Let me first state that I love The Librarians. I think the show is better than it has any right to be, and a large part of that is due to the great casting. The movies were good as well, but I think the show really took the overall story world to a new level. Though I haven't been able to find definitive proof of where in the show this book takes place, I'm calling it between seasons 2 and 3. And while the book does attempt to give some basic understanding of the overall setting and backstory of the Library and the Librarians, I think this book is best read by someone who has seen at least the TV show. Considering that half of the book takes place while Flynn was the sole librarian, a knowledge of both the movies and the show might be best.

I liked that we kinda got some of both—solo Flynn and the dynamic of the group. The movies with Flynn tend to be more epic, big-budget adventure, with him trying to track down some kind of relic that could be a huge problem in the wrong hands, and his side of the story in this book is just like that. The TV show episodes, at least the filler/MOTW (monster of the week) episodes, involve more mystery as the team has to first track down who and what is causing the problem and then figure out how to stop it. Their side of the book continues that trend.

At its best, The Librarians is campy fun, and at its worst, it's illogical hand-waviness. This book had all of that, and I commend the author for doing a pretty good job capturing the characters pretty well. I know not everyone agrees on that, but I literally just finished watching season 3 of the show before reading this book, and I never felt like any of the characters acted all that out-of-character. And that's considering that I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator definitely did not sound like any of the main characters (especially Stone). In fact, her tendency to be breathy during the non-dialog text and make every character sound like they were gasping at the end of every line could have ruined the story for me. But I was caught up in it enough that I was able to ignore it most of the time, and I'll even give the audiobook another chance as I continue the series. ( )

For millennia, The Library, and its Librarians, have been safeguarding the world from dangerous magical relics, collecting, cataloging, and safeguarding them against those who would misuse them.

Flynn Carsen, the most recent Librarian, in 2006 heads to Baghdad to look into the disappearance of the oldest known manuscript of The Arabian Nights, which might be of magical significance. He meets a beautiful museum curator who had been translating it, and they have run-ins with the actual Forty Thieves, a ghoul, a roc, and the actual Aladdin's lamp, complete with genie.

He has very few options for keeping it out of the hands of the Forty, and chooses a drastic one.

In 2016, the lamp, the genie, and the Forty resurface.

With Flynn not having lost his taste for solo adventures just because a small crew of additional librarians have been recruited, it's up to the relatively inexperienced new team and their Guardian, Col. Eve Baird, to go off to Las Vegas to figure out what's responsible for a very odd run of "luck" in Vegas. Stone, Cassie, Ezekial, and Baird are all in for some startling and variously unsettling revelations.

There's adventure, close calls, ancient magic, and ancient literature. Is this great literature? No, but it's a lot of fun.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. ( )

All of the characters are static, which is understandable given that this book is a tv series tie-in. It was a fun, quick read. My only other complaint is that the author has a tendency to describe foreign women as "exotic". ( )

Another enjoyable installation

Another good installment in The Librarians books - a solid mystery, full of fun literary references, and an enjoyable read in all. ( )

The Librarians the The Lost Lamp switches between 2006, when Librarian Flynn Carsen is trying to find Aladdin’s Lamp before an ancient criminal organization known as the Forty Seals gets hold of it, and 2016, when Eve Baird and a new group of Librarians (protectors of ancient artifacts like King Arthur’s sword Excalibur) stumble on a mystery in Las Vegas that seems to relate to the Lamp and the powerful djinn it can summon. I've never watched the TV series so can't compare the book to that. It was entertaining, however a little bit annoyed at the sexism as Flynn 'allows' Shirin to drive! Really! Librarianship is a female dominated profession in which most librarians hold master's degrees and still this sexism comes through. Disappointed. ( )