Reading roundup: Foxglove Summer!

[hamsterwoman]

60. Ben Aaronovitch, Foxglove Summer (Peter Grant/RoL #5) -- So I was seeing all these reaction posts pop up on my flist, because people unfairly live in countries where they can walk into a store and buy this book BEFORE the UK release date, as opposed to having to wait until January, like here (though the US version -- now with actual pretty

Comments

[philomytha]

You are so good at reviewing books! I can't do it, I can squee and I can write fic and that's about it :-). But I agree with all of this.

Beverley's ending makes a lot more sense when you realise that Aaronovitch decided to write a deus ex machina ending, literally. Still rushed as hell, but - well, it made me laugh, anyway. And I do understand why we didn't have the dramatic Nightingale rescue, since we had it unexpectedly in Broken Homes (though I still don't know how Nightingale knew they needed rescuing there), so having it when Peter was expecting it here would be a bit excessive. But I think it could have stood to be written more carefully.

I loved 'fuck me, I'm in fairyland' too. That is clearly going to be a catchphrase of the series, and I approve wholeheartedly.

A thousand yeses to all your comments about Peter's character development and his emotions and the pain and injured places from his childhood all coming out here. And yes, this is the right point in the series to have a book of him on his own outside London. And yeah, it was a good case, with much more unity than some of the others. Plus it was nice that Peter got to save the day, not once but twice, and nobody died.

And oh yes, Peter is such a magpie. Though starlings are very bright and very urban birds. The ones around here have developed a mobile phone ringtone call and now the parent birds teach it to their young, which is all kinds of hilarious.

And I'm pretty sure that was a Good Omens reference, and hey, I've read GO but bounced off the rest of Gaiman, so maybe that's not so unusual ;-).

Peter outside of London did make the book feel a bit less vivid than the others. I did love seeing his reactions to rural England, which all felt perfect, but at the same time I missed the insight of his commentary on London. This was a lot more superficial and I'm looking forward to more London now.

[hamsterwoman]

You are so good at reviewing books! I can't do it, I can squee and I can write fic and that's about it :-)

Awww, thank you! :D Most of my write-ups end up as squee or annoyed sputtering, and I didn't think I'd have as much to say about Foxglove Summer, but that turned out to be not entirely the case XP

Aaronovitch decided to write a deus ex machina ending, literally

*gets the joke* XD XD XD OK, that does make it better. I mean, I still would have preferred an actual ending with motivation and pacing and sense of closure and Nightingale those kinds of things, but if one is going to have to resort to a deus ex machina ending, having a literal goddess driving a steam engine is, well, points for commitment, haha.

(And that is a good point about how Nightingale knew to come to the rescue / where to find them. I didn't wonder about it at the time, because of the sheer awesomeness of everything, but I don't remember how it's explained, if at all...)

That is clearly going to be a catchphrase of the series,

Yeah, I think I'm finally catching on to the fact that it is going to be a catchphrase. What was it in book 3, do you remember? Rivers was "fuck me, I can do magic", and Soho (right?) was the equivalent re: Lesley, and Broken Homes got the Isengard line, but I'm blanking on Whispers...

Peter getting to save the day and everybody making it through alive (and without treacherous turns) was quite welcome! I do think we needed an unmitigated win of a case, after Broken Homes and with Peter still dealing with the fallout from Lesley in parallel, so I appreciated the lighter tones.

In truth, starling is probably the better choice, because magpies are laden with all these folkloric connotations (like nightingales), and starlings I think are not? At least I can't think of any, which seems like a better fit for Peter. They are more urban than magpies, I guess (I remember magpies from my childhood in a large city, but have only seen them in parks and small towns on more recent visits, though that's not much of a sample size), and the ringtone thing -- I either did not know or had forgotten they did that -- is amazing! -- and that does all add up to more Peter-ness. (I'm just attached to my magpie headcanon which came up on some crossover meme or other :P)

And I'm pretty sure that was a Good Omens reference,

I'm glad I was not the only one who thought so! (I read GO, and that was actually my gateway to both Pratchett and Gaiman, but while I immediately zipped through all of the Discworld books the library had (though it wasn't until I hit on Fifth Elephant, my first Watch book, that I was truly in love), I picked up Stardust for Gaiman because that's what was around and then didn't read any more Gaiman for a while, because Stardust was quite underwhelming. But eventually I read American Gods and became a fan.)

I can definitely see Pratchett appealing to Peter more than Gaiman -- the snarkiness and

puns overlaying a well of positive, driving anger (a friend linked me to an article by Gaiman about just that, not long ago), and that understanding and forgiveness of people for being people.

I am definitely looking forward to a return to London! It sounded like from BA's tweets or posts or something that Guleed is in the next one, so I assume we will be getting more London and the Met.