July drags on

[nightdog_barks]

How is it not August yet?

Finished Ben Aaronovitch's Broken Homes and loved it, although ... I noticed a few glitches. There was one bit of dialogue that I had to read two or three times (and it still didn't make sense). I'm not going to go looking for it again, but there was also this:

Despite the best efforts of the Spring Court it snowed that weekend, although it didn't settle inside London's urban heat island.

~ page 137

It had actually snowed a couple of days after the Spring Court and, despite one sunny day, the weather had stayed unseasonably cold.

~ page 158

:D

Thank you, Peter, but you didn't really need to tell me twice. *g* Also there was a stray comma instead of a period at the end of a sentence (much later in the book). These are super-minor quibbles, and I thought it was another great read in the Rivers of London series. I didn't see the Shocking Twist at the end coming at all, and I've already ordered the next volume, Foxglove Summer. :D

Now reading Thomas Pierce's The Afterlives and really enjoying it.

Temperatures are still above the seasonal average here, but the really hot streak has passed. Cloud cover today is helping A LOT.

Comments

[blackmare]

I’m gonna have to start Rivers of London, aren’t I? I think I am.

[nightdog_barks]

YES

I mean, how could you go wrong with magic as practiced by certain members of the London Metropolitan police force? And it's just the right amount of magic! There's not a ton of wizards running around, solving crimes by waving their super-speshul magick wands -- these are real police procedurals, only with a touch of the supernatural and an incredibly diverse cast. It's just a great series. :D

Your library should have them, or I can send you the first volume so you can see if you like it. *g*

[silverjackal]

I think you would likely enjoy it a great deal. I'll give you the same gratuitous advice I extended to nightdog_barks: if you do go the borrowed route (and not getting the book from nightdog_barks) try to get the British version. In particular avoid Midnight Riot, which is Rivers of London bowdlerised for American audiences because the publishers assumed they would find the original "too British". *face palm* They apparently changed a great deal of the vocabulary as well as the spelling, and altered the language used even though accents immediately convey important information about class and origin and are an important part of the atmosphere of the book.

[blackmare]

Thank you for the warning about the Americanized version. Yuck. Will be sure to avoid.

I was just out walking as the moon rose, and it came up full and red, the “Blood Moon” I’d heard something about, presumably. Blood Moon, rising over the Dollar Store and the Metro Liquors and the freight tracks. I feel as if that needs to be a note to myself for future use.

[silverjackal]

The red full moon you are seeing is not due to the eclipse, which is not visible from North America (explained with some striking photos here). The moon is red where you are due to excessive particulate matter in the air, either dust or smoke, or both. Still, that does not mean you can not enjoy what you saw, or use the imagery in future creative endeavours.

You are very welcome re: the RoL series. It seems to me a great waste to change it from how it was written to apparently appease some (possibly imaginary) xenophobia, and I know you would prefer the original in any case.

[silverjackal]

Where does Broken Homes fall on your preference list for the series so far? I liked it tremendously, putting it just behind the original novel in preference, and ahead of Whispers Underground. Moon Over Soho is my least favourite, caveated that I have not yet read The Hanging Tree, the graphic novels, or the novella.

[nightdog_barks]

WELL THIS IS A HARD QUESTION

:D

Let's see ... I think I'll put them in a list.

1) Rivers of London. Because how could it not be? Aaronovitch pulled off an amazing trick, introducing this cast and storyline that could so easily teeter off the tightrope into complete parody, and making me believe it could be so. This is storytelling for grownups, and I will reward the writer who gives that to me. AND OMG THE GODS OF THE RIVERS. Holy shit, Jackal. Chills. For real.

2) Whispers Underground. I liked this A LOT. I loved the atmosphere and introduction of the Quiet People. I'm not sure what else to say; this one just scored really highly with me. :D

3) Broken Homes. This was just fun. A lot of fun. The Night Witch (I hope she has more book time!), Skygarden and its residents, the grove of trees, the twist at the end (which wasn't really fun, but in a strange way it made me happy because it was so unexpected).

4) Moon Over Soho. I'll be honest -- I didn't remember a whole lot about this one and had to refresh my memory with Wikipedia. I DID remember that one of the reasons I liked this volume was that it didn't drop the character Lesley May on the floor. It let me know that Aaronivitch was serious about his cast and wasn't just writing off the cuff. Also I enjoyed the expansion of background about Peter's parents.

And that's all I've read. Amazon got Foxglove Summer to me early, so I might read it after Thomas Pierce's The Afterlives, or I might wait a bit. (Closes Wikipedia tab because I don't want to accidentally see any spoilers.)

But ... the characters in this ficverse! Peter and Thomas Nightingale! Molly and Lesley! Zach! Dr. Walid! Abigail! Peter's parents! The gods of the rivers! TOBY! I assume Ben Aaronovitch understands just how much lightning he's caught in a bottle. What I don't understand is how this series hasn't become a film yet. It looks like it was optioned as a BBC TV series, but I'm not sure it was ever made.

[silverjackal]

The series hasn't been made into either film or television yet that I'm aware of, and Aaronovitch knows *exactly* what he's doing if you consider his long and successful career as a screen writer.

I'm glad you liked Rivers of London so much because it's my favourite, too. One of the things that I like is how Aaronovitch really captures that the Rivers are genii locorum -- simultaneously the gods of their rivers, and the embodiment of them. It's very nuanced. I also love his subtle handling of the issue of the history of slavery, shown particularly with Oberon, and Peter's own refusal to kneel to anyone.

I find a lot of the little details in the series quite riveting, like the commentary around Peter's father's addiction, but that what arguably hurt him worse was his mother's disregard, such as giving his treasured possessions away to other people "who needed them more" (not really, but she could play great lady by giving them away). It was one quick flash, not dwelled on at all, but absolutely gives important insight into Peter's character and rings entirely true to anyone who understands an addict/enabler dynamic, and how the enabler is often as bad if not worse than the addict in terms of unhealthy behaviours. My only point of frustration is that we'll likely never find out as much about Nightingale and his past as I would like. I'd devour a series set earlier with him as the protagonist as well.

[nightdog_barks]

Yes to all of this. :D

And I would love to see at least one book devoted to Thomas Nightingale, and/or one book devoted to the River Gods. Aaronovitch seems to have just the right touch when he writes about the River Gods, and one small thing that pleased me in particular about Broken Homes was that the author remembers the rules. That is, in one scene one of the gods (I just checked, and it was Effra) offers Peter a glass of white wine. We're in the fourth book of the series; some writers might be getting a bit lazy, but not Aaronovitch. He very properly has Effra clarify that this is a gift freely given, with no obligations.

... huh. Interestingly enough, there's quite a bit of RoL fanfic, over at AO3.

[silverjackal]

I shall have to poke into the fanfiction as I have time. When it comes to following the rules, Aaronovitch is meticulous, which is something I greatly appreciate. I actually foresaw the twist in Broken Homes, but in the sense that I knew it was going to happen at some point from the beginning of the second book, just not precisely when. It's part of the great mythological cycle of western storytelling, and while Aaronovitch is subtle about it, he does follow it. Another example is the hero having dead/absent parents -- yes, but absent due to dysfunction rather than literal separation. He also distills the essence of local traditional folklore and still keeps it within the framework of his stories, as you've seen throughout the first three books, and you'll hopefully appreciate the different way it manifests in Foxglove Summer.

Regarding Nightingale's character, it works brilliantly for story telling purposes not to be explicit about what happened at Ettersberg, but I am desperate to know the entirety and the details. (Like so much in the books it also touches on real world links which are important to me.) And oh, to see Nightingale's adventures as a young man! One could easily have a book per country/adventure, including all the diverse flavours of local magical practice... (I do not know if such a thing would be a mainstream media seller, but I would be falling all over myself to get at it.)

[sabra_n]

All the RoL talk here makes me so haaaappy. I just had to go check Book Depository again to see if the next book is still due in November. (It is. Sigh.)

[nightdog_barks]

*beams* Isn't a great series, Sabra? Rivers of London has become like ... IDK, comfort food for me. :D