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I just finished Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. It’s an enjoyable read — one I picked up on Cory Doctorow’s recommendation (and was reminded of Doctorow’s own novels while reading it). This book did a lot of things right including landing on an ending that was important enough yet real enough that the central mystery at the heart of the plot — retroactively — seemed even better. Sloan is a bit less message-y than Doctorow has been in his more recent books. There’s some good points in here about technology, society, literacy, craft, immortality and values but it’s almost never out front and Sloan never shoves any of it in your face.
I could have done without the epilogue myself. The book ended masterfully and while the epilogue didn’t really interfere with that it felt too much like the ending of a beloved seventies sitcom (e.g., Fonzie went on to get a degree from Devry Institute and now runs his own chain of auto repair stations).
