Book Review: The Library of the Dead

The first in a yet to be published series, this book by T.L. Huchu caught my eye whilst browsing the shelves in one of my favourite Edinburgh bookstore due to the fact that this urban fantasy novel is actually set in Edinburgh, and although the city described in its pages is a doomed and distorted version of it, the geography is accurate.

The narrative style is fairly engaging and easy to follow, although if the reader is under 40 they will quickly notice that the writer either has no real grasp of what could be described as "youth lingo" or they are trying way too hard to use it as a mean of highlighting the age of the main characters of the story.

What I found quite interesting is how magic and science are intertwined in Huchu's universe, with the First Law of Thermodynamics (also known as the Law of Conservation of Energy, stating that energy cannot be created nor destroyed in an isolated system) being adapted to explain the mechanism behind spell casting. The entire main section of the book is filled with notions on magical theory, which made it a bit disappointing when the main character, Ropa, ended up casting a single spell throughout the entire book. Additionally, that one spell turns out to be incredibly powerful, which is not only a cliché (main character thrown in a world they know nothing about and turning out to be insanely powerful? Unheard of, right?) but also overlooks the entirety of the theoretical laws of magic covered thus far.

Overall, the idea behind the series has potential, but the plot needs more plot twists or less obvious indications as to who the villain is, as well as being more consistent in the description and implementation of core topics (see the magic theory point above).