Well . . . it would be fair to say that all the new Librarians do get some training in basic library science, handling of books, management of indices, and everything from databases to index cards, plus a few extra filing systems unique to the Library itself. They have to be able to find their way around the stored books, after all. Some of them even took degrees or other qualifications in the art and knowledge of managing books and libraries before getting recruited. Others do it afterwards, while out on assignment or when stationed to some alternate world as Librarian-in-Residence, and feel all warm and fuzzy because of it.

But no, they aren’t proper librarians qua librarians. They’re mad bibliophiles who have been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Do you want to have a copy of every version of Victor Hugo that has ever been written in every possible alternate world? And the movies and musicals while you’re at it? Would you like to own an entire collection of the run of Weird Tales from a dozen different alternate worlds so that you can compare and contrast them and then write monographs about them? Perhaps you’d prefer to work on a smaller (or at least more focused) scale, and collect copies of the Tale of Genji? Or maybe you even want to get copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey from as far back as you can manage, to assemble an ultimate, definite, absolute version?

(It’s amazing what you can do when you can borrow a scanner/photocopier from a much more advanced technological alternate and then sneak into the local museum for some serious nighttime work. Just don’t get caught and burned as a witch.)

The Library can help you. The Library can let you go as deep into your obsession as you want. It will even provide unlimited shelves for you to store your loot — er, that is research materials — and let you write long monographs (or fanfics) about it, once you are a retired Librarian who is spending her or his old age in the Library. And you can make your new apprentices read them.

All you have to do is collect a few books for the Library. That’s all.

For some people, it’s all they ever wanted.

I was trying to remember the first time I genuinely had critical thoughts about a book I was reading, other than “I liked it,” “I didn’t like it,” or “why didn’t they do X, it would have been much more interesting or got things sorted out so much faster”.

It was during that period when the reader blissfully absorbs everything put in front of them in a sweet gush of fictional images and adventure. (Okay, for me it was adventure. I blame getting hooked on Tolkien and Sherlock Holmes at an early age.) As your reading progresses and you become more specific about what you like and what you don’t like, your thoughts about the story you’re currently reading also become more exact in terms of what you don’t like and what you do like, and why you do/don’t like it. That’s how it goes.

I believe that I was reading a version of The Three Musketeers, severely cut down and abridged for children. You know the sort of thing. It was the scene where d’Artagnan has managed to offend all three of the musketeers while stumbling his happy way up to Monsieur de Treville’s office, and they are then summoned in to explain a minor confrontation with the Cardinal’s Guards earlier. At least, Aramis and Porthos are summoned in. Athos makes his way in despite having been injured earlier, and being unwell. And the book described him as:

“noble and beautiful, but frightfully pale…”

It’s been over thirty years (I think), and I can still remember that wording, because it struck me at the time that it was wrong. The word “frightfully” should not have been used in that context. I couldn’t say at the time exactly why it was wrong, but I did feel that it was wrong. It was off key. It grated.

(And then I got to the duel scene, but that’s another story.)

When I was first reading school stories (and this was before the days of Harry Potter), among the stories that I read were the Molesworth books by Willans and Searle. I loved them. They were clever, funny, and of course the art was amazing. But there were jokes which I never understood at the time, and didn’t understand till I was re-reading them ten years later, because those books were written for adults just as much as they were written for children. They had something for everyone.

My name is Genevieve Cogman. As a day job, I work as a classifications specialist with the NHS. But above and beyond that, I write. So far, I have written and contributed to role-playing game supplements for White Wolf Publishing (for the Exalted and Orpheus lines, mainly), for Steve Jackson Games (GURPS Vorkosigan and a great deal of In Nomine material), Evil Hat Productions (the Dresden Files RPG), and Magnum Opus (Hearts, Swords, Flowers: The Art of Shoujo). (And I quilt, and bead, and knit, but those are beside the point in this particular entry.)

And I have also written a novel: The Invisible Library. I have been fortunate enough to get Lucienne Diver as an agent, and I look forward to working with her. What comes next is up in the air, but I am rather crossing my fingers and hoping.

As to what I want . . . I would like to write, or to have written, books that were worth reading, and that had something for everyone.

No, that’s too high-minded. I just want to write books that people will enjoy reading.

So since we have to start somewhere, I will say “hello clouds hello sky” like Fotherington-Thomas, dodge the hurled boots, and open the door on this blog.