Rivers of London, Vol. 10: Deadly Ever After

While I'm not heavily invested in the companion graphic novels to Aaronovitch's series of novels, they are canon, and I was hard up for a fix! The attraction here is that events happen after the last novel. This episode features Olympia & Chelsea Brook, daughters of Mother Thames, and as entitled as they come. Not that being literal goddesses is going to help them when they trip over Fae magic with potentially lethal consequences. While the girls, and the situation, are somewhat absurd, the root of the problem, like most of Aaronovitch's story lines, is not, and the results have their own sadness.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Content warning for graphic violence.)

Ben Aaronovitch's RIVERS OF LONDON series has been languishing somewhere in the middle of my massive TBR pile for what seems like ages now - so, when I spotted this graphic novel on Edelweiss, I figured that delving in via the comics would be a solid life hack. Problem is, I didn't realize that DEADLY EVER AFTER was already the tenth graphic novel in the series - or that the comics feature original stories rather than being faithful adaptations of the novels, like I'd assumed.

Lucky for me, DEADLY EVER AFTER is a standalone story featuring Chelsea and Olympia, two of Mama Thames's daughters and goddesses of the Westbourne river show more and Counter's Creek, respectively. When the sisters are invited to a cookout in the forest, things go sideways, FAST. They unthinkingly reveal a glamoured mulberry bush to a mere mortal - and, in so doing, trigger a series of mysterious events: fairy tales are coming to life, each reeancted upon the body of a different party-goer from that fateful night. And these aren't the Disney-fied versions either, with happy endings. With Peter, Nightingale, and Abigail off on a more important case, can Chelsea and Olympia get to the bottom of this mystery - and set their mistake right?

DEADLY EVER AFTER is a solid 3.5 stars.* The artwork is easily its strongest feature (gorgeous!), while the storytelling is engaging enough (even if the twists are a little easily anticipated). Longtime fans will likely be disappointed that the MCs don't make much of an appearance, but I liked Chelsea and Olympia - they gave the local (I'm assuming ancient) gods from the series a modern spin, in the vein of LORE OLYMPUS.

* Rounded down to 3 stars because of all the anti-vegan jokes. Well, okay, not all of them - having the vegan character turn into the Big Bad Wolf and rip a woman's throat out did make for an amusing one-liner. But having him run a Meat Meat Meat stand after the spell is broken? Despite his earlier ethical vegan stance? Talk about low-hanging fruit. Thanks, but I'll pass. show less

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S DEADLY EVER AFTER ABOUT?
Two of Beverly's sisters, the twins Olympia and Chelsea Brook, are hanging out with some people they just met around a campfire. It's just a relaxing moment—when one of the group suddenly starts trying to eat them all. Olympia tries a magic whammy on him, which doesn't help too much, but the others are able to capitalize on this and subdue him.

Over the next couple of days, others in the group suddenly start acting strangely—an actor quits his current project, dresses up like a frog, and starts to make nature documentaries; another takes a bite of an apple and goes to sleep like Snow White.

The sisters try to get some help from the Folly, but show more they're too busy. Abigail gives a quick consultation but isn't that helpful. So the sisters have to figure out what's afoot on their own and try to set things right.

WHAT ABOUT PETER, NEIGHTENGALE, ETC.?
They're pretty deeply involved in some strange case and we see them briefly here and there—I'm curious about what they're up to, but I really don't want either a comic or a novel/novella to tell us—I just want to live with the random and odd images.

HOW'S THE ART?
The art for the Rivers of London has never been the strongest—it's good, it's dynamic, it moves the story along, and helps tell the story. But by and large, it's not the greatest comic art in the world—I've never disliked it (I don't think), but I've rarely been wowed by it either. It's good, not great.

That's what we have here—capable art that tells the story, conveys the emotions, and occasionally elicits a grin.

(all of this reads to me like the most sinistral left-handed compliment—I'm not trying to be that way, I'm apparently just having one of those days)

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT DEADLY EVER AFTER?
I love the idea of getting stories in this world that only have a tangential connection to Peter and the rest. We all know that the entire Demi-monde/Supernatural world doesn't revolve around the Folly. Things like this have to happen, before Peter was recruited, we know that Nightingale didn't have time to handle everything—people cleaned up after themselves. And that's what the twins try to do here—and mostly succeed.

I guess I really don't have much to say beyond that—not only do I love the idea of this kind of story, I appreciated this example of them. We get a great magic story, meet some new people, and spend some time in this world that readers love. Can't ask for more than that.

Sure, I hope to see more of the ol' gang next time, but regular doses of the world outside like this one would be a good thing. show less

Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
This graphic novel contains scenes of blood, gore, kidnapping, strangulation and death, including a scene where two children almost stab their parents to death while under the influence of magic. There is also a scene in a hospital depicting an unconscious patient. Grief is an ongoing theme throughout this graphic novel.

Deadly Ever After by Ben Aaronovitch is the tenth Rivers of London graphic novel and this one features two secondary characters from the novels. Olympia and Chelsea are the twin daughters of a river goddess and the sister of one of the main characters in the series. We’ve seen them pop in and out throughout the series, and I have to admit that the twins are not show more some of my favourite characters. They’re usually too busy partying to take anything seriously and in Deadly Ever After that’s something they’re forced to face front on when they get in over their head.

When Olympia and Chelsea come across a group of human campers it’s all fun and games until they use their magic to uncover a tree that was hidden with magic, releasing something that was locked away for centuries. Peter and Nightingale, the police who deal with this normally deal with magic when things go wrong are busy on another case leaving the twins on their own. While I enjoyed the overall story of Deadly Ever After I just wasn’t invested in the main characters and for most of the graphic novel the twins continued to be their obnoxious teenage selves. When they started to get involved with what was happening and started to care then things became more interesting.

This was an interesting development in Olympia and Chelsea’s story and a graphic novel was a good medium for it. Unlike other graphic novels in the Rivers of London series I felt like the artwork wasn’t as good especially the faces of the characters. The artist has been different for this graphic novel and the previous one, and while I can’t remember what my thoughts were on the art of the last one (Monday Monday), it was very noticeable in this one for me.

Deadly Ever After is worth a read for an interesting story and continuity, but overall it’s my least favourite graphic novel so far. I appreciate Aaronovitch branching out to tell a different type of story with secondary characters which shows us their personal development, it just wasn’t of much interest to me. A personal highlight for me was Abigail and the foxes who are always a bright spot in any Rivers of London story.

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Fun story of ancillary river spirit twins and fairy tales within tales loose in London. Good story, solid art, and nice to see more characters gain depth to pull them out of the background (& amusing to see Peter & Nightengale & Bev in cameos and comedy).

ARC from NetGalley & publisher in exchange for an honest review

#netgalley #riversoflondon #deadlyeverafter

Disappointed. It’s nice to see the characters again, but I didn’t really care for the art and I’ve read too many fairy tales for this to be a compelling or even interesting story. I mean, if this is all coming from a book of fairy stories written by a girl after her father disappears, why aren’t they original in any way? Why do we never really see the dryads he’s pining for? Why dryads, anyway? It’s just wasn’t up to standard.

Review to come

Olympia and Chelsea are the young twin daughters of Mama Thames and they are all about having a good time. When on a camping trip they break a ward on a mulberry tree and accidently free a painter that has been there for over a hundred years. Jeter finds his one descendant and with the magic he has learned during his captivity is using it to change the people around his descendant. With the help of the foxes the twins have to fix what is going on and get Jeter under control and break the magic he has done. Peter and Nightingale are not in this much except for some cameos but Abigail does give the twins some help but is not the focus of the story. This isn’t my favorite of the comics since it doesn’t feature Peter or show more Nightingale. show less