Umm...
Umm...
Umm...
*tries desperately not to gush*
*reminds herself firmly of all the flaws in these books*
*clears throat*
These. Books. Are. Awesome.
They sound incredibly silly: Alcatraz Vs. the Evil Librarians, Alcatraz Vs. the Scrivener's Bones, Alcatraz Vs. the Knights of Crystallia, and Alcatraz Vs. the Shattered Lens. They look incredibly silly - the covers are, well, regrettable. They are incredibly silly. The basic plot of the first book: A young foster child named Alcatraz Smedry with a strange tendency to break things receives a bag of sand in the mail on his thirteenth birthday, purportedly from his parents, which promptly disappears. Then a strange old man shows up at Alcatraz's door and informs him that the sand has the power to destroy civilizations, that Alcatraz has the power to use magical glasses, and that his bothersome habit of breaking things is actually a magical Talent, just like the old man's Talent for...arriving late. And then they charge off to the local library in order to find said bag of sand, because it got stolen by the evil Librarians, who, naturally, are the leaders of a huge conspiracy that rules all the known world! The other books don't get much better in the silliness department.
Yet, these books are surprisingly brilliant, and, at moments, disarmingly serious...sometimes even moving.
They're definitely very weird. I think they just wouldn't sit well with a lot of people. For one, there's the silliness; and for another, there's the narrator. If you thought Lemony Snicket liked to get on tangents, Alcatraz the narrator practically writes a tangent with a story thrown in. And Alcatraz loves to mess with your head, and is proud of it. Unreliability, tricks with text, fake endings, utterly demolished fourth wall...these books have got it all. So if you like your stories pretty serious, and you don't care for talkative, mischievous narrators, you may want to stay away.
But if you like a book that will do anything to surprise you, if you like a book that is incredibly aware of itself, if you like a book that thinks seriousness makes silliness sillier and silliness makes seriousness seriouser, if you're willing to put up with a lot of crazy experiments and very bad puns in order to get to some true brilliance and true talent...please. READ IT. READ IT. READ IT.
There are some cookies waiting here for you if you do.
The Alcatraz books' author, Brandon Sanderson, is actually quite a well-known and well-respected fantasy author as far as I understand...yet these books are quite obscure. The really sad thing about them is that Sanderson planned for there to be five books, and indeed, the fourth book leaves off at a terrible cliffhanger. But the publisher only did four books, and now the fate of the fifth book is in a precarious position...
Anyways, if anybody else here has read them, I want to know!! (I know some of you are out there. Show yourselves.
) What did you think of them? Am I crazy for liking them so much? (I think I am. ) Favorite line? Favorite trick? Favorite character? Most sad thing about the fifth book's meager chance at existence?And if you haven't read them, please. If there's any chance you might like them, you must at least try! And by the way, they do get better as they go along, in my opinion...they at least get a teeny weeny bit more serious.
) I shall see whether or not they possess a copy. 
)