(Untitled)

[flemmings]

Ben Aaronovitch is talking about the previous incarnation of ideas that made it into Rivers of London, one of which was a Hogwarts hommage. "You can tell this is a basic TV idea because it's made out of clichés bolted together."

Comments

and as i start my urban fantasy binge (Rivers of London is in my hands RIGHT NOW)

[yumiyoshi]

Wriiiiiiiiiite it.

On that note, and this seems like something you'd know -- I'm under the vague impression that someone has done the "cities are sentient"/London gains sentience trope in a novel, and ... I'm looking for this novel. Am I hallucinating its existence, and if not, can you point me to it? XD

Re: and as i start my urban fantasy binge (Rivers of London is in my hands RIGHT NOW)

[flemmings]

"cities are sentient"/London gains sentience

Oh. Damn. Very loud bells are ringing but no, I can't place that one. I know I haven't read it because for sure I would remember it. There's elements of it in Aaronovitch, and *possibly* in Griffin but beyond that I can't say. Maybe incandescens would know?

Enjoy Rivers, and its sequels. They're a lot of fun.

Re: and as i start my urban fantasy binge (Rivers of London is in my hands RIGHT NOW)

[yumiyoshi]

Ah well, maybe it's the kind of things that one expects SOMEONE has written a novel around, but it hasn't happened. Yet. Well I'm sure Mieville will get around to it one day, he's skirted close to it enough times.

I started Rivers, it's pretty fucking awesome. I do intend to pick up A Madness of Angels after this, too. :D

Re: and as i start my urban fantasy binge (Rivers of London is in my hands RIGHT NOW)

[flemmings]

As rush says below, there's The Merlin Conspiracy. That has personified cities-- cities as people-- rather than sentient cities-- buildings with awareness. Griffon's London has a kind of sentience in places you don't expect but I'm not sure that the unified cohesive London does. And bladderwrack says American Gods, which I haven't read. I would, except that I assume it's about American cities, which aren't cities as I know them, she harrumphs. ETA- err no, scratch that last. She was responding to my entry, not yours. Lack of caffeine is a terrible thing.

[incandescens]

There is a river that runs through Leeds, the Aire. I cross it every day on the way to work. I'm sure that there should be an associated spirit, but I'm not sure what.

If it is a dragon, then he (or she?) would definitely have to be involved in the cloth manufacturing industry somehow. Certainly previously, if not necessarily currently. (Or maybe he was, but moved out when the industry and the mills ran down...)

[flemmings]

One sort of expects spirits to move out when the cloth mfg industry moved in, from a sort of knee-jerk reflex that assumes industry and nature are at odds with each other. Which they have been, famously, but it's not an automatic given.

[incandescens]

I suppose that if one (a spirit or dragon) did stay around, the options could include:

a) exercise hidden influence on cloth industry and use of water to keep it hygienic, non-polluting, according to the mandate of Heaven, etc.

b) go complete clotheshorse and industry-enthusiastic, neglecting other duties in order to increase his sphere of influence and the town's power.

c) huddle at bottom of river and complain a lot and request frequent rainstorms.

[nekonexus]

In my perpetual WIPs folder, I have a long, meandering thing about a small wyrm who accidentally migrates to North America along with one of Eric the Red's crew (or folks who came after - need to check L'Anse Aux Meadows info). Being the only wyrm of her kind here, she makes her way across the country (from sea to sea to sea) meeting native/local/immigrant "dragons" in their various homes.

And of course there's Mishepishu, who is different kind of water spirit. :)

[flemmings]

That would be fascinating. I hope it gets written. And the links are fascinating too. Bodies of water and serpenty things clearly go together in many people's minds. Including the ambivalent nature of same.

[bladderwrack]

Well, there's American Gods, which is basically built on this idea. I have mixed feelings about much of Gaiman's work - not that it's not good, but that it's never quite as much as it could be - but not this. ♥ Multi-pantheon wossnames. Even bits that are arguably faults, like the weird pacing, add to the overall effect IMO; a strange, vast, affectless psychic space.

[flemmings]

(Agree with you on the not quite what it could be-ness of Gaiman.)

I'd heard of that American Gods. It sounded like Gaiman playing with other people's cultures and I didn't know how good a job he'd done. I mean ideally, by me, whoever writes the Chinese or Indian equivalent of pixies and nixies in Central Park ought to be Chinese or Indian, because borrowed folklore rarely feels right. This is why Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring worked for me, and Pratchett's Witches Abroad not so much.

[paleaswater]

like Akiko Hatsu's spirits too, no? But they travel by possessing things, and next thing you know a Chinese dragon spirit has appeared in a well in london, because all water sources are connected.

[flemmings]

The stories I recall do indeed require the thing to be brought to foreign shores. Is there one about a dragon in a well? That line about all water sources connecting rings bells but I thought I'd read it in English.

[paleaswater]

akiko hatsu has that single volume tankouban called china house - the reporter ends up marrying a spirit, and the next day her father, who's a river dragon, shows up through the well in the backyard. something like that.  you really should develope this idea -- it sounds brillant!