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Jul. 1st, 2013 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo I read Midnight Riot, the first book in Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, and I said to myself, "well, sure, that was reasonably enjoyable. Do I want to read the next one? . . . yeah, I guess I do."
And then I read the next one, Moon Over Soho, and I said to myself, "do I want to read the one after that? . . . apparently I want to read the one after that immediately. How about that?"
And then I read the one after that, Whispers Underground, and I said to myself, "do I want to read the one after that? . . . what do you mean, it's not out until the end of July? But I want it now!"
It's not actually that the books get progressively better as books in and of themselves, for the record -- the plot of the second one is one of those mysteries where everyone knows what's going on half a book before the protagonist does, and I cannot actually even remember the main plot of the third one and I read it two weeks ago. But somehow I became really fond of the characters when I wasn't looking!
The protagonist, for the record, is PC Peter Grant, a young police officer with a failed jazz musician father and an extended West African immigrant family, who sort of accidentally ends up apprenticed to the one magician affiliated with the London police department. The magic squad is sort of undercover, but not exactly secret. Over the course of the series, as magical crimes start to increase number, most of the other police officers that they work with become aware to a greater or lesser extent that Peter and his boss are involved in some sort of freaky supernatural weirdness. They all still have to do paperwork and follow procedure, and no one has to angst about being forever alone, and people with no interest or investment in magic are just as useful and competent as magic-users, and normal people never have to get their memories erased because they just can't cope! THIS IS VERY EXCITING TO ME. And Peter's pool of connections and contacts is continually expanding, and I really like that too.
The other thing I like best about the series is HOW MUCH I LOVE LESLIE. So, okay, if you don't know the books and clicked under this cut because you don't care about spoilers: Leslie is another police officer who Peter went through training with. She is much better at actual police work than Peter is, and Peter has a huge crush on her. At the end of the first book, she gets on the wrong side of a magical crime, and basically her face falls off.
In most series, this would be the end of Leslie, or at the very least the breaking of Leslie, while Peter carries on nobly filled with Leslie-related manpain -- but Leslie isn't broken, and she gets a really amazingly done recovery arc that carries through the books. The seriousness of what she's going through is never downplayed; she's permanently and very severely disfigured, and her life is never going to be the same. All the same, she picks herself back up, and remains an extremely talented police officer, and starts learning magic alongside Peter, and I had not realized how much I wanted a really well-done recovery arc for a female character like this until I got it.
And then I read the next one, Moon Over Soho, and I said to myself, "do I want to read the one after that? . . . apparently I want to read the one after that immediately. How about that?"
And then I read the one after that, Whispers Underground, and I said to myself, "do I want to read the one after that? . . . what do you mean, it's not out until the end of July? But I want it now!"
It's not actually that the books get progressively better as books in and of themselves, for the record -- the plot of the second one is one of those mysteries where everyone knows what's going on half a book before the protagonist does, and I cannot actually even remember the main plot of the third one and I read it two weeks ago. But somehow I became really fond of the characters when I wasn't looking!
The protagonist, for the record, is PC Peter Grant, a young police officer with a failed jazz musician father and an extended West African immigrant family, who sort of accidentally ends up apprenticed to the one magician affiliated with the London police department. The magic squad is sort of undercover, but not exactly secret. Over the course of the series, as magical crimes start to increase number, most of the other police officers that they work with become aware to a greater or lesser extent that Peter and his boss are involved in some sort of freaky supernatural weirdness. They all still have to do paperwork and follow procedure, and no one has to angst about being forever alone, and people with no interest or investment in magic are just as useful and competent as magic-users, and normal people never have to get their memories erased because they just can't cope! THIS IS VERY EXCITING TO ME. And Peter's pool of connections and contacts is continually expanding, and I really like that too.
The other thing I like best about the series is HOW MUCH I LOVE LESLIE. So, okay, if you don't know the books and clicked under this cut because you don't care about spoilers: Leslie is another police officer who Peter went through training with. She is much better at actual police work than Peter is, and Peter has a huge crush on her. At the end of the first book, she gets on the wrong side of a magical crime, and basically her face falls off.
In most series, this would be the end of Leslie, or at the very least the breaking of Leslie, while Peter carries on nobly filled with Leslie-related manpain -- but Leslie isn't broken, and she gets a really amazingly done recovery arc that carries through the books. The seriousness of what she's going through is never downplayed; she's permanently and very severely disfigured, and her life is never going to be the same. All the same, she picks herself back up, and remains an extremely talented police officer, and starts learning magic alongside Peter, and I had not realized how much I wanted a really well-done recovery arc for a female character like this until I got it.
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Date: 2013-07-01 09:51 pm (UTC)I saw you tweet about that but I didn't know if it was a hypothetical or real! That is exciting but I TOO am really nervous about Leslie's face. :-/ Like, both mask and prosthetic -- and they'll need good prosthetics -- will be a serious (and understandable) challenge for an actress.
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Date: 2013-07-01 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-01 09:55 pm (UTC)