In each section, the chapters alternate between narrating a piece of Zachary’s story - the “real-time” events of the novel - and presenting either a fable or another narrative.

In this sense, the library and the Starless Sea are rich and complex characters, just like the other individuals in the novel. In his efforts to counter the Guardians, Zachary unknowingly becomes a key player in the library’s own agenda. The library, on the other hand, has its own destiny: to destroy itself in a phoenix-like process of rebirth, so that its current stories can finish and new ones may begin. Their mission is to keep knowledge of the library secret, and they are willing to destroy people (and the library itself) to achieve that goal. The library has come under threat from a clandestine organization, known as the Guardians. Put simply, the novel follows the son of a fortune-teller, Zachary Ezra Rawlins, as he quests to discover, and then save, an underground magical library. And it features a secret society with iconography that evokes the Deathly Hallows (which will definitely inform my next jewelry purchase). It contains an enchanted library - a fantasy staple ranging from Terry Pratchett to Harry Potter - but this one reminds me most of the library of the Clayr from Garth Nix’s Lirael. It is part portal fantasy á la The Magicians and part Alice in Wonderland. The Starless Sea combines elements of fantasy that traditionally delight readers. The effort of reading The Starless Sea is worthwhile (for the most part) if, like me, you enjoy deciphering narrative clues, weaving together story threads, and nodding at metatextual nuggets. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season comes to mind as one recent, prominent example of the type. THE STARLESS SEA, Erin Morgenstern’s sophomore fantasy novel, takes effort to read, but there are countless narratively complex works of science fiction and fantasy that amply reward such effort: N.

The starless sea genre