Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

3.5 Stars

This is a very quirky little book, verging on the bizarrely odd.  The 24 Hour Bookstore of the title is a bibliophiles dream but only the select few are allowed to look at the strange three storey collection of books, books that Clay can find no record for online.  Even odder he is instructed to note down not just which book someone takes out but their demeanour, their dress but Clay needs the job after the bagel start-up he worked at folded so he goes along with it.

Unusually for a book based around a bookstore it doesn't decry the advent of the e-reader, it celebrates it, noting that it has its place amongst real bound books - most of us do still read both after all.  In fact, it is all a bit of a celebration of technology and the things it can do for us, against the things we accede to it, showing that it can be used for "good".  As Clay gets bored on the night shift (I know that feeling) he starts trying to map the store out in a 3D wireframe and thats when things start to get interesting as he plots the order books are taken out by this odd group of people who visit at all hours and sees something he never expected.  Recruiting his tech savvy 6th grade schoolfriend Neel, his artist flatmate Mat(?) and a girl he met in the store, Kat they go on a good old fashioned quest to get to the bottom of what is happening when Mr Penumbra goes missing.

Told with whimsy and delight by the author it is a fun read, just not quite as captivating as it first appeared to be.  After the first couple of chapters I actually dreamt about the Bookstore and thought I had it cracked as to what was going - I was wildly wrong, so maybe that disappointment coloured things for me a little.  There's also a little too much felicitous good fortune for Clay and his band of adventurers so everything comes together for them rather too easily for comfort - I'm also left wondering why it was necessary to point out that Neel is African-American when the racial profile of the other characters is never really mentioned.

It is a a fun blend of old-school nerdiness (The Dragon-Song Chronicles books that first brought Neel and Clay together, Mat(?) with his tiny architectural models and the frequent references to role playing games in the disguise of Rockets and Warriors) and modern technology (Kat and her Google job, Clay and his Ruby programming, Mr Penumbra's vast collection of eReaders).  A nice bit of derring-do and cryptography thrown in and it is an enjoyable ride, it just left me feeling a little "wanting" and I'm not sure why.