I wander lonely streets, behind where the old Thames does flow

[venta]

Book #1 (as recommended by lanfykins): Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

Sometimes, within the first few notes of a new album or the first few sentences of a new book, I notice that I've mentally settled down, curled up, and decided: I am going to enjoy this. Within the first page or so of Rivers of London I was delighted by Aaronovitch's dry, deadpan humour.

I don't read the blurbs on the backs of books, so started in with no idea what I was getting (beyond, from the cover and title, a book set in London). Just as well, really, since once again the back-cover blurb contained something I'd think of as a fairly major spoiler. I quite like just diving into a book and working it out as I go along... ok, police procedural, light-hearted, bits of supernatural, no, wait, lots of supernatural...

Do other people do this? I could understand someone who likes sensible modern whodunnits throwing Rivers of London aside the moment a ghost shows up. Would you be keen to know you were getting magical realism before you set off?

Anyway. I enjoy reading books set in places I know, and I'm unexpectedly fond of books set "now". I'm pretty sure that it's a bad long-term idea, because a "now" book dates really quickly (although if it's sold like hot cakes for a couple of years, would you care?) The references to the recent smoking ban, and to shops and restaurants that I recognise, make the book friendly and familiar. Low-effort, too :)

I don't think the book's perfect: it ends in something of a flurry, as if it's rather hoping you won't notice the bits where the plot doesn't quite hang together. I like my magic a bit grittier - the desperate, dirty-fag-end magic of Hellblazer rather than neat, academic study in a stately home - and I found the extent to which everyone just accepts this unexpectedly magical world a bit peculiar and unconvincing. In general, people rarely seem appropriately frightened when bad stuff happens, or to have all that much of an emotional reaction to things at all. Which is fine for an offhand, understated jolly-magical-romp-through-London sort of book, but in other places it hints that it wants to be a bit more than that.

But overall, highly entertaining, and I'll definitely be moving on to book two. One big, gold star for Lanfykins ;)

Comments

[pm215]

On the subject of spoilers, my parents have a couple of the Dorothy L Sayers detective stories where the concept of the series cover art was clearly "must include a spoiler for a major element of the mystery". I remain baffled as to who would consider that a good idea...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think all our DLS novels were mercifully free of pictorial covers. Spoilers are a popular topic in general, though. As are pictures showing a menacing dark shadow looming with a knife over a petite blonde, preferably when the story concerns the death of an elderly gentleman by gunshot.