A.J. Hackwith’s The Library of the Unwritten was a pacy, darkly funny and deeply satisfying take on the interdimensional/time travelling librarian trope, and I loved it to bits. Its sequel, The Archive of the Forgotten, tries hard to dig into the relationships between the key characters, picking up the story as they’re still adjusting to the changes forced upon them, with Brevity now the new Librarian and Claire relegated to stewardship of the titular Archive. It’s a smaller-scale story in which the safety of both the Library and the Archive is at risk even as Brevity and Claire are at odds with each other, their friendship strained to breaking point. Sadly, while the world in which it’s set continues to be engaging, the story itself doesn’t live up to expectations.
A generous assessment might be that while it tackles some interesting ideas and takes the characters to different places, in doing so it loses the focus of its predecessor, tries to do too much and as a result misses most of its marks. A less kind assessment would be that it’s a poorly-plotted mess of a book which fails to meet its ambitious goals, and just about manages to entertain by virtue of continuing to explore a world which is still fundamentally smart, interesting and engaging. That might sound a little harsh, but after enjoying the first book so much I found myself genuinely disappointed by the sequel – at first I thought perhaps it was just that I needed a bit of time to get back into the swing of the characters and the world, but in truth it simply fell flat in comparison with what had gone before.
I’ll qualify that a little, though. With the exception of one new character this takes the same cast as the first book and follows the same approach as before, rotating through the various viewpoints as the story progresses. Where there was a clear, overarching narrative driving things forward last time though, this time the various characters go off in different directions which feel only loosely connected, and none of which have enough driving force to feel like they’re steering the narrative. Taken individually, each arc sort of makes sense – especially Hero’s, whose pursuit of answers is the one part of the plot that genuinely works – but as a whole they just feel disjointed. The multiple POVs worked in the context of a bigger story, but in this more personal story with smaller stakes it all feels forced together with a little too much narrative convenience and not enough clear direction.
It’s not all bad, by any means – the world building is still brilliant, and as the story progresses it offers a welcome opportunity for both characters and readers to explore some of the other Wings of the library. Hero and Ramiel bickering but actually warming to each other while visiting the Unsaid Wing in Elysium, for example, is almost worth it alone (although a change in their dynamic, while welcome, comes a little out of the blue), and likewise the surprisingly creepy Dust Wing. Other strands of the narrative, however – including Claire’s inner struggle and her deteriorating friendship with Brevity, the introduction of a character from Brevity’s past (and the painfully obvious implications of that), the nature of the threat facing the Library and the Archive – are not fully explored, disappointingly convenient, or introduced abruptly and either poorly explained or not explained at all.
There’s plenty of potential here, but as a unified story it just didn’t work for me – I saw it through to the end in the hope that it would eventually come together and make sense, but even the (relatively) climactic finale fell flat. If you really loved The Library of the Unwritten then it’s almost worth picking this up for the opportunity to see more of this world, and (as I mentioned) the journey that Hero goes on – and of course you might not take issue with the aspects of the book that I didn’t enjoy. I’ve read other reviews in which the reviewers have had similar problems with the book to what I’ve identified, and it’s been interesting to see a lot (perhaps most) of them saying that they’ll still pick up the next book in the series. I think that’s testament to the world that Hackwith has created, and I can understand the desire to see more of it. For me personally, however, I’m not likely to carry on with the series.
Many thanks to Titan Books and A.J. Hackwith for providing me with an advance copy of The Archive of the Forgotten in exchange for my honest review.
See also: my review of The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith.
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