A transition book but excellent

This one gets better each time you re-read it and pick up more of the hints BA is laying down for his incredibly rich world building. While the plot seems to come out of left field at first, we learn so much about the nature of magic, of River Goddesses, and the world at large that you start to see the murky shapes of What May Come loom ever more frighteningly on the horizon.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Urban Fantasy IT Crime

8th and imo the weakest of the Rivers of London series. Peter Grant ends up working security for an IT firm.

Lots of Peter development, but I missed the long architectural commentary on old buildings, there was not much to say about the new buildings at Silcion Roundabout. Wanted more of The Nightingale in this one, and wanted more glimpses into the Folly (although the new remodelling was interesting). The back and forth chapters (eg December, January, December) was irritating. Loved the humour, reckon we will see more of the antagonist character.

However, weak though it was I still enjoyed it and I will defo be getting the next books in this series.

Kobna Holbrook Smith is an amazing narrator and the interview at the end of the book was an unexpected treat.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Peter is well worth hanging out with.

This entire series is fantastic. Some of the middle books were ok, but generally these books keep getting better.

The characters are great . Ben Aaronovitch tells a story of a different kind of London, diverse and magical, but so English, steeped in history and place. There's adventure, mystery, an interesting magical system and hints of a very scary monster to come.

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is one of the very best narrators working.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Pretty disappointing...fabulous narration though.

This is one of my favourite book series...but...this one really fell short for me, aside from KH-S's narration, which was stellar as usual.

I held off for a long time in listening to this book because I read the synopsis and it sounded like Peter wasn't working for The Folly anymore, and wasn't involved in the magical realm, so I didn't think I'd be as interested in the story.

When I finally got around to listening to the book (after seeing some mild spoilers in some other reviews), I consistently found myself drifting away because it wasn't holding my attention. I'm actually surprised at the number of 5-star reviews this story has gotten, since the storyline is pretty different from the preceding 7 novels. And, sorry, but I read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sooooo many years ago that I can barely remember it, so the numerous easter eggs mentioned in other reviews were lost on me. Perhaps this was one of the reasons I didn't really enjoy this story, although it seems to me that if one is a fan of a book series, one shouldn't have to have encyclopedic knowledge of a DIFFERENT book in order to enjoy/understand this unrelated book. I should mention, though, that the quality of writing was as good as ever, it was just the storyline that didn't hold my attention.

Although magic certainly does play a major part in the story, a lot of the storyline is not really "magical" as such, at least not like in the rest of the series. The thing that I enjoyed so much about the previous books was the sense of wonder that I felt when immersed in the magical world of the river gods & goddesses & their traditions (and all the other magical beings & their shenanigans). So much of the previous series focused on Peter & various magical beings/happenings, or his journey to becoming a better wizard, and I felt that was really missing in this story. I also felt that a lot of the traditional beloved characters (Beverley & her family, Nightingale, Toby, Peter's parents, Molly, Dr. Walid) were swept aside in this story, with little to no detail focused on them, and these characters to me are a big part of what have made the previous books so interesting. The Peter/Beverley relationship, in particular, seemed to lack any of the spark that originally brought these characters together. They also didn't really seem to care about each other's whereabouts, which I thought was a bit strange. Peter seemed to be away from home for days at a time (or at least overnight), sometimes getting himself into dangerous situations, without communicating with Beverley at all or her calling him wondering if he was OK since he'd been gone for several days.

I did enjoy the Aaronovitch/Holdbrook-Smith Q&A at the end of the story. And I do look forward to the next book in the series and am hoping that it returns to focusing more on the magical realm.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful