Month: August 2011

Exclusively Yours

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Sometimes we all want a “do over”. In Exclusively Yours, by Shannon Stacey, Keri Daniels and Joe Kowalski get one.

I kept hearing John Mellencamp’s song Jack & Diane while I read this book. It fits. Joe Kowalski and Keri Daniels were high school sweethearts almost 20 years ago. But that was then, and this is now. Now, Joe is a best-selling horror writer. Think Stephen King, but younger, handsomer, and even more mysterious about his personal life. Keri Daniels is a journalist for a weekly celebrity magazine. Her editor is obsessed with Joe’s elusiveness, but then she discovers that Joe and Keri were once an item in their small, New Hampshire town, way back when.

Now, Keri has one and only one assignment–bring back an exclusive interview with Joe Kowalski, or don’t even bother to come back and clean out her desk.

Keri knows where to find Joe. She’s always known. Her family still lives in that same small town, and so does his. She’s been back. She’s just never tried to find him. She knows she broke his heart when she left to go to college. And she never got over him, either. But Joe’s dreams were all about staying near his family, writing his books, and hitting the big time by sticking to his roots. Keri’s dreams were about stretching her wings, seeing the big city lights, and finding out who she was away from small-town limits. She left…and almost never looked back. But she never found anyone else either. And neither did he.

When Joe agreed to meet with her, each hoped that the sparks were dead. Or that time had treated the other badly. But no on both counts. They sparked each other just as much as they ever had, and the years had been kind. And Keri was honest about what she wanted. She needed the interview, or she’d lose her job. She didn’t play games or pretend. And Joe wanted to keep fanning that spark, to see if he could rekindle that flame they once had.

So he did something either really dumb, or really smart. He “blackmailed” Keri into coming along on the Kowalski extended family 14-day camping vacation with his parents, siblings, in-laws, nephews, niece, animals and ATVs. But no cell phone, no computer and no electronics of any kind. And if she participated in every activity, she could ask one question per day, which he agreed to answer.

As each day goes by, Joe and Keri discover, not just what they had, but what they could have now. Nostalgia is not enough, there is a lot of hurt that has to be healed first. And not just theirs. Keri’s leaving damaged Joe, and his pain hurt everyone he loved. They weren’t ready when they were 18. But it’s just possible that they are ready now.

Escape Rating B+: Exclusively Yours was one of those books that I just plain liked. A lot. I enjoyed the romance, I liked the people, and I had a good time with the characters. I read this because I had previously reviewed the third book in the Kowalski family series (Yours to Keep), and enjoyed it a lot. I decided I wanted to see where everything started and I am very glad I did.

Hearts and daggers and spaceships

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | libraries

Scanning the fiction shelves of your local public library, there are a lot of books with labels on the spines for romance, mystery and science fiction. There’s at least one standard brand of those labels where the romance label was a heart, the mystery label was a dagger, and the sci-fi label was a spaceship.

This isn’t about the labels. This is about the books.

Back in the Dark Ages (pre-Internet), librarians were the ones who knew when new books were coming out. How did we know? We had some great magazines (yes, magazines) that reviewed books just a few weeks, or maybe even a couple of months, before they came out, so we could order them. Those publications are still familiar names: Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, etc. They still publish reviews. And let’s not forget the venerable New York Times Book Review every Sunday and their best seller list.

But the world around them has changed. Everyone knows when books are coming out. Amazon and Barnes & Noble may have books available for pre-order more than six months ahead of publication. But it’s more than that. Reviews are no longer the domain of a select few. Anyone can review a book and post their review on the net. Not just on Amazon and B&N, but also on Goodreads, Shelfari and LibraryThing.

Back to the hearts and daggers and spaceships. Once upon a time, most fiction bestsellers were “just plain” fiction. Today, most fiction bestsellers are part of one or more genres. They are romance, or mystery, or science-fiction, or fantasy, or one of the new genres like urban fantasy or paranormal. Or one of the tried-and-true variations, like horror or thriller or espionage. But fiction sells better today when it is in an easily defined category. Just like cable television has broken down into a zillion niche channels, so has publishing.

Genre readers have also developed their own niches on the net where they publish news and reviews and author interviews, just like the traditional review magazines that libraries have always relied on do. The difference is that many of the genre sites are doing this out of love, and not necessarily for money. For many, this is as much about the fandom as it is about the literature. But they still make terrific review sources for a lot of material that may not be covered by traditional reviewers, particularly not in vast quantity.

Every public library already knows whether they are going to purchase James Patterson’s next book. Or Nora Roberts’ next, whichever name she writes it under (I’m waiting for New York to Dallas with the proverbial baited breath myself). Librarians just don’t need to see the reviews for certain authors, because it doesn’t matter whether the book is good or bad, it will still be “hot”.

But monitoring a group of genre fiction blogs and websites, even if it is a moving target, can bring in a lot of really great material, including ebooks, for your patrons, and can help separate the wheat from the proverbial dusty chaff. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Fiction Vixen both review romance, and lots of it. This is a great thing, since there is an awful lot of romance published, and nowhere near enough of it gets reviewed anywhere except online, particularly the ebook-only titles. All Things Urban Fantasy, Para Your Normal and Galaxy Express (Science Fiction Romance) cover subgenres that aren’t necessarily even thought of by more traditional reviewing sources.

Locus Magazine and the SciFiGuy both review science fiction and fantasy. The Rap Sheet and Criminal Element cover (or uncover) Mystery. And many of these sites have that wonderful feature, a blog roll. Veritable treasure troves of sites in the same bailiwick.

As both selection resources for collection development and readers’ advisory resources for patron services, these sites are fantastic. They can answer questions like “what is the authors’ preferred reading order for the Liaden series vs. the publication order?” and “If I have patrons who like Sookie Stackhouse but not Anita Blake, what else should I buy?” There’s also the ever popular question of where to go for clues on what to purchase to fill in the ebook selection on OverDrive.  Those are the most popular genres, and most of them are not reviewed. Checking out the purchaser reviews on Amazon, or going to a specialty site like Fiction Vixen may help you decide.

And it’s fun.

Missouri State Library Summer Institute

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | About> presentations

One week ago, I was standing in front of one of the Advanced Classes at the Missouri State Library Summer Institute, all geared up to conduct three days of presentations on Collection Development and Acquisitions.

Let me say this up front, library folks in Missouri really rock! Everything was set up and ready for me, from the hotel arrangements to the PC setup to the class lists. Sharla Lair, the coordinator for the Missouri State Library, did an absolutely bang up job, and I can’t thank her enough for all of her help.

The people in my class were a terrific group. They represented libraries from all over the state, at every position from clerk to director.

Class started after an early lunch on Tuesday, and ended just before lunch on Thursday. In that time, I needed to cover not just Collection Development, but also the basics of Acquisitions.

That’s both a long and a short amount of time. There’s an old joke about the true theory of the relativity of time. How long “just a minute” is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on.

On the one hand, 16 contact hours is a lot of content to prepare for. On the other hand, 16 contact hours is not as much time as I would have liked to cover everything in two very big topics.

The agenda distilled into some big building blocks. It’s difficult to talk about something without defining it. We all know what collection development is, but that’s mostly by doing it. Looking at what it is and what it isn’t makes for a very interesting discussion. Acquisitions, after all, is what we buy. Collection Development is what we keep.

A lot of class discussion concerned determining who the community is that we are developing the collection for, and then determining what that community wants and needs. It’s not just about getting stuff, after all. It’s about figuring out what stuff to get. And what stuff not to get. And the best way to allocate staff time in selecting which stuff to get. I introduced the class to a new range of selection resources for fiction, ranging from the tried-and-true like fiction-l to Locus to Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Fiction Vixen. This part was probably the most fun.

Policy-writing is not fun. It’s just necessary. The policy-writing discussion and the intellectual freedom/materials challenge class exercise turned out to be even more on target than I had planned when I prepared the class. The Republic Missouri school board banned two books, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and the Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five from the high school curriculum and the libraries in April 2011. A third book, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, was challenged but not banned. The challenges were filed in the summer of 2010, but it took the Republic School Board a year to decide the cases because they first had to formulate a materials challenge policy and procedure.

The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is offering free copies of Slaughterhouse-Five to students from Republic High School.

It’s hard to beat both local relevance and recent news coverage for giving a class more immediacy. But I tried. Digital is a big issue for collection development. If 8% of the US population owns a tablet, and 12% of the population owns an ereader, and 20% of the people in book groups use one or the other to read their book group’s selection each month, what does that mean for demand of ebooks? Even knowing that those populations have to overlap? And how does the purchase or license of ebooks affect both collection development and a shrinking acquisitions budget?

I know I learned a lot during my three days at the Summer Institute. I’ve always said that teaching a subject is one of the best ways to learn it. I believe that everyone in the class took away some knowledge that they didn’t have before. I think they also had fun. I know they had chocolate.

I also took away some great insights about Missouri libraries and library workers. And some really good stuff about what to do to make my next presentation even better.

 

Defying Convention

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

Defying Convention, by Abby Niles, is a romance that takes place at a science fiction convention. Her main characters are both writers, a successful science fiction writer and a struggling investigative reporter. But both writers have big secrets.

Luke Blaster is not his real name, but everyone knows that. His real name is Luke Evans. But as Luke Blaster, he is the successful author of the Farmen series. Well, successful until the sixth, and latest book, that is. In the most recent Farmen book, Luke killed off his hero, Ben Frank. And killing Ben has gotten Luke about the same reaction that killing Sherlock Holmes got Conan Doyle–except with new technology. Sales of the book have tanked. The Farmen Fan Organization has organized hate mail campaigns in every possible media. Luke’s career might be over. So Luke is at the con to see if he can salvage anything from his self-created mess.

Emma Portland is an investigative journalist whose last several investigations have been scooped by rivals at other news agencies. Her hated editor has sent her undercover to the con with the promise that if she finds a story, she can keep her job, and the threat that if she doesn’t, she’s fired and blackballed. Her editor expects her to fail.

Eddie, Emma’s brother, is back at a con for the first time in two years. He is Emma’s guide to the geek scene. Eddie used to go to all the cons with his ex-wife, but when his game design company became more important than his marriage, Fiona left him. Now Eddie is rich, but lonely. And he sees Fiona everywhere he turns. He also sees Emma making the same mistake he made, putting a job she that may not be right for her ahead of what is really important.

In order to work undercover, Eddie gets his sister dressed up as Princess Leia.  The early version, with the white dress and her hair in the side-buns. That costume is a classic. When Emma steps out of an elevator and sees Luke being beaten by a group of guys with Nerf swords, she immediately gets in the way. She doesn’t know about his book, and too many against one just isn’t fair in her book.

Luke is fascinated by the only woman at the entire con who doesn’t know who he is and hasn’t pre-judged him. Emma senses a story, but is equally fascinated by the man behind it.

Meanwhile, the Farmen Fan Organization decide to teach Luke Blaster the error of his ways, live and in person. They decide to run a LARP, that’s Live Action Role Playing game, as part of the con, casting Luke Blaster as his dead hero, Ben Frank. Emma’s new involvement with Luke means that she has cast herself as “Ben’s” love-interest, Mia Marrows.

The LARP, the books, the con, and the so-called “real” world overlap each other, as Eddie, Luke and the Farmen Fan Organization each use the LARP to attempt to teach various characters different lessons, sometimes at the same time. It turns ugly when Emma’s journalist rival turns up, and everyone’s real secrets come out.

The romance part of this is fun to read. I enjoyed these people, and I wanted them to get their happily-ever-after. The secondary characters, too. This was one where all the characters had some stuff they needed to work through, and the story really shows how they got where they are, and that they earned their reward.

I picked this up because it takes place at a science fiction convention. There were a lot of years when I regularly attended at least three science fiction conventions every year and I have friends who have organized cons. So I know too much about the setting, and this didn’t quite match.  If you’re looking for a book that gives the flavor of a science fiction convention, the best book is still probably Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb. It’s a murder mystery where the famous sci-fi author is so hated he gets murdered at the beginning and the rest of the book is about the new sci-fi author/amateur investigator. The description of the murdered author was so true-to-life that a very real and very much alive famous author received a number of copies of the book out of “concern” at the time it was published. I’ll leave you to guess who that was. (Hint: he’s still alive)

Isles of the Forsaken

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

Isles of the Forsaken by Carolyn Ives Gilman was one of those books that I picked to review because I thought I was going to like it. Then I nearly didn’t. Then I read it all in a big clump, because I had to find out what happened. And about two-thirds of the way through, I realized that the author couldn’t possibly loop all the holes in the pages remaining. And she didn’t. Dammit, there’s a sequel.

The story starts out in very familiar territory. A young man, Nathaway Talley, is the youngest son of the most prominent family in the kingdom. The Talleys run everything, and they excel at everything. At least, all of them do except Nathaway. Nat can’t find any profession to put his heart into, until he joins the expedition to the Forsaken Islands as a junior Justice. He discovers that enlightening the “heathens” about the impartial beauties of law and civilization are the calling that he has been waiting for.

Harg Ismol is a captain in the Native Navy. But that is not quite enough of a description. Harg is the one, the only Adaina captain in the Native Navy. His people are the “heathens” that Nat’s expedition is coming to civilize. Harg’s people in the South Chain islands have remained isolated, and kept to their old ways. They still believe in the balance of nature and the spirits of their islands. Harg’s people are not just subjugated by Nat’s empire, which has until now been far away fighting another war, but they have been under the much closer thumb of the people of the North Chain Islands, under the rule of the Tiarch, who have been collaborating with Nat’s people, the Innings.

At the opening of Isles, Harg Ismol resigns his Naval commission and returns to his tiny home island of Yora. He thinks he is returning to the paradise he remembers from his youth. But nothing is as he remembers it, because he is not the same.

On Yora, the final subject of the story resides. Spaeth Dobrin is a ritual healer  She is one of the people that Nat is planning to save. Ritual healers don’t cure with herbs, or even with spells, although that is what the Innings believe. Ritual healers, Lashnura, are a different race altogether. They are compelled by their nature to heal. They cure by binding themselves to the people they heal by giving up their blood, and their life essence, as part of the healing. But Spaeth does not want to be bound. She rebels against her nature.

Everyone in this story is in rebellion. Nat’s is a quiet rebellion against his family’s expectations. Harg was a youthful rebel against the Adaina spirit of compromise, so he joined the Navy. Returning, he becomes the voice of the Adaina rebellion against Inning imperialism. Spaeth rebels against her nature, her own body’s need to become a healer.

Even the secondary characters are in revolt. The last spiritual leader of the Islands hides on a tiny outpost and refuses to name a successor. The Tiarch, the Satrap-like governor of the Islands, finally rebels against the Inning empire. Even the Admiral of the Inning Fleet revolts against the rule of Law and Order he is sent to bring to the Islands.

The Inning imperials’ civilization is itself a rebellion against the very nature and naturalism of the Forsaken Islands. And the living spirits of the Islands rise up in rebellion to overthrow that civilization, taking the confused son of the empire as one of their representatives.

Does the plot of the story confuse? Yes, it does at points. A little backstory on how the Talleys and the Inning Empire got to where they are, and who they fought in that previous war, would have helped this reader.  But once all the players in this drama are gathered together it is impossible to turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens next.

The Magician King

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

There are two kings and two queens in Narnia…no wait, I meant Fillory.

Lev Grossman’s The Magician King is a return to the universe that Grossman constructed in his breakout hit, The Magicians, just a different section of it.

In The Magicians, Grossman introduced us to Brakebills, a Hogwarts for college students, but in upstate New York instead of the wilds of Scotland.

If The Magicians was Harry Potter for grown-ups, then The Magician King is definitely Narnia.

The end of Magicians leaves Quentin Coldwater one the kings of Fillory, the imaginary world he loved as a child that turned out not to be imaginary after all. A very real version of Narnia, except the original access was through a clock instead of a wardrobe, and there were only five books instead of seven. Minor details.

Magician King opens with Quentin and two other Brakebills graduates, plus Julia, as the four kings and queens of Fillory. Julia’s lack of credentials from Brakebills is a a critical part of the story.

Quentin is bored. Being a king of a magical kingdom is unfulfilling. There is nothing that needs doing. There are no quests. Fillory takes care of itself. So when it is discovered that the Outer Islands have not paid their taxes in several years, Quentin decides that handling the problem is something he needs to do to show himself to some of his people.

Julia comes along, as does a Talking Sloth, a champion, and an apprentice mapmaker. And in the Outer Islands, on the island of After (thus named because the island was found After the border of the kingdom of Fillory) Quentin finds a golden key that opens the door to his quest. Which leads him through Julia’s discovery of her magic outside of Brakebills, and saves Fillory.

But Quentin learns that heroes always pay a high price to save the day. Especially when they save all the days yet to come. And the hero sometimes doesn’t even get the girl to comfort him.

Reading The Magicians, it is impossible to miss the parallels to Harry Potter. With Magician King, it’s just as easy to see Narnia everywhere you look. But what makes Magician King different is that so much of the story is told from the “Magician Queen’s” perspective–it is Julia’s non-Brakebills hedge witch education that is needed to solve the puzzle. And it is Julia’s story and Julia’s broken psyche that the reader identifies with and feels for through much of the book, right up until the very end.

The story of The Magicians is that of the privileged group who finds out that magic is real and that they can wield it. They grab on with both hands and hang on for the ride. In Magician King, we discover that Julia found out that magic was real, but that it was denied her–she failed the test–and it broke her. We all hope we would be Quentin and his friends, and fear we would be Julia.

Escape Rating A: The Magician King is a terrific fantasy. It does stand on the shoulders of Narnia.  When Eliot, the High King of Fillory, refers to some of the quests he conducted while Quentin and Julia were off on their own journey, the echoes of Voyage of the Dawn Treader were extremely close.  But Julia’s journey is much harder and longer than any that Aslan inflicted on any of the Pevenseys, or even Edmund.  It’s worth your time to the journey with them.

And once a King in Fillory, always a King in Fillory. I hope.

Turn it up

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Turn it Up by Inez Kelley is a story about two people who have been best friends for a very long time. Their friendship is the most important relationship that either of these two people have in their lives, and neither of them wants to jeopardize it. But risking it all might bring something even better than friendship.

To their radio listeners, Dr. Bastian Talbot and Charlie Pierce are Dr. Hot and the Honeypot. Charlie is “Honeypot”, one-part unlicensed sex therapist, one-part adventuress, one-part sex kitten, and all goddess. Bastian is a real-life M.D.–he’s there to provide medical advice when callers ask questions about pregnancy, STDs, and other real-life consequences of sexual activity. But mostly, they banter with each other, and sometimes the flirting gets pretty steamy.

But they’ve always been all talk, and no action. For most of the years they’ve known each other, Bastian has been married, and he took it seriously, even when his marriage went wrong. Charlie values Bastian’s friendship way more than fulfilling any (and every) fantasy she has about him. She definitely does sex, and lots of it, but she doesn’t do commitment. Bastian does commitment. He’s been single for over a year, and he’s decided exactly what commitment he wants to make. He wants Charlie. Not just for a night, or even a few months. He wants forever. And Charlie doesn’t do forever. Ever.

Bastian wants marriage. Charlie wants sex. They end up challenging each other, not just figuratively, but literally. On the air. They declare a contest: Wed or Bed. As the ratings for their radio show skyrocket, they find their way towards a relationship that is more than just friendship, in spite of the baggage they both carry.

Escape Rating A: Watching these two people negotiate a way towards each other was well worth reading this book. This story was built on friendship, and on two very clever people who talked their way into a relationship. I enjoyed reading the conversations between Bastian and Charlie. I wish I could listen to their radio show. I bet it would be hilarious!

Reading Reality on the road

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | About> presentations

On August 9 through August 11 I will be in Columbia, Missouri at the Library Skills Summer Institute hosted by the State Library of Missouri. For those three days I will be presenting a workshop on Collection Development and Acquisitions.

I am so thrilled to be doing this workshop. Collection Development may be the most fun thing you can do at a library. A friend once told me that  one of the greatest gifts you can give someone is a good book recommendation. Collection Development is like giving your entire community book recommendations. And you get to be a trendspotter, following what’s hot and what’s not.

And do we ever have a lot to cover! When the folks at the State Library asked me to teach this session, the instructions were to cover the nitty-gritty of Collections Development, and just a little bit of Acquisitions, in three days. Starting from after lunch Tuesday, to just before lunch on Thursday.

The topics are intended to be practical, things that people can use when they go back to work on Friday, or Monday. But I packed a lot into those three days, because Collection Development is so “hands-on”.

A couple weeks ago, I had a middle-of-the-night revelation. We often conflate Collection Development and Acquisitions, but they aren’t quite the same. At 3 am, it came to me. Acquisitions is what you buy, Collection Development is what you keep! The auditors only care about Acquisitions. Your gifts policy is Collection Development, but not Acquisitions.

The workshop goes into the reasons why every library needs to have a Collection Development Policy, and how to write one. Materials challenges come in all shapes and sizes, but they are much, much easier to handle when your library has a process outlined, and that process is part of the CD policy.

There’s so much more to cover. I can only hit the high points in the time available. And I hope that everyone walks away believing that we had a good time together, and that we learned something together. I know I will learn a lot. The best way to learn something is to teach it.

Now if only the butterfly convention would move out of my stomach. There must be some other presenter somewhere who needs the adrenaline way more than I do.

 

 

The Windup Girl

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is a book that I picked up because a lot of people talked about it. And because it won the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

The Windup Girl represents a type of post-apocalyptic story that is such a fundamental part of science fiction. In this particular case, the apocalypse in question is a result of genetic engineering, specifically the manipulation of food crops. Somewhere in the two centuries preceding the novel, there has been world-wide crop failure as the bio-engineering has also resulted in pests that are resistant to the pesticides.  Finally the cycle collapsed. Civilization has retrenched and sunk. Our present “Expansion” is reviled, and has become a myth. Agribusinesses are called “Calorie Companies” because that’s what they sell, calories so that people can work, and live. No one is fat, instead, people are starving.

The story is set in the city of Krung Thep, formerly Bangkok. It is told from five perspectives: Anderson Lake, an American Calorie Man; Hock Seng, a Chinese refugee; Jaidee, a captain in the Environmental Ministry Corps; Kanya, his second in command; and Emiko, the Windup Girl herself.

The post-civilized world in this story is interesting, but there wasn’t enough story in this book to satisfy me. The narrative skipped from character to character, and none of them were people I had any sympathy for. Nor did the author allow the reader to spend enough time with any of the characters to understand their motivations. There clearly is a well-thought out background, and two of the short stories in Bacigalupi’s collection Pump Six and other stories (“Yellow Card Man” and “The Calorie Man”) are prequels for Windup. But that background isn’t in the novel, adding a layer of confusion that wasn’t needed. One of the points of the story was that every character was hiding their true motivations from everyone else. And sometimes from themselves.

The future portrayed in this dystopian tale was grim enough on its own merits. It was not necessary for the author to add to the murk by leaving so much of the backstory outside of the work in hand.

Batgirl vs. Marian

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Librarians

Librarians need a new stereotype. And I know just where to find one. The Mary Sue: A Guide to Geek Girl Culture, has picked 10 Action Librarians from books, movies, TV and Anime. Whether you agree with those particular choices, well, as the car ads state, your mileage may vary. But the concept, I like.

We, meaning all of us librarians, know that there are really only two librarian stereotypes: the old lady with her hair in a bun, finger to her lips, going “shush” (a difficult image for the male librarians among us), and the “hot” librarian, unbuttoning her previously buttoned and repressed self.

If you don’t believe me, check out the entries for librarian at the tvtropes wiki. The shushing bun-wearer is the scary librarian, and the unbuttoned hottie is the hot librarian. Teachers have way more cool options than we do.

“Marian the Librarian” is both a character and a song from the play (and movie) The Music Man. As portrayed by Shirley Jones in the movie, Marian is a stereotypical small-town librarian in the early 1900s. She is a spinster, she lives at home with her mother, and she doesn’t trust men. What an image for us to live with!

Batgirl, on the other hand, is a superhero. She is the daughter of Police Commissioner Gordon in Gotham City, home of Batman. When daddy doesn’t let her join the police force, librarian Barbara Gordon decides to become a crime fighter on her own terms, by inventing her secret identity. Librarian by day, Batgirl by night.

In one version of the DC Comics universe, Batgirl is shot and crippled by the Joker. She emerges from the shadows as the wheelchair-bound Oracle. What better way for a librarian to contribute to the cause of fighting crime than as an oracle?  Oracles have always been considered to be people who provide wise counsel, or make authoritative and influential pronouncements.  Oracles have often been able to see the future. So Batgirl, no longer able to kick-butt physically, still does it with data. Sounds like a superhero librarian to me.

The other issue with all the current librarian stereotypes is that they are universally female and/or passive. Well, what about Rupert Giles in Buffy? Not passive, not female, not a milquetoast. Certainly not enough hair to put up in a bun. And definitely saves the world more than a few times.

And last but not least, at least for me, the Librarian in the Discworld, who was transformed into an orangutan when a spell went wrong. The Librarian would probably say that the spell went right, if he could say anything except “Ook”. He certainly won’t let anyone change him back. He likes being an orangutan. What I envy him is his access to L-space, the extra-dimensional space that connects all great libraries together and allows the keepers of those libraries to move from library to library through L-space. His ability to move from the stacks at Unseen University to, say, the Library of Congress to the library on Trantor to the British Library…now that’s a super-power.

On second thought, I still want to be Batgirl.