectively.

Throughout, she keeps her cool, pragmatic competence under considerable pressure, not without an occasional wish that her life was easier, but always with an unshakeable commitment to her principles.

I've read several of these books in a short timespan now, and they have a good mix of elements that remain the same in each book (Irene's character, plenty of action, similar threats) with elements that vary (the settings, the exact problems, the exact solutions) and elements that gradually build and develop across the series (Irene's relationships, her understanding of what lies behind it all). They're solid, thorough, competent work by an author I suspect is rather like Irene in those respects.

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