From Publishers Weekly
Just as aged Bilbo Baggins gives way to a new hero, Frodo, at the start of The Lord of the Rings, so does elderly Edgewick "Wick" Lamplighter, now a Grandmagister at Great Library, leave center stage to a youthful protégé, the pint-sized Juhg, in this Tolkienesque sequel, set nearly a century later, to Odom's The Rover (2001). In the tradition of Fritz Leiber's immortal Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Juhg and his burly human friend, Raisho, set out on a series of fantastic adventures, centered on a search for a rare volume that Wick wants for the Vault of All Known Knowledge. The narrative moves along at a snappy pace, with much good humor, zest and color, but around halfway through, the action becomes repetitive and the fantasy effects heavy-handed. Nevertheless, the magic lies in the details, where books and wizards, both good and evil, glimmer. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Almost 100 years after the events of The Rover (2002), Edgewick Lamplighter is grandmagister at the Vault of All Known Knowledge, a secret repository of books rescued from destruction by the dreaded goblinkin. This time the protagonist is Jugh, another halfling, whom Wick rescued from goblin slavers and made his apprentice. Feeling an outsider on the island, Jugh ships out as a crew member on one of the ships that service and help protect the island. But when he discovers that a book is aboard a goblin ship, he manages with great difficulty and danger to retrieve it and take it back to the island. The book turns out to be designed to open a path for dark forces to invade the island and destroy the library. The battles are ferocious; the dark forces deliver a crushing blow and many deaths before being driven off, temporarily at least; and way is opened for further violence in the saga's next episode. As before, plenty of humor tempers the wild action. Sally Estes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Mel Odom's award winning quest fantasy The Rover was hailed as a successor to the legacy of Tolkien and Terry Brooks. The tale of "Wick" the lowly librarian who rises to the occasion and becomes a great adventurer struck a chord with adventure lovers and fantasy fans alike.

After his adventures on the mainland Wick returned to his duties at the Vault of All Known Knowledge and quickly worked his way up the hierarchy , continuing his quest for the preservation of books and the knowledge contained therein.

And now that quest is threatened.

The Destruction of the Books

It is many years later and lowly Wick is now Grandmagister Lamplighter of the Great Library. His trips to the mainland are fewer due to his advanced age, and lately he has enlisted an assistant by the name of Jugh to undertake those roving duties he used to relish.

An encounter with a goblin ship on the high seas leads to Jugh's discovery of a book in goblin hands, a most matter that must be investigated.

This single event leads to startling revelations that forewarns of a great evil that exists that is every bit as powerful as the Vault of All Known Knowledge, and whose presence in the Great Library may indeed result in

The Destruction of the Books

And perhaps far worse.



About the Author
Mel Odom is a bestselling writer for hire for Wizards of the Coast's Forgotten Realms, Gold Eagle's Mack Bolan, and Pocket's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel book lines. His debut SF novel Lethal Interface made the Locus recommended list . The Rover was an Alyx Award winner. He has also written a scientific adventure of the high seas set in the 19th century entitled Hunters of the Dark Sea.

The Destruction of the Books is the first book in a duology sequel to The Rover.
He lives in Oklahoma.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"After his adventures on the mainland, Wick returned to his duties at the Vault of All Known Knowledge and quickly worked his way up the hierarchy, continuing his quest for the preservation of books and the knowledge contained therein." "And now that quest is threatened. It is many years later and lowly Wick is now Grandmagister Lamplighter of the Great Library. His trips to the mainland are fewer due to his advanced age, and lately he has enlisted an assistant by the name of Jugh to undertake those roving duties he used to relish. An encounter with a goblin ship on the high seas leads to Jugh's discovery of a book in goblin hands, a matter that must be investigated." This single event leads to startling revelations that forewarns of a great evil that exists, an evil every bit as powerful as the Vault of All Known Knowledge, and whose presence in the Great Library may indeed result in the destruction of the books. And perhaps far worse.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Just as aged Bilbo Baggins gives way to a new hero, Frodo, at the start of The Lord of the Rings, so does elderly Edgewick "Wick" Lamplighter, now a Grandmagister at Great Library, leave center stage to a youthful prot g , the pint-sized Juhg, in this Tolkienesque sequel, set nearly a century later, to Odom's The Rover (2001). In the tradition of Fritz Leiber's immortal Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Juhg and his burly human friend, Raisho, set out on a series of fantastic adventures, centered on a search for a rare volume that Wick wants for the Vault of All Known Knowledge. The narrative moves along at a snappy pace, with much good humor, zest and color, but around halfway through, the action becomes repetitive and the fantasy effects heavy-handed. Nevertheless, the magic lies in the details, where books and wizards, both good and evil, glimmer. Agent, TK (July 1) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr

Writer for hire Mel Odom (TV spin-offs such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") has taken to fantasy with enthusiasm. Borrowing liberally from Tolkien (the Dread Riders, the Gandolph-like wizard Craugh, hobbits as "dwellers"), he nevertheless charts a fairly original course in his series on librarian-keepers of the world's surviving books. Opening some forty years after The Rover, the youngish hero Jugh (at fifty, practically a teenager for a dweller), is apprenticed to Grandmagister Wick Lamplighter of the Great Library. Growing restive on the library's secret isle, he takes off for a little adventure—only to acquire a missing book that is booby trapped to destroy the library he is sworn to protect. There are battles galore, during which the insecure, self-effacing hero must force himself to become a man of action. Jugh's modesty to a fault is one of the story's problems. Much time is spent agonizing. Although serious tightening would have helped, one still roots for the little intellectual adrift in a world of nasty, illiterate goblinkin. This first of a two-part sequel to The Rover ends in media res, forcing one to wait for the solution to Odum's quest for literacy in his fanciful universe. 2004, TOR, Ages 10 up.

Library Journal

Master Librarian Edgewick Lamplighter of the Great Library has grown old and taken an apprentice, the young halfling Jugh, to gather the books of the world together in the name of conserving knowledge. When a retrieved book turns out to be a trap that results in the destruction of most of the tomes in the Vault of All Known Knowledge, a confrontation looms between those who wish to preserve the world's store of precious books and those who wish to see those books destroyed. Taking place nearly 100 years after the events of The Rover, Odom's latest novel is set in a world nearly destroyed by a great Catastrophe and peopled by warring societies. Raising questions about the role of information keepers while telling a rousing, swashbuckling story, this fantasy adventure, part of an ongoing series, belongs in most fantasy and YA collections. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews