"Foxglove Summer" by Ben Aaronovitch - spoilers after the cut
I zipped through this in under a day (in fairness that day involved two flights). And I was disappointed, mainly because it wasn't what I wanted to be reading - I should concentrate on my classic SF catching up, or my German, if I'm not after light reading. I read the collection of reviews by Jo Walton, What Makes This Book So Great, and although many remain out of print I can report that Anathem, Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Lady of Mazes, Permutation City, China Mountain Zhang, The Sky Road, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Crow Road, Midshipman's Hope, Vinge's books, and Household Gods (Turtledove and Tarr) (all books I discovered or rediscovered due to this collection, so hopefully this worked well for Tor) are better and more thought-provoking. I still have lots of recommendations to read from this collection, which is good. I just feel silly reviewing a thought-provoking book, and also the thoughts it provokes tend to be a half-formed unease that I am close to feeling something profound that I cannot express well enough to write. I also read Jo Walton's most recent book "My Real Children", which caused my nose and eyes to stream with silent tears for an entire flight Brussels to Basel, and my neighbours to look deeply uneasy. (I wanted to say, it's not flu, it's just this book. But I then might have had to describe why it was sad and then I would have lost it completely).
Anyway, Foxglove Summer is a fun read but the plot doesn't really make sense.
Not just in a "the fae do bizarre things for their own reasons" way, which is canon for fae. There are random flesheating unicorns on drugs which may or may not obey fae orders, which doesn't really explain why the trees were all cut down (because the unicorns gored them in a drug-induced moment? Because the fae sabotaged the trees to accelerate the return to wildwood?). Why were the patch of foxgloves growing on alkaline soil? What was the foxglove motif even about?
It doesn't matter in some stories, where the explanation can be "the fairies aren't reasonable" or "a wizard did it". It just doesn't work so well in a police procedural, where we need to know approximately what the fairies were after or why the wizard did it. As it is, the book ends up more like real life, in which random stuff happens and some of it sucks and some of it is OK. As a slice of life (like China Mountain Zhang) it's fine - but it feels like it's trying to be more, like mysteries should ultimately have explanations even if some aren't disclosed. Of course the whole story with the fae is probably a monster-of-the-week thing, while the longer story arc is about Peter finding out about what Nightingale and the Folly got up to in the war, and about Lesley and what she is up to. But I like my monster-of-the-weeks to make sense.
Also, the cultural references are totally now, and will seem either quaint or period in five years. Some things with cultural references do last - Harry Potter and Dr Who aren't new and will probably continue to be a good signpost for normal childhood in the next 20 years at least. But Evian, Ben & Jerry's, Bulmer's, 50 Cent feel like flashes in the pan. I guess it's supposed to evoke a particular moment amid all the older stuff Peter is exposed to and to drive home that it's not a parallel universe, it is our universe. It strikes me as just a little contrived.
I like Beverley as a character, but her role here seems to be a person to know country stuff and for Peter to bounce off in lieu of Nightingale or Lesley. Although she has her own storyline, a rather silly one involving having sex in a river, apparently to head off this accusation. Maybe this is going somewhere, but I have the sense it may be into soap opera territory.
Anyway, Foxglove Summer is a fun read but the plot doesn't really make sense.
Not just in a "the fae do bizarre things for their own reasons" way, which is canon for fae. There are random flesheating unicorns on drugs which may or may not obey fae orders, which doesn't really explain why the trees were all cut down (because the unicorns gored them in a drug-induced moment? Because the fae sabotaged the trees to accelerate the return to wildwood?). Why were the patch of foxgloves growing on alkaline soil? What was the foxglove motif even about?
It doesn't matter in some stories, where the explanation can be "the fairies aren't reasonable" or "a wizard did it". It just doesn't work so well in a police procedural, where we need to know approximately what the fairies were after or why the wizard did it. As it is, the book ends up more like real life, in which random stuff happens and some of it sucks and some of it is OK. As a slice of life (like China Mountain Zhang) it's fine - but it feels like it's trying to be more, like mysteries should ultimately have explanations even if some aren't disclosed. Of course the whole story with the fae is probably a monster-of-the-week thing, while the longer story arc is about Peter finding out about what Nightingale and the Folly got up to in the war, and about Lesley and what she is up to. But I like my monster-of-the-weeks to make sense.
Also, the cultural references are totally now, and will seem either quaint or period in five years. Some things with cultural references do last - Harry Potter and Dr Who aren't new and will probably continue to be a good signpost for normal childhood in the next 20 years at least. But Evian, Ben & Jerry's, Bulmer's, 50 Cent feel like flashes in the pan. I guess it's supposed to evoke a particular moment amid all the older stuff Peter is exposed to and to drive home that it's not a parallel universe, it is our universe. It strikes me as just a little contrived.
I like Beverley as a character, but her role here seems to be a person to know country stuff and for Peter to bounce off in lieu of Nightingale or Lesley. Although she has her own storyline, a rather silly one involving having sex in a river, apparently to head off this accusation. Maybe this is going somewhere, but I have the sense it may be into soap opera territory.