Rivers of London (2011)

By the book jacket, it sounds like a Charlie Stross ripoff, but it manages to be different enough in tone and content to make it its own thing. Fun. ( )

4.5 This has been on my radar for years, and I wish I had read it sooner. I really like the writing and it's exciting to find another series I'm looking forward to continuing with. I don't have a lot of time or respect for series fiction these days, so it's nice to expand the pool of likely-to-be-reliable candidates for what to read next.

My only criticisms of this book would be a.) that for the first third or so it didn't really feel like the overall plot was advancing much if at all. b.) that our narrator/MC Peter feels somewhat detached. Which is okay with me but I feel like I'm supposed to judge that negatively. Whatever. Already bought the next installment. ( )

I liked everything dealing with the river deity politics but none of the rest really held my interest since it felt pretty standard. I might check out the next one to see if it picks up though. ( )

Oh, boy, that was fun! And funny! This is like the UK's answer to Harry Dresden - if Harry was way more mellow and his dog was a slipper with ears. Harry's dog might be named Mouse, but he ain't tiny. :) Toby still has it where it counts though.

Survey says: Harry kicks ass; Peter is swell bloke.

The world-building was pretty well-developed throughout the story, not just for the magic stuff but for London itself for us non-Londoners who don't know how London works. I imagine it's told in a politely backhanded enough way to still be amusing to those who live there though. We're told only what we need to know when we need to know it, and aren't info-dumped for no reason, yet it still manages to set things up for later books.

The case was interesting and certainly unexpected. Punch and Judy is just messed up, y'all. And to think that was considered appropriate entertainment for the whole family back in the day. Leslie looks like she's getting set up to be the Murphy of this universe, only much more mellow and less awesome. Though she could still end up being awesome later. We'll see.

I'm not sure at all why the American publisher changed the name of the book from Rivers of London - since the rivers actually are pretty important - to Midnight Riot. Sure, there's a riot and it happens at night, but it's not even the climax of the book. Com'n. Did they really think we'd need the promise of a riot to get us interested? That's horrible. This isn't like trying to get kids interested in a bunch of old guys sitting around discussing the meaning of life to a bunch of rocks (BORING!) versus wizards doing cool magical stuff with stones (AWESOME!). There was just no reason to change the title, and maybe it's just me, but it also introduces an unfortunate (most likely completely unintentional) racial implication. Peter's mixed-race. There's a riot. Must be connected, yeah? Let's make it the title! Boo! Bad job, American publisher! Bad job!

The narrator, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, did an okay job. He has a nice voice, all silky and rich and mmmmm...wait, what was he saying? ;) I did tend to get caught up in the sound of his voice and miss the actual words he was saying, having to go back and re-listen and mmmmm... :D The downside is that he really needs to learn how to breathe properly when he's narrating. Lots of deep inhales at pretty much every stopping or pausing point. Comma? Time to breathe. End of sentence? Time to breathe. I did listen to the sample for the next book, and he seems to have improved on this point, so I'll continue with the audios. ( )

This is fun. Aaronovich has a nice turn of phrase. If you have enjoyed series by Simon R. Green and Jim Butcher, you will probably get a kick out of Peter Grant.

Be warned if you prefer e-books, the next books in the series are NOT available on Kindle. They are, however, available on Nook. ( )