The year is 2025. The Great Library at Alexandria has survived the ages by amassing enough political, monetary and military power to escape kings and Popes and become the greatest power of the twenty-first century.
Jess Brightwell is a young man from London, the son of a Black Market book smuggler, and lover of the written word. At nine years old he experiences an ink-licker who digests one of the oldest manuscripts known to man in front of the young bibliophile. At that moment Jess knows there is something more to the paper and leather Originals.
At counterpoint to the Library and the thriving Black Market are the Burners; these men and women believe, like thinkers including Martin Luther, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, knowledge should be at the hands of the individual. Burners seem like religious fanatics who burn both themselves and their journal - seen as the individual's only vestige of immortality. They become the sworn enemy of the Library and their control of information.
The Library manages every aspect of daily life and the flow of information. Jess's father has trained his boys in the family business, Jess's training has focused on getting him into the Library as a Postulant (potential initiate) and when the time comes Jess goes up against the most brilliant minds of his generation for one of six placements with the Library.
He values the Library and all it stands for, but when Jess discovers something which could change the world forever he also discovers something about the Library which changes his world irrevocably. Jess stands for what he believes with new friends Thomas, Kalila, Glaine, and Morgan and their instructors Christopher Wolfe and Niccolo Santi. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching you.
Dealing and controlling information is a pattern throughout the tale. When there doesn't seem to be a leak Jess and his new friends find themselves in danger based on information no one could have known. Danger and competition stalk the Postulants as their number shrinks, older teens and adults alike will find parallels between modern media and the fantasy of a world where the Great Library of Alexandria has survived and evolved with society.
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