Absolutely loved this series. Hines does an amazing job showing us what it would be like if all of us could actually do what we've always wanted ... pulling things from books into the real world. Libriomancy would be amazing. Sad that this was the last book in the series but the ending was exactly what I would have wanted for the characters and the world.

I love this series! Isaac is back, with Smudge, Lena and all the rest. I don't want to give too much away, but Isaac finds that, while he can grow into a leadership role, there are serious downsides. Like testifying before Congress!

3,5 stars

Excellent way to wrap up a series I was so heavily invested in. Was worried about the growing emphasis on the political, but everything seems to fit. Leaves plenty of room for expansion as well if the author chooses to come back to it.

And as always, any book is improved with the addition of a fire spider.

I have no words for how much I adore this entire series. Jim C. Hines is amazing, and I will forever be in his debt for creating these books. A full review will be up on my youtube channel soon. But in short, awesome to the nth power.

This series continues to develop in interesting and unusual ways. I was worried Hines might call it a trilogy and be done with it, 'cause the books could have been set in the "real world" up until the third book, when the barn door got torn off and hidden magic was made known to the world at large. It would not have been inappropriate for Hines to walk away from this plot at that point and leave readers to fill in what might happen in such a world. But I'm glad he's come back to explore some of the implications of such a revelation.

I will say that if I had read this after Trump's election, I might have been concerned with the depiction of the government as a big-bad (since Nov. 2016, I'm a bit more sensitive to such ideas), but it's an interesting look at how difficult it can be to do the right thing and make the world better when there are plenty of folks who are perfectly happy with the status quo. So I suppose it comes down to how you want to interpret the depiction - in its way, one could see an anti-Trump message in how the story plays out, or a pro-Trump message. (I realize it's not either, and it's just my crazy brain retroactively adding this layer of insanity onto a book whose plot was conceived before Trump was even a candidate.)

So I after to admit that I found this installment to be a little of a let down. Hines deserves full credit for actually, seriously, looking at what a revelation of magic could do, and considering how many Urban Fantasy novels skirt around this issue, its nice to see someone really think about it.

The problem is that thinking kinda goes out in the end after Lena's confession. Don't get me wrong, it is in keeping with her character, but in many ways, it speaks to some of the concerns that the various officers and officials are concerned about. And I understand that the central characters make true debate the issues raised in the conclusion difficult. And I even think that Hines is trying to get us, the readers to think about this, I just think it could have been done better.

For security reasons, no books will be permitted in the chamber during your testimony.

Revisionary is a fascinating work. It takes the world building of the first three Magic Ex Libris books and explores what happens when magic comes out in the modern world. It's probably the best example I've seen of this, right up there with the Mercy Thompson books (and honestly does a better job of showing the changes from the point of view of humans dragged into a new world).

There are a number of really interesting ideas in this book.

How do you treat magical beings such as vampires? Are they legally the same as ordinary human beings?

How would inheritance work? Taxes--on beings that can and may have already lived for centuries?

How do medical regulations interact with magical healing? Do you need to go through human trials and years of other studies for a magical healing vial pulled out of a book?

On top of that, we get a bunch of new magical bits and bobs that the Libriomancers have put together now that they don't have to completely hide what they're doing. In particular, I found it particularly interesting how they dealt with the interaction of magic and computer systems, particularly in the case of the Kiyokos--a series of clones acting as networked biological computers. All together, the new magical tech leads to some pretty crazy (and weird at times) action scenes especially towards the climax of the book.

As one downside, Gutenbern only barely shows up (being dead) and de Leon isn't in the book at all. I get that they're a bit over powered being around for so long... although Bi Wei shows up. At least we still get plenty from the main characters we've come to know over the series. Isaac is still my favorite. I see more than a bit of myself in him.

“That’s . . . that’s magic.”

“Pretty cool, isn’t it? If I had more time, I’d tell you how it worked.”

“He would,” Lena said. “Even if you asked him to stop.”

Overall, a fitting end to the series even if I wished it weren't the end. Worth the read.

Random awesome thing: an uplifted crow. I find the idea of uplifted animals fascinating although it has an unfortunate tendency to overpower the story.

He’d discovered his abilities a year and a half ago, and was still in that overenthusiastic phase where he was likely to blow himself up along with everyone within a hundred-foot radius if you didn’t keep a close eye on him.

I loved the world was introduced to magic and that Isacc got his due. Smudge gets a friend and Lena strengthens.

The final book in the series and a really outstanding one as well. Magic is now out in the world and everyone knows about it. No more secrets anymore. So what now? Isaac & co are trying to figure it out, but of course a lot of stuff will go wrong and they'll have to figure out how to fix it. It is Isaac, after all. If stuff didn't go wrong around him, how would he even function? What would he even do? Just stay at home with Lena (and Nidhi) and watch Doctor Who? (Actually that sounds awesome, sign me up.) But of course the government has to get involved and when the government gets involved, things always end poorly. If you've stuck around this long, trust me, you'll love this one too.