Cities of the West and East
In English here. Polskie wersje podlinkowane w poście.
Ben Aaronovitch. Rivers of London; Moon Over Soho. London, 2011 (both)
From the publisher: My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (and as the Filth to everybody else). ... Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden . . . and there's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.
Aaronovitch has earned a fame of revelation in his genre, so I had great hopes. They are fulfilled in most parts, except the most important one: in spite of all merits, it didn't really take me in. This time it's rather not a case of disappointment after blown up expectations, cause Aaronovitch is good indeed, though the Rivers' quality is more in realization than ideas. The latter are rather of 'others had it before' type - life as the source of magic; magic damaging modern technology; magic prolonging its practitioners' life - and the outline of the plot and characters is quite typical for urban fantasy - a crime story and a detective dabbling in magic. So, the thing is more in details - I like the idea of complex spells composed of simple ones in kinda grammatical way, and I'd like to get more of it than just a briefest mention - and in the atmosphere. Aaronovitch's magic is relatively discreet, based on fleeting impressions (and too vaguely described for my taste, but it's a minor disadvantage; anyway it's mostly the result of writing from the POV of a protagonist who, being a beginner, says more what he sees and guesses, than what he knows and understands), but also less glamour. Where others write magic that dazzles and charms, there Aaronovitch's magic is seldom pretty, and more destructive and harmful than helpful. The writing style is the author's great merit, especially in narration.
The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn’t set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.
Nobody likes a riot except looters and journalists.
Inside, the mortuary was much the same as the rest of the hospital, only with fewer people complaining about the state of the NHS.
I'd love to say something good about the characters, but to my regret I didn't manage to make friends with them, and best what I can say is that I can't say anything bad about them. Not exactly a great compliment... They are well written, with a nicely developed background (hey, how often you see a crime story from the POV of a common uniformed street-patrolling copper from a decent home and with a decent education, in place of another drunk detective with a complicated past and difficult personality?) even in supporting roles, but turned out not really interesting for me. Peter Grant, an uniformed copper and beginner wizard, is OK. And not a thing more. Not that I couldn't believe there can be something endearing in him and in the series for others, but as for me, Aaronovitch turned out more tiresome than enjoyable. Relatively most interesting for me were Peter's scientific experiments on magic, but these were just little bits. Just to be sure, I checked also the second part, but the effect was mostly the same - it reads not bad, but without any real interest, and after putting away, it doesn't entice for more. I write down the series as good and certainly one of best in the genre, but not 'mine'.
Polska wersja
Ramita Navai, City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran. London, 2014
From the publisher: This is real Tehran: a city that is hidden from view and rarely written about, where survival depends on an intricate network of lies and subterfuge. It is a place where mullahs visit prostitutes, drug kingpins run crystal meth kitchens, surgeons restore girls' virginity and homemade porn is uploaded onto the Internet and sold in the bazaars. Plotted around the city's great central thoroughfare, Vali Asr Street, CITY OF LIES chronicles the lives of eight protagonists drawn from across the spectrum of Iranian society. This is a world of gangsters, socialites, dutiful housewives and volunteer militiamen - ordinary people forced to lead extraordinary lives.
Definitely one of better things of this type. In its genre it stands out for an extensiveness of the view, especially in relation to its size. Where other Islamic-Middle-Eastern reports and biographies leave an impression of a homogeneous mass of superstitious, conservative moustache-wearers and their (always 'their') ill-treated, thickly wrapped women (usually from the latter's POV), the City of Lies presents people differing in background, job, social status, and above all, views and characters. Navai has a knack for selling her characters to the reader; on a few pages of report she outlines more vivid and comprehensive a portrait than many others in a whole novel. What's more, the author sets great store by documenting the content being told, and also - what is not so often - by proving the reader it's well documented. In the afterword she tells what sources she took different elements of her relation from, cause for the sake of safety, the characters have been composed of biographies many real people and completed with data from national, college and press sources.
(And I mourn the loss of the wonderful original covers, especially the orange/dusty one. The Polish edition is so ugly, sniff…)
Polska wersja
Ben Aaronovitch. Rivers of London; Moon Over Soho. London, 2011 (both)
From the publisher: My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (and as the Filth to everybody else). ... Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden . . . and there's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.
Aaronovitch has earned a fame of revelation in his genre, so I had great hopes. They are fulfilled in most parts, except the most important one: in spite of all merits, it didn't really take me in. This time it's rather not a case of disappointment after blown up expectations, cause Aaronovitch is good indeed, though the Rivers' quality is more in realization than ideas. The latter are rather of 'others had it before' type - life as the source of magic; magic damaging modern technology; magic prolonging its practitioners' life - and the outline of the plot and characters is quite typical for urban fantasy - a crime story and a detective dabbling in magic. So, the thing is more in details - I like the idea of complex spells composed of simple ones in kinda grammatical way, and I'd like to get more of it than just a briefest mention - and in the atmosphere. Aaronovitch's magic is relatively discreet, based on fleeting impressions (and too vaguely described for my taste, but it's a minor disadvantage; anyway it's mostly the result of writing from the POV of a protagonist who, being a beginner, says more what he sees and guesses, than what he knows and understands), but also less glamour. Where others write magic that dazzles and charms, there Aaronovitch's magic is seldom pretty, and more destructive and harmful than helpful. The writing style is the author's great merit, especially in narration.
The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn’t set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.
Nobody likes a riot except looters and journalists.
Inside, the mortuary was much the same as the rest of the hospital, only with fewer people complaining about the state of the NHS.
I'd love to say something good about the characters, but to my regret I didn't manage to make friends with them, and best what I can say is that I can't say anything bad about them. Not exactly a great compliment... They are well written, with a nicely developed background (hey, how often you see a crime story from the POV of a common uniformed street-patrolling copper from a decent home and with a decent education, in place of another drunk detective with a complicated past and difficult personality?) even in supporting roles, but turned out not really interesting for me. Peter Grant, an uniformed copper and beginner wizard, is OK. And not a thing more. Not that I couldn't believe there can be something endearing in him and in the series for others, but as for me, Aaronovitch turned out more tiresome than enjoyable. Relatively most interesting for me were Peter's scientific experiments on magic, but these were just little bits. Just to be sure, I checked also the second part, but the effect was mostly the same - it reads not bad, but without any real interest, and after putting away, it doesn't entice for more. I write down the series as good and certainly one of best in the genre, but not 'mine'.
Polska wersja
Ramita Navai, City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran. London, 2014
From the publisher: This is real Tehran: a city that is hidden from view and rarely written about, where survival depends on an intricate network of lies and subterfuge. It is a place where mullahs visit prostitutes, drug kingpins run crystal meth kitchens, surgeons restore girls' virginity and homemade porn is uploaded onto the Internet and sold in the bazaars. Plotted around the city's great central thoroughfare, Vali Asr Street, CITY OF LIES chronicles the lives of eight protagonists drawn from across the spectrum of Iranian society. This is a world of gangsters, socialites, dutiful housewives and volunteer militiamen - ordinary people forced to lead extraordinary lives.
Definitely one of better things of this type. In its genre it stands out for an extensiveness of the view, especially in relation to its size. Where other Islamic-Middle-Eastern reports and biographies leave an impression of a homogeneous mass of superstitious, conservative moustache-wearers and their (always 'their') ill-treated, thickly wrapped women (usually from the latter's POV), the City of Lies presents people differing in background, job, social status, and above all, views and characters. Navai has a knack for selling her characters to the reader; on a few pages of report she outlines more vivid and comprehensive a portrait than many others in a whole novel. What's more, the author sets great store by documenting the content being told, and also - what is not so often - by proving the reader it's well documented. In the afterword she tells what sources she took different elements of her relation from, cause for the sake of safety, the characters have been composed of biographies many real people and completed with data from national, college and press sources.
(And I mourn the loss of the wonderful original covers, especially the orange/dusty one. The Polish edition is so ugly, sniff…)
Polska wersja