Beware Those Eeeevil Librarians!

[Posted by reader_iam]

Librarians have come a long way, baby. How do I know? Apparently they've been cast as the evil villains in an upcoming fantasy series.

Sanderson recently received a six-figure advance from Scholastic, the "Harry Potter"-series publisher, for a children's fantasy series about a boy named Alcatraz who does battle with a cult of evil librarians.
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The first of the Alcatraz series, "Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians," will come out Oct. 1 and other books are planned for May 2008 and early 2009.
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...The entire "Alcatraz" series, for example, resulted from a line that just popped into his mind one day.

"And that line was: 'So there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias about to be sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil librarians,"' Sanderson said.
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The series, Sanderson's first attempt at children's fiction, tells the story of a boy who discovers he's part of a secret group of freedom fighters who battle librarians, an evil cult that controls the world by restricting information. Each of the freedom fighters has an unusual but surprisingly powerful magical skill, such as the ability to arrive late to appointments.

Lateness cast as a magical skill? Librarians suddenly hip enough to be imagined as evil cultists, requiring a special caste of freedom fighters to combat them? Wow. I'm intrigued.

Hat tip: bookshelves of doom.