It can be difficult to tell whether a book just isn't for you at all, not for you at the time you're trying to read it, or if it's just not all that good. My first attempt at Worldsoul was when it published in 2012 and I bounced. It should be my thing. There's a multiverse, a saved library of Alexandria, and a wild plot (as far as I could tell). It wasn't my thing.

I tried again eight years later, got farther, and Worldsoul is still not my thing. Perhaps it is the pandemic and a lack of focus (possible, but that hasn't hampered my appreciation of other far superior novels), but more likely I'm just not the reader for Worldsoul - a novel that was on the 2012 Locus Recommended Reading list, so someone appreciated it far more than I.

It's just that after more than 100 pages there is little sense for what the "world" is. There's a plot about taking control of the Library and of taking control of everything, but it's all so vague and messy. Readers (like me) coming to Worldsoul from Liz Williams excellent Detective Inspector Chen novels, even after all these years, will be disappointed.