The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books - Walter Moers

Title: The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books (Zamonien #6)
Author: Walter Moers
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 430
Date read: April, 2013

Over two hundred years ago Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books, was destroyed by a catastrophic firestorm. Optimus Yarnspinner, who witnessed this disaster, has since become Zamonia's greatest writer and is resting on his laurels at Lindworm Castle. Spoilt by his monumental success and basking in adulation, he one day receives a disturbing message that finally reinvests his life with meaning: a cryptic missive that lures him back to Bookholm.

Yarnspinner has scarcely set foot in the city before he falls prey to its spirit of adventure. He is reunited with old friends like Inazia Anazazi the Uggly and Ahmed ben Kibitzer the Nocturnomath, but he also encounters the city's new marvels, which include the mysterious Biblionauts, the warring Puppetists, and the city's latest craze, the Invisible Theatre.

Yarnspinner strays ever deeper into the Labyrinth of Dreaming Books, which seems to wield a strange power over Bookholm's destinies. He is eventually drawn into an irresistible maelstrom of events far more sensational than any of the adventures he has previously embarked upon.

I'll tell you straight away what I wish I had known before starting this book: This is not a complete story! Instead it is the first volume in what currently looks to be a 2-volume clunkster.

Had I known that I think I would have enjoyed The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books a lot more than I did, but I spent most of the book wondering when on earth the action would actually start. As such it is obviously not nearly as good as any of the other Walter Moers books I have read, but considering just how much I loved them, I'm willing to give him a chance to redeem himself in the second volume. Had it been almost anybody else I would probably have been too annoyed with him for pulling such a stunt.

It still had spots of brilliance, but as a whole, it simply just couldn't live up to neither my expectations nor his other novels.