‘Bookburners: Body Problems’ Book Review

Mount Readmore Book Review, 2018 76/200

Bookburners: Season Four, Episode 1, BODY PROBLEMS by Max Gladstone

eBook Edition

Finished on 5/19/2018

Goodreads

Description:

This is the first episode in the fourth season of Bookburners, a 10-episode serial from Serial Box Publishing. This episode written by Max Gladstone.

Magic is real…and hungry.  

The Maitresse hasn’t exactly given the Bookburners good reason to trust her in the past, so when they all receive an invitation from her to attend a spontaneous Market Arcanum, they’re not sure they should go. Is this a peace offering? A sincere attempt to work together? Or could it all be a very elaborate trap?

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller, Bookburner, Urban Fantasy

Salt demons from the salt mines of Poland

Spoiler-ific review

I got this book for free in return for a review. It comes out June 13th.

This is the first ‘Bookburner’ episode I’ve written. To explain, this story is told in a self-contained serialized format, with each novel containing 10+ individual episodes written by different authors. This episode was a novelette in size (about 10,000 words if I were to guess).

Set in a semi-post apocalyptic Europe where magic has returned, and it’s up to the Bookburners to burn the spellbooks causing it before people get killed. London is a magic-infested wasteland, and the salt-mines of Poland are filled with people who have been turned to salt a la Sodom and Gomorah.

The characters are all well developed and internally consistent. I liked how they related and interacted with one another. The author clearly has writing skill, and the worldbuilding was very interesting.

I was a bit confused reading this. Like the first episode of a TV show season, this story has a plot of it’s own while also setting up the rest of the season.  However, this is season 4. I feel like I should have started with season 1, because I had no clue about a lot of what is going on.

Stay Sunny!