{"id":1691,"date":"2013-03-25T21:16:03","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T05:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1691"},"modified":"2013-03-25T21:16:03","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T05:16:03","slug":"review-mr-penumbras-24-hour-bookstore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1691","title":{"rendered":"Review: Mr. Penumbra&#8217;s 24-Hour Bookstore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mr. Penumbra&#8217;s 24-Hour Bookstore<\/em> isn&#8217;t described as a Young Adults title, but it has that tone.\u00a0 Considering the quality of today&#8217;s YA works, that shouldn&#8217;t be taken as a slight, nor is it intended as one.\u00a0 It does mean that Robin Sloan spins a fast-paced enjoyable yarn, more memorable for the sense of adventure and wonder than for its carefully realized characters and poetic passages.<\/p>\n<p>That sense of thrill and enjoyment is really difficult to sustain, especially when the thrill comes from a sequence of puzzles that really aren&#8217;t as clever looking in from the real world.\u00a0 Robin&#8217;s savvy about the feel of tech people and the joy of a good puzzle, but he&#8217;s not<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/BBC\/mouldering00.html#m00-zz\"> Neal Stephenson<\/a>. Those impressions and that excitement carried the story, even for a nit-picker like me.<\/p>\n<p>The plot involves a centuries-old conspiracy, the latest big thing, and the people and societies (secret and public) that make things happen in the world.\u00a0 There are some nice observations about the cults and sects we all are parts of in this world and why Sloan values the ones he does. Overall a fun read.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mr. Penumbra&#8217;s 24-Hour Bookstore isn&#8217;t described as a Young Adults title, but it has that tone.\u00a0 Considering the quality of today&#8217;s YA works, that shouldn&#8217;t be taken as a slight, nor is it intended as one.\u00a0 It does mean that Robin Sloan spins a fast-paced enjoyable yarn, more memorable for the sense of adventure and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1693,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions\/1693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}