Ajax Penumbra 1969 (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #0.5)

by Robin Sloan

“Then it is gone. That ship was lost. And now—” Mo lifts his hands to encompass the sidewalk, the street, the storefronts—the whole dark tableau, sliding down toward the bay. “And now, a great city has risen over it.”

“Well, you know our saying: ‘It’s not over until you hold the book’s ashes in your hands, weeping at the years you’ve lost.’” “I did not know we had that saying, sir.”

He is, Penumbra realizes, not the man to follow into a terrifying subterranean tunnel.