Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is modern-day quest by Robin Sloan, full of nerdery, humor, and heart. It’s feels a bit like reading a live-action video game, which is fun, but with the unfortunate side effect that not all characters are fully developed beings, rather cyphers for whoever the protagonist needs them to be.
We are introduced to a young man named Clay Jannon, who has lost his web-design job and is forced to find another job so he can continue with that pesky task of living. Because this is set in the present, Clay initially has some trouble finding employment. Eventually, he ends up working the night shift at a strange shop called Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Right away, he realizes things aren’t exactly as they seem, as strange customers enter the store, never purchasing any of the normal books they carry, but instead exchanging mysterious books from what Clay refers to as the “way back” shelves.
Clay’s job is mostly an easy one. It’s never very busy, since he works the night shift, but it’s made far easier since Mr. Penumbra doesn’t seem to carry many books the general public might actually want to read. Clay can’t figure out how Penumbra stays in business, especially since all of his attempts to get real people into the store mostly fail. Penumbra himself is an odd sort. He’s tall and thin, very old, and utterly disinterested in making his business a success. He has few rules for Clay. The first is that he’s never to look at the books he retrieves from the “way back” shelves and the second, he must keep careful inventory of the people who borrow these books. What they wear, what their moods are, he must write down every detail of the interaction in a logbook that Penumbra keeps for reasons he doesn’t share with Clay.
This mystery is what fuels the story, and what eventually sends Clay, Kat (a genius Google programmer and Clay’s love interest), and Clay’s friend Neel on a quest that takes them across the country, involving everything from secret hackers and homemade scanners to Google in the process. It’s a fun read, though not one with a lot of depth. It’s difficult to form much of a connection to the characters, even Clay. They are all likeable enough, and easily differentiated from one another, but, though the stakes are meant to be high, often extremely so, it never feels much like there’s any risk of real peril for any of them.
That’s not to say this isn’t an enjoyable read. Who hasn’t wanted to stumble upon some sort of mystery, one that seems to be a matter of life or death, one with the highest stakes? And if it happens while you’re killing time at your boring job, well, so much the better! How many times have you let your mind wander while at work, wishing and hoping that something strange would happen to break you out of your routine? Mr. Penumbra, whether meaning to or not, has given Clay this chance, a chance to make his life mean more than it did before, and in turn, Clay gets to bring his friends along for the ride.
There’s a lot to like about Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, especially for anyone who loves books or technology or noble quests. There are characters in this novel who don’t just love books, but worship them, especially old, weird ones, and other characters who are so obsessed with technology that it takes over their lives. The mystery here, and the heart of the story, brings these people together in a lovely way, even if it’s not the height of epic epicness that Clay and the reader might be expecting.
