Worldsoul.
Prime Books. 2012
For Mercy Fane, the day starts as any other for a Worldsoul Librarian: choosing a weapon to fight the dangers escaping from the books. What emerges will involve not only her, but also a hidden descendent of old Norse legends, a demon from Hell itself, and an Alchemist from the Eastern quarter, in a desperate fight against those who would destroy Worldsoul.
There is a rich vein of fantasy that has heroic Librarians fighting against the dangers that can leak out of Old Books. I understand the desire for heroic librarians; I’m not so sure that having the books be the danger is the best idea in this age of anti-intellectual post-truth.
However, here we have another hero-Librarian fighting off the demons. Worldsoul is a beautifully drawn, rich and detailed world, with a complex plot drawing on a range of old-Earth mythologies. In a lesser author’s hands, the range of characters, locales, and mythologies might have resulted in fragmentation; here Williams draws them all together in a fine tapestry, with a powerful cumulative building of the plot details.
The plot itself comes to a conclusion, but the ending provides the potential for a sequel. There are hints on the web that such a sequel is “projected”, but it does not seem to exist yet. I would welcome another tale in this universe.
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