Paul Cornell (1) (1967–)

'The Shadow Police' series is a sort of grittier, more working-class, darker version of 'Rivers of London'. Here, magic comes from the weight of London's history, not from river goddesses. The posh folks of The Folly are replaced by a team of London coppers used to bringing down drug dealers and human traffickers and the magic keeps trying to kill them

I found the second book "The Severed Streets" to be well-written but very depressing and soaked in sadness. The Shadow Police themselves are show more a major source of grief and depression. They deceive each other, distrust each other, despise themselves for the deceit and bemoan the distrust. They are reckless and desperate and well out of their depth.

I thought the third book might be more whimsical. After all, how serious can a book called 'Who Killed Sherlock Holmes' be?'.

There is a move from total despair towards hope in this book. The main characters are trying to find a way back from the damage that was done to them or that they did to themselves in the last book. I liked that Paul Cornell didn't just have everyone bounce back but recognised that actions have consequences and that dealing with evil always has a price. I also liked that he delivered on the story behind the senior police officer that the Shadow Police report in to. Her story humanised the big reveal and built her into a key character.

In 'The Severed Streets' we learned that something big had changed the way magic worked in Londo, letting loose bad things and tainting the magical community by allowing power to be paid for by money rather than personal sacrifice.

In 'Who Killed Sherlock Holmes' we learn that the change coincided with the destruction of the magical Establishment - the Continuous Projects Committee that imposes civilised control on magical forces. It's clear that, although The Establishment continued to use traditions that have kept London safe for centuries, they had forgotten why and how the protocols they use to do this operate. They'd become complacent and vulnerable to attack.

As a consequence of this::
'The real London was coming back, alongside poverty and tubercolosis and history. The civilised consensus was over.'
Suddenly, I was thinking of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, ripping apart all the shared assumptions and values that defined the England that the men and women who survived World War II had wanted to create.

I checked the original publication date for this book. May 2016, one month before the Brexit Referendum.

It makes you wonder, If something evil broke into our world in 2016, wiping away civilised constraint, what would the world look like in 2020?

Actually, I think I know the answer to that question.

I enjoyed the book for the puzzle it solved, for the development of the story arc and for the evolution of the characters. The ending wasn't a cliff-hanger but it contained a solid hook that made me want to read book four.

Then I was told there is no book four. How can this happen? Ask the publishers.
Here's what Paul Cornell had to say about it in 2017: 'The Future Of The Shadow Police'

I hope the series comes back. I think we need a darker view of London and the people running it. show less

This was a delight. Easily the best of Titan's various Doctor Who miniseries, and probably the best of all its Who comics with the exception of the Eleventh Doctor ongoing. It's really just a loving pastiche of the Pertwee era, but one filled with nice little touches and deft characterization, exactly the kind of thing one (sometimes) wants from one's tie-in comics. Cornell's skill at this kind of writing is far and above most of Titan's writers, knowing exactly how to blend the familiar and show more the new in such a way as to warm the heart of even readers who aren't Pertwee fanboys. Christopher Jones is new to me as an artist but does solid work; clear likenesses and good action.

At the end, Cornell claims this is his last Doctor Who tie-in, but he's subsequently returned to the fold three times, which seems about right.

Titan Doctor Who: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less

At the end of the previous Bernice Summerfield story, the audio drama The Poison Seas, Bernice received a message from Irving Braxiatel, telling her to come home to the Braxiatel Collection. Life During Wartime picks up almost immediately thereafter, with Bernice coming home to find the Collection occupied by the Fifth Axis, the Space Racists she'd thought defeated in The Glass Prison. Life During Wartime features little archaeology and little space adventure, instead telling the story of show more the months of the Fifth Axis occupation.

The first thing in Life During Wartime, as in most Bernice Summerfield books, is a little descriptive piece called "The Braxiatel Collection," explaining the series setup. This little piece explains succinctly everything that is wrong with the setup. There are potted backstories for Benny, Irving, Jason, and Adrian, which is fine, but it reads like it comes out of the series bible, and hence explains all of the jokes: we are told that Joseph the Porter is over-literal (but on purpose), what Collection administrator Ms Jones means when she puts on her glasses, how gardener Mister Crofton reacts to forgetting the "Mister," and that the public relations officer never actually turns up in stories (oh, the hilarity). Why do we need all these characters? Bernice Summerfield wants to be Indiana Jones in Space, but Indiana Jones just has Marcus Brody to report back to, not Brody and a lover and a rival and a department secretary and a janitor and a press officer. Why do you need such a large, uninteresting supporting cast? Even the one story largely set on the collection, The Squire's Crystal, didn't make a lot of use of them as I recall.

Life During Wartime doesn't mean that the unwieldy setup has been worthwhile all along, but it is used to maximum effect here. We just don't see what Bernice has to deal with (she feels compelled to play along with the Fifth Axis because she doesn't know where her son is), but how Irving Braxiatel deals with being surprised for the first time ever, how Jason Kane immediately gives in and defects to the Axis, how Adrian suffers as a worker, that Bev Tarrant can be something other than a thief, why Ms Jones fell in love with an Axis policeman, and what happened to Mister Crofton during the Dalek War. The range of characters has a range of reactions to the occupation, some trying to stop it at any cost, while the Axis itself tries to convince them that nothing has changed.

Suffice it to say that I liked this book a lot. It's technically an anthology, but it reads like a novel. Especially the early stories lead one right into the next. Paul Cornell keeps the book nearly seamless; with 22 stories in 200 pages, each story is around ten pages long, and thus no one voice is in play too long. The many-voice thing works, though; it feels like one author adopting a range of styles and approaches to convey one idea: the difficulty of maintaining your courage in a life during wartime. Some are just moments, with Bernice talking to Irving, or Mister Crofton remembering his past. Quite amazingly, not a single one is bad. Not a single one. The worst I could describe one as is "average," and even that is pushing it. If I just talked about the good ones, I'd be here far too long, but here are some favorites:

"The Birthday Party" by Simon Guerrier, where Bernice must help celebrate the life of a member of the resistance without offending Marshal Anson, otherwise many lives will be lost.

"Five Dimensional Thinking" by Nick Wallace, where Irving Braxiatel convinces himself that only a Time Lord could have beaten him, and that that Time Lord must be himself.

"Meanwhile, in a Small Room, a Small Boy..." by Robert Shearman, where Peter must try to occupy himself while his mother Bernice is gone... and he does so through self-destructive blame.

"Drinking with the Enemy" by Jonathan Blum, where Bernice, having sold out and resumed her relationship with Jason, now an Axis officer, has dinner with Ms Jones and her new boyfriend, an Axis stalwart. Curfew comes, no one can go home, they drink too much, and they all learn entirely too much about one another. The best story in the book, showing how someone can be a fundamentally good person and a fundamentally awful person at the same time.

"The Peter Principle" by Kate Orman, where Bernice finally figures out where she stands.

There's something intrinsically Bernice-ish about occupation stories; when I think of classic Benny stories, the usual suspects are Beyond the Sun and Just War, and there's also The Dying Days and "Kill the Mouse!" I think it's because for the most part, Bernice is a pretty Doctor-like character, swanning into sci-fi situations and solving problems through action/adventure and some good dialogue. But occupations play out differently for Bernice than the Doctor. I can't imagine the Doctor living for weeks or months under a dictatorship, unable to do anything but keep himself alive, but what else can Bernice do? It's an intrinsically (and exclusively) human problem, and hence what makes Bernice her own character, her own person, and very real. She's never cruel or cowardly, but when you can't swan into the occupation headquarters and destroy the government with five words, that's something it's very hard to keep up, making her a whole lot braver. show less

I’m sitting here rewriting sentences about how well Cornell does dark fantasy, and how he’s able to infuse modern British culture, especially aspects that are usually treated as comforting and familiar, with terror and critique, when really I should be talking about this book, this story, and not his general way with world-building. So. Let’s just accept the setting and vibe are great and also My Thing, and move on.

Which is hard, since this is a novella, and I can’t say a whole lot show more or I’ll spoil it. I still like the witches and the way Cornell’s written them as the traditional coven triad but also not. I think the vicar’s my favourite, though. She’s so much the heart of the group, and definitely the main character here. I also loved seeing the magic system elaborated on, and the way the interdimensional weirdness manifested this time, and by “loved” in that last case, I mean “hated and could not look away because what?” Again, I have to say, Cornell does fantastic horror.

I’m not sure how I feel about the pacing, though I often have that sort of complaint with novellas. It’s exactly as long as it should be, but the “levelling up” moments didn’t hit the beats I expected, the antagonists are essentially creating side plots for funsies and it took me a while to pin down their goal, and the moments of recognition and taking charge felt a bit muted. I honestly feel like was a) reading too fast b) missing some deeper knowledge of, say, the Christmas ghost story genre c) both. So likely at least partly a me-problem, but keep in mind that plot is a bit unusual.

And I was more aware reading this than I usually am that this story was an installment in something greater. It’s perfectly satisfying and complete on its own, but the characters start out partway through their development and their growth isn’t finished at the end either, and neither fact can be ignored or written off. There are elements within the world too that are clearly building to something greater. I liked reading this, I really liked what Cornell did from a writer’s standpoint, but I think this series is really going to shine when taken as a complete whole. You’ll be able to see the shape of it better then, I suspect, and I think there’ll be less sense of things left hanging.

This is definitely a series (and an author) I rec, especially if you like to be unsettled by mundane things or want a modern take on witches, but prepare yourself to start at the beginning and binge, or reread the previous book, neither of which I did. Unfortunately. I’ll have to remember that advice for when I pick up the rest of the series.
6.5/10 show less