December meme, day 22: Rivers of London
more Rivers of London thoughts (philomytha)
I'm working on a couple of year-in-review sorts of memes right now, and *spoiler* Rivers of London will be featuring on them a lot in categories such as favorite book, favorite new-to-me author, favorite new character, latest fandom obsession, favorite quote, favorite scene... well, you get the picture. I am pretty much head-over-heels with this canon at the moment, and the last time I think a new series won me over so thoroughly was Vorkosigan Saga 10+ years ago -- it's a heady feeling!
I am not super-surprised I took to RoL so readily -- I've been searching for a magical police procedural for at least a decade, pretty much ever since discovering urban fantasy was a thing. Because I really like urban fantasy, and I really like mysteries/police procedurals without supernatural elements (I used to read the forensic mysteries, for example, like the Kay Scarpetta books before they started sucking, or the Temperance Brennan ones, before there was Bones), and what is the addition of magic to them if not an awesome tool as well as an awesome source of trouble. So I was fully expecting to like the premise, if nothing else, once I finally found my magical police procedural (and I still wonder why there aren't more books in this sub-genre -- hell, I've found more second-world ones, with a multi-magical-races police force (Discworld's Watch books, of course, and the Chronicles of Elantra books, and Dragon Precinct). But, anyway, I was expecting to like the premise just based on that, but I got so much more!
I love Peter's narrative voice, the cynicism and the dorky asides and nerdy allusions and how funny he is. I've seen some readers complain that Peter's narration is too emotionally remote (and another reader made the super-interesting observation that this sort of remoteness is consistent with being an adult child of an addict), but his degree of emotional involvement seems perfectly natural to me -- I like that it's not random angst all over the place, and that actually seems pretty realistic to me for someone who would go into police work -- I think you pretty much need some degree of emotional distance to be able to make it in a career like that.
I love Peter the character, too. I only liked him at first, but he's the one that's grown the most on me over the four books. I love that he has his random hobbies, like architecture and SFF, and his tendency to get distracted (I wondered, after the first couple of books, if Peter has some sort of mild ADHD, which could also potentially explain why his grades in the sciences weren't higher when he's clearly very bright and also very interested in this stuff; although problems at home due to his father's addiction and health could account for that as well), and his desire to figure out the science behind the magic (I would totally be trying for the sorts of DOEs he is talking about) -- and I also love the fact that it's clear he's an amateur when it comes to this stuff and just kind of muddling along: one of my favorite Peter quotes is when he talks about wanting to use a mass spectrometer to help analyze why certain materials retain vestigia better than others, "but first I'd have to get myself a mass spectrometer and then I'd have to learn enough physics to interpret the bloody results" :D
But my favorite character, to no-one's surprise, is Thomas Nightingale, because, come on. He nails so many of my bulletproof kink tropes -- gentleman wizard, mentor figure, stiff upper lip, mysterious past, dry wit -- and is an in-universe memetic badass. I adore the scenes in which that's demonstrated -- like when he warns Peter that "This may be somewhat unpleasant" before disarming the demon trap, which nearly makes Peter throw up, the Tiger tank story, of course (though even more awesome than the story itself is how Peter latches onto it in full fanboy mode), and the 'cavalry' scene in Broken Homes. The tragedy in his past is something I hope we'll get to explore more in future books (the way he speaks about carving the names of the dead in his school is so very chilling), as well as his connection with Molly, but I also really like the lighter touches we get to see through Peter's eyes -- Nightingale's fastidiousness about the Jag, his interest in plants and continued puzzlement at city-boy Peter's lack of knowledge in that milieu, sneaking in to watch rugby on Peter's TV -- I want to see more of all that, too. And one of the things I like best about him is that he is both fallible and willing to learn. One of the moments I liked best in the aforementioned 'cavalry' scene is that after kicking seven kinds of ass, Nightingale forgets the modern police caution/'Miranda rights' (I know they aren't called that in England, but that's what I think of them as anyway), and Lesley has to take over at that point -- it's such a real-feeling touch.
In general, I think Nightingale's fallibility and willingness to learn are showcased best in his scenes with Peter. The conversations with Peter about the terms "master" and "black magician", and the "shallow, not wrong" conversation at the end of the second book made me really love the Peter and Nightingale relationship best of any teacher/mentor relationship I've encountered. Nightingale's fond exasperation with Peter (e.g. the raincloud spell), the way they worry and care about each other (without ever doing anything so un-British as hugging), the Christmas gifts, which seem so perfectly indicative of their characters and strengths -- I just love the way they interact. (And, when it comes to fic, I'm happy to see both gen and not-so-gen interaction; too bad there isn't more of the latter...)
I also love Lesley -- the character, the fact that she's a better cop than Peter and everyone, including Peter, knows that, and the way she [spoilers for book 1 and onward]isn't sidelined after her horrific injury, but also doesn't magically recover, and ALSO also the way this doesn't turn her into an object of pity or Peter's angst -- I may not care much about Zach as a character, but I really like the fact that Lesley gets to have some lighter moments with him. And [vague spoiler for Broken Homes but don't read it anyway] I can't talk about Broken Homes, but everything Aaronovitch has done with Lesley so far gives me hope that there's more going on than it seems. There better be!
I like most of the supporting characters, too, Dr Walid and Abigail and the recurring policemen, and even the one-off cameo characters are well drawn and interesting -- I vividly remember the ex-spook widow of one of the victims in book 2, and the widower of the train 'suicide' victim in book 4, for instance. And as of book 4, Varvara is definitely my favorite secondary -- she is a badass in her own right, but also feels like a believable character, and -- this pleasantly surprised me most of all -- a believable Russian character, which is kind of a first for me with a Western author. I am really looking forward to seeing more of her in subsequent books.
Characters aside, I love the notion of Newtonian magic, and the way Peter has been experimenting his way around it. I like the very tangible, crunchy sense of place, even though I don't know London well at all -- but Peter does, so intimately, and the little bits of England I do recognize feel like little presents on top of the overall immersive experience.
And, I would like these books even if this weren't the case, but one can't talke about RoL and not mention the diversity of the cast and the world they inhabit, because that's pretty awesome, and the diversity always feels natural rather than tokenistic or shoehorn-y or checking the boxes. Peter's bi-racial background never stops being relevant to his character, but it's also far from the only part of his character, and because he's not the only PoC in the books, he doesn't have to stand in for all PoCs. And it's really nice to see the diversity in secondary and background characters, ethnic, orientation, religious, what have you -- it really makes the series feel much more part of life in a real metropolis.
I also like the (other) ways in which these books are different from a lot of other urban fantasy. Despite my belief that the more wizards the better, I'm actually very happy that RoL's "mundanes" are not bumbling Muggles but competent and capable colleagues -- Seawoll and his lack of tolerance for "weird bollocks", Stephanopoulos, who has really grown on me, especially since recognizing Peter's Discworld reference, Dr Walid and his passion for his work and interest in Peter's empiricism, Frank Caffrey and his boys, Jaget Kumar, who joins Peter in ill-timed geeky allusions and found engineering not adrenaline-charged enough, are all characters I've come to really like, especially Kumar. I love that Peter has a family, mum and dad who love each other (sometimes a little too much for his taste, because, ew, parents kissing), and cousins, and an extended community. Because as much as I love found family stories and as much as I love the little family coming together in the Folly, it's really refreshing to see an urban fantasy protagonist who *hasn't* lost everyone he cares about and has more than one support network.
And I love all the nerdy allusions, of course, "Isengard" and "Pocket Quidditch" and "Unseen University" and "Earthbender" and "moomins" and even D&D and Doctor Who stuff that I have only fandom osmosis knowledge of, because they make Peter and the others feel like people I'd really enjoy hanging out with. Well, not the Faceless Man, even if I do admire his knowledge of Quenya.
There are a couple of things about the series that work less well for me:
The plots are probably the books' weakest feature -- I'm not sure I even remember them clearly for the first book and Whispers Under Ground, and I remember the one for Moon Over Soho but I didn't like it very much. I do think Broken Homes is much better in this regard, or at least ends on a hell of a high note, plot-wise, so I'm hoping Aaronovitch has figured this out/hit his stride and plots will be better from here (especially as it looks like we're leaving the episodic adventures behind and are hitting the main arc in earnest).
The other thing that doesn't work for me as well is something that everybody else seems to love, so it's just me, I guess. I don't find the Rivers and other supernatural entities nearly as interesting as the human magicians and cops and the regular humans they deal with, so the parts of the books that deal with them are less interesting to me (though, as far as personifications of genius loci go, they are not bad, I guess, and certainly different from other's I've seen). Just, not my thing.
But two things that work for me less well against a mountain of stuff I LOVE is still very, very good, so I've been squeeing and flailing about this fandom since I read the first book in February, and thrusting the books upon anyone I thought might enjoy them, physically and pimpingly (so far, at least lunasariel seems to have loved it as much as I do). I made icons, and read all the fic on AO3, and friended just about everyone I could find who also loves these books, and can't wait for Yuletide.
Oh, and credit where credit is due: lodessa lent me the first two books, setting all this off, so thank you, Ariel!
I'm working on a couple of year-in-review sorts of memes right now, and *spoiler* Rivers of London will be featuring on them a lot in categories such as favorite book, favorite new-to-me author, favorite new character, latest fandom obsession, favorite quote, favorite scene... well, you get the picture. I am pretty much head-over-heels with this canon at the moment, and the last time I think a new series won me over so thoroughly was Vorkosigan Saga 10+ years ago -- it's a heady feeling!
I am not super-surprised I took to RoL so readily -- I've been searching for a magical police procedural for at least a decade, pretty much ever since discovering urban fantasy was a thing. Because I really like urban fantasy, and I really like mysteries/police procedurals without supernatural elements (I used to read the forensic mysteries, for example, like the Kay Scarpetta books before they started sucking, or the Temperance Brennan ones, before there was Bones), and what is the addition of magic to them if not an awesome tool as well as an awesome source of trouble. So I was fully expecting to like the premise, if nothing else, once I finally found my magical police procedural (and I still wonder why there aren't more books in this sub-genre -- hell, I've found more second-world ones, with a multi-magical-races police force (Discworld's Watch books, of course, and the Chronicles of Elantra books, and Dragon Precinct). But, anyway, I was expecting to like the premise just based on that, but I got so much more!
I love Peter's narrative voice, the cynicism and the dorky asides and nerdy allusions and how funny he is. I've seen some readers complain that Peter's narration is too emotionally remote (and another reader made the super-interesting observation that this sort of remoteness is consistent with being an adult child of an addict), but his degree of emotional involvement seems perfectly natural to me -- I like that it's not random angst all over the place, and that actually seems pretty realistic to me for someone who would go into police work -- I think you pretty much need some degree of emotional distance to be able to make it in a career like that.
I love Peter the character, too. I only liked him at first, but he's the one that's grown the most on me over the four books. I love that he has his random hobbies, like architecture and SFF, and his tendency to get distracted (I wondered, after the first couple of books, if Peter has some sort of mild ADHD, which could also potentially explain why his grades in the sciences weren't higher when he's clearly very bright and also very interested in this stuff; although problems at home due to his father's addiction and health could account for that as well), and his desire to figure out the science behind the magic (I would totally be trying for the sorts of DOEs he is talking about) -- and I also love the fact that it's clear he's an amateur when it comes to this stuff and just kind of muddling along: one of my favorite Peter quotes is when he talks about wanting to use a mass spectrometer to help analyze why certain materials retain vestigia better than others, "but first I'd have to get myself a mass spectrometer and then I'd have to learn enough physics to interpret the bloody results" :D
But my favorite character, to no-one's surprise, is Thomas Nightingale, because, come on. He nails so many of my bulletproof kink tropes -- gentleman wizard, mentor figure, stiff upper lip, mysterious past, dry wit -- and is an in-universe memetic badass. I adore the scenes in which that's demonstrated -- like when he warns Peter that "This may be somewhat unpleasant" before disarming the demon trap, which nearly makes Peter throw up, the Tiger tank story, of course (though even more awesome than the story itself is how Peter latches onto it in full fanboy mode), and the 'cavalry' scene in Broken Homes. The tragedy in his past is something I hope we'll get to explore more in future books (the way he speaks about carving the names of the dead in his school is so very chilling), as well as his connection with Molly, but I also really like the lighter touches we get to see through Peter's eyes -- Nightingale's fastidiousness about the Jag, his interest in plants and continued puzzlement at city-boy Peter's lack of knowledge in that milieu, sneaking in to watch rugby on Peter's TV -- I want to see more of all that, too. And one of the things I like best about him is that he is both fallible and willing to learn. One of the moments I liked best in the aforementioned 'cavalry' scene is that after kicking seven kinds of ass, Nightingale forgets the modern police caution/'Miranda rights' (I know they aren't called that in England, but that's what I think of them as anyway), and Lesley has to take over at that point -- it's such a real-feeling touch.
In general, I think Nightingale's fallibility and willingness to learn are showcased best in his scenes with Peter. The conversations with Peter about the terms "master" and "black magician", and the "shallow, not wrong" conversation at the end of the second book made me really love the Peter and Nightingale relationship best of any teacher/mentor relationship I've encountered. Nightingale's fond exasperation with Peter (e.g. the raincloud spell), the way they worry and care about each other (without ever doing anything so un-British as hugging), the Christmas gifts, which seem so perfectly indicative of their characters and strengths -- I just love the way they interact. (And, when it comes to fic, I'm happy to see both gen and not-so-gen interaction; too bad there isn't more of the latter...)
I also love Lesley -- the character, the fact that she's a better cop than Peter and everyone, including Peter, knows that, and the way she [spoilers for book 1 and onward]isn't sidelined after her horrific injury, but also doesn't magically recover, and ALSO also the way this doesn't turn her into an object of pity or Peter's angst -- I may not care much about Zach as a character, but I really like the fact that Lesley gets to have some lighter moments with him. And [vague spoiler for Broken Homes but don't read it anyway] I can't talk about Broken Homes, but everything Aaronovitch has done with Lesley so far gives me hope that there's more going on than it seems. There better be!
I like most of the supporting characters, too, Dr Walid and Abigail and the recurring policemen, and even the one-off cameo characters are well drawn and interesting -- I vividly remember the ex-spook widow of one of the victims in book 2, and the widower of the train 'suicide' victim in book 4, for instance. And as of book 4, Varvara is definitely my favorite secondary -- she is a badass in her own right, but also feels like a believable character, and -- this pleasantly surprised me most of all -- a believable Russian character, which is kind of a first for me with a Western author. I am really looking forward to seeing more of her in subsequent books.
Characters aside, I love the notion of Newtonian magic, and the way Peter has been experimenting his way around it. I like the very tangible, crunchy sense of place, even though I don't know London well at all -- but Peter does, so intimately, and the little bits of England I do recognize feel like little presents on top of the overall immersive experience.
And, I would like these books even if this weren't the case, but one can't talke about RoL and not mention the diversity of the cast and the world they inhabit, because that's pretty awesome, and the diversity always feels natural rather than tokenistic or shoehorn-y or checking the boxes. Peter's bi-racial background never stops being relevant to his character, but it's also far from the only part of his character, and because he's not the only PoC in the books, he doesn't have to stand in for all PoCs. And it's really nice to see the diversity in secondary and background characters, ethnic, orientation, religious, what have you -- it really makes the series feel much more part of life in a real metropolis.
I also like the (other) ways in which these books are different from a lot of other urban fantasy. Despite my belief that the more wizards the better, I'm actually very happy that RoL's "mundanes" are not bumbling Muggles but competent and capable colleagues -- Seawoll and his lack of tolerance for "weird bollocks", Stephanopoulos, who has really grown on me, especially since recognizing Peter's Discworld reference, Dr Walid and his passion for his work and interest in Peter's empiricism, Frank Caffrey and his boys, Jaget Kumar, who joins Peter in ill-timed geeky allusions and found engineering not adrenaline-charged enough, are all characters I've come to really like, especially Kumar. I love that Peter has a family, mum and dad who love each other (sometimes a little too much for his taste, because, ew, parents kissing), and cousins, and an extended community. Because as much as I love found family stories and as much as I love the little family coming together in the Folly, it's really refreshing to see an urban fantasy protagonist who *hasn't* lost everyone he cares about and has more than one support network.
And I love all the nerdy allusions, of course, "Isengard" and "Pocket Quidditch" and "Unseen University" and "Earthbender" and "moomins" and even D&D and Doctor Who stuff that I have only fandom osmosis knowledge of, because they make Peter and the others feel like people I'd really enjoy hanging out with. Well, not the Faceless Man, even if I do admire his knowledge of Quenya.
There are a couple of things about the series that work less well for me:
The plots are probably the books' weakest feature -- I'm not sure I even remember them clearly for the first book and Whispers Under Ground, and I remember the one for Moon Over Soho but I didn't like it very much. I do think Broken Homes is much better in this regard, or at least ends on a hell of a high note, plot-wise, so I'm hoping Aaronovitch has figured this out/hit his stride and plots will be better from here (especially as it looks like we're leaving the episodic adventures behind and are hitting the main arc in earnest).
The other thing that doesn't work for me as well is something that everybody else seems to love, so it's just me, I guess. I don't find the Rivers and other supernatural entities nearly as interesting as the human magicians and cops and the regular humans they deal with, so the parts of the books that deal with them are less interesting to me (though, as far as personifications of genius loci go, they are not bad, I guess, and certainly different from other's I've seen). Just, not my thing.
But two things that work for me less well against a mountain of stuff I LOVE is still very, very good, so I've been squeeing and flailing about this fandom since I read the first book in February, and thrusting the books upon anyone I thought might enjoy them, physically and pimpingly (so far, at least lunasariel seems to have loved it as much as I do). I made icons, and read all the fic on AO3, and friended just about everyone I could find who also loves these books, and can't wait for Yuletide.
Oh, and credit where credit is due: lodessa lent me the first two books, setting all this off, so thank you, Ariel!