Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
by Brandon Sanderson · 2007
On his thirteenth birthday Alcatraz gets a bag of sand and learns the world is secretly run by a cult of librarians. His talent is breaking things.
Book Series
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
5 books, listed in publication order.
The Scrivener’s Bones
by Brandon Sanderson · 2008
Alcatraz heads into the Library of Alexandria to find his missing father, where the librarians will trade you anything for your soul.
The Knights of Crystallia
by Brandon Sanderson · 2009
Alcatraz reaches the free kingdom of Mokia and discovers he is a celebrity there, which turns out to be its own kind of trap.
The Shattered Lens
by Brandon Sanderson · 2010
The librarians besiege Mokia with an army of living romance novels, and Alcatraz has only a talent for breaking things to stop them.
The Dark Talent
by Brandon Sanderson · 2016
Alcatraz infiltrates the Highbrary itself, in the book where the series stops joking and the unreliable narrator finally costs him something.
About This Series
Sanderson in a completely different register: a comic middle-grade series narrated by an unreliable, self-sabotaging thirteen-year-old who insists he is not a hero. The conceit is that a cabal of Librarians controls the world by controlling what people believe is true, and the books are full of jokes about narrative itself, including chapters that argue with the reader. Five books from 2007 to 2016, and a good entry point for younger readers who find the epic fantasy daunting.
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