Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel

There’s a pale beer stain on the back cover of The Invisible Man, and inside, the margins are mobbed with pencil marks. It’s so dense you can barely see the paper behind it—there are dozens of different people’s marginalia jostling for space here. I flip through the book; it’s jam-packed. Some of the notes are about the text, but more are directed

We all come to life and gather allies and build empires and die, all in a single moment—maybe a single pulse of some giant processor somewhere.

And then, on a sunny Friday morning, for three seconds, you can’t search for anything. You can’t check your email. You can’t watch any videos. You can’t get directions. For just three seconds, nothing works, because every single one of Google’s computers around the world is dedicated to this task.

In the morning, when Penumbra arrives, I broach the subject of a friend buying entry into the Waybacklist. He shrugs out of his peacoat—it is an epic peacoat, finely made, with wool from the blackest of sheep—and sets himself up on the chair behind the front desk. “Oh, it is not a matter of purchase,” he says, steepling his fingers, “but rather of

Our red-bearded waiter arrives bearing another mug of beer and sets it down in front of Penumbra, who waves a hand and says, “Charge this to the Festina Lente Company, Timothy. All of it.”

Books: boring. Codes: awesome. These are the people who are running the internet.

She’s wearing the same red and yellow BAM! T-shirt from before, which means (a) she slept in it, (b) she owns several identical T-shirts, or (c) she’s a cartoon character—all of which are appealing alternatives.

“Nothing so abstract,” Penumbra says, shaking his head. “The books present a puzzle”—he cocks his head at me—“but you know this, my boy, do you not?” I grimace and admit it: “Yeah. I’ve looked.” “Good.” Penumbra nods sharply. “There is nothing worse than an incurious clerk.” His eyes twinkle at that. “The puzzle can be solved with time and care. I

We sat in the living room (then dominated by a flat-screen TV, with no tabletop cities even dreamt of) and he told us about his current task at ILM: the design and construction of a bloodthirsty demon with blue-denim skin. It was part of a horror movie set inside an Abercrombie & Fitch.