Books
Books is an unlockable character. Her cards are brown.
Her playstyle involves generating crystal shards and spending said shards for effect.
"An alchemist. Her cards use Shard as a resource to power up defense, movement, and midrow actions."
Strategy
Books is very resource dependent, she by default comes with a single card that generates the crystal shards and single card that spends them, and it becomes a balancing act to generate enough shards for the cards that you want to use.
She has a bit of utility sprinkled in her kit, it usually costs shard to play.
She also leans on cards that have a cost of zero energy to play.
Shard Generation and Consumption
It's fairly easy to go on a crystal shard drought while drafting cards for Books, a few of her cards and artifacts help her retain her relevance in the team, it's recommended to keep a nice balance of shard generation and consumption.
Shard consumers are varied in their effects, raw damage from Glimmer Shot, shielding from Block Evolution, evades from Zircon Zip or even energy from Magi-Battery.
Zero Energy Cost
Books has access to a lot of zero energy cost cards fairly easy, with the help of Zero Doubler and Zero Draw she can turn those cheap cards into powerhouses by playing them over and over again.
Geodes
Geodes are midrow asteroids that also grant shards to the player when destroyed by anyone, so they serve as a resource and a blocker at the same time. They still count as asteroids for Issac's Gravel Recycler.
Utility
Books has a few sources of Shield, a single source of Evade and multiple cards that grant some amount of fixed movement. She can fill the gaps of a difficult composition if you draft her cards correctly.
Unique Mechanics
Medusa Field: Turns all midrow entities into Geodes, can turn an undesirable situation into a nice amount of blockers and shards.
Catch and Release: One of the weirdest effects in the game, you can catch a midrow object and keep it in card form until you release it, even through multiple fights.
Quarry: Likely the most definitive way to solve a shard drought, the player can draft more shard consumers more easily.
Artifacts
The extra Crystal Shard without an upfront cost helps with the crystal generation.
3 shards at the start of combat makes any shard consumers instantly worthwhile as soon as combat starts, Overflowing Power A benefits a lot from this artifact.
It's fairly easy to gain a shard every turn, especially with Quantum Quarry, an extra temporary shield almost every turn is an amazing defensive tool.
Boosting the shard capacity might not seem that important but it allows Overflowing Power to be played more easily and Glimmer Shot deal more damage.
Two midrow blocks and a way to gain shards for free can fix a shard-starved deck.
Massively boosts the utility of zero cost cards, cards will be played twice. Crystal Shard is the most notable beneficiary, though Mining Drill and Ol' Reliable B are others. Note that this is less helpful for Books' 0 cost cards that cost Shard, as each of your two plays will still require Shard to work - e.g. Bloodstone Bolt will damage you on both plays, but unless you have enough Shard to afford its heal twice, it won't heal you twice. Magi-Battery doesn't work with this either.
Teammates have plenty of 0 cost options, such as Escalate A and Ephemeral Blast and other Ephemeral cards will benefit, as will many of CAT's cards, including those Discounted to 0.
However, cards like Pebble, Ol' Reliable and Jupiter Eclipse will play twice, launching two colliding midrow objects annihilating them both, Toggle Cannon will swap the cannons twice, returning to the initial situation.
Cards
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