Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

by Robin Sloan

Now, who could resist a title like that? Not I.

I found this little treasure on display on one of the front tables at the Book Table and just couldn't resist (which is why I shouldn't be allowed in bookstores: I have a bad habit of spending all my money there). It was totally worth every penny I spent on it.

It's not a long book (under 300 pages) and it goes quickly so I was done in a few days and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It's about books and people who love the hardcopies vs. the new generation of technology. It features extremes on both ends and it's immensely entertaining to watch them bash their heads against each other. I think the book tries to find a middle ground but it leans more toward the emerging technologies. The old fogies who refuse to use anything but solid books are overthrown and the Internet and computers have their way.

!!!SPOILERS!!!
The idea is that there's a secret society of people who are trying to crack this code left by one of the first printers back in the 16th century. It turned out to be hidden in the font that the guy created and the message was simply a thank you to his friend who worked with him at the printing press. It was the idea that the press/books/words/idea are the most important aspects of life.

That's great and all, but honestly, I was hoping that there wouldn't be any big message. I was kind of hoping that the secret society would win out against the techies. When the main character (Clay) told one of the customers that they were going to solve the puzzle in a few days using computers, she seemed less than enthusiastic than he had expected. Other customers were every bit as thrilled as Clay expected them to be, but I thought I knew why that little old lady was so disappointed. I thought the hidden message wasn't really the point. I thought that all of the joy was in the puzzle itself, in immersing yourself in books and study and debate just for the hell of it, and by using a computer to get to the bottom of it, Clay was spoiling all of their fun. That turned out not to be the case, but personally, I think that would have made a pretty great ending, don't you?

Sloan tries to run the middle ground between the two opposing sides by pointing out the similarities between books and computers. When the printing press was invented, it was much like the invention of the internet. Information and ideas were suddenly much more widely available and accessible than they had been previously. At the end of the book, Penumbra says that they are living in the Venice of their day (San Francisco), because that's where all of the big tech companies are. I don't know if I would go that far, but he makes an interesting point.