Rivers of London (Ben Aaronovitch
I've recently read several other books which have been described as "like Rivers of London", so I had to read it. It's a London urban fantasy, like the Felix Castor novels, but specifically police-based.
It's full of both actual London-specific things, like a continual influx of second-generation immigrants adopting british phlegmatism, and british-police things that all ring so much more true to me (mainly from watching The Bill) than American cop shows, like graduating from Hendon and putting in a lot of elbow grease.
The main character has just graduated to constable, who falls in with an eccentric senior officer who is the last remaining officer tending the previously-thought-obsolete supernatural division, periodically slapped with some acronym, but mainly named after its grand but archaic headquarters.
The eponymous rivers are an ongoing feud between the "godess" of the lower Thames, and the "god" of the upper Thames, in which the main characters get embroiled.
The magic system is excellent: it's not too detailed, but it rings very true, with the combination of lots-of-practice and poring over dusty latin tomes which are informative but the main character thinks need more scientific method. And that the senior officer knows enough to be getting on with, but admits he's not always a scholar, and he'd like to know questions like "where magic comes from" but doesn't.
It's exactly the sort of setting I love, and does it very well.
Although I have a nagging dissatisfaction that the plots of the books don't hold up as well as the setting and characters -- I remember the books vividly, but I can't usually remember what was the instigating incident or how it was resolved.
London Falling (Paul Cornell)
Like the above, but by Paul Cornell. A bit more TV-show-y, which could be a plus or a minus. A more explicit devil figure.
Both book series are quite multicultural and make a creditable stab and gender equality. I've some caveats, it sometimes feels a bit ostentatious "lets describe this character's cultural history so the reader doesn't miss it", but that's probably necessary so the reader _doesn't_ miss it. Certainly both are much better than most books I read, and represent a British view of multiple races rather than an American one.
Man in the Empty Suit
Man in the Empty Suit has the most fascinating premise. The protagonist invents time travel, and every birthday goes to an abandoned hotel where all of his selves at different ages meet for a large birthday party with only him there. He has a set of rules for how to socialise with himself without giving away what's going to happen, though he keeps them imperfectly.
For most of his life, he's been looking forward to his 39th birthday, who was famous for wearing this especially fine suit, but that year, when he gets to the party, he finds someone has killed the 40-year-old self, and all the Elder selves tell him they know, but don't know what happened, and he has to solve the mystery, especially how all the elder selves still exist.
Unfortunately, not all of the book lives up to the premise.
But there are lots of lovely little touches about what its like to socialise with yourself, which is a sort of introspection I love (eg. in the last few episodes of Dollhouse).
I've recently read several other books which have been described as "like Rivers of London", so I had to read it. It's a London urban fantasy, like the Felix Castor novels, but specifically police-based.
It's full of both actual London-specific things, like a continual influx of second-generation immigrants adopting british phlegmatism, and british-police things that all ring so much more true to me (mainly from watching The Bill) than American cop shows, like graduating from Hendon and putting in a lot of elbow grease.
The main character has just graduated to constable, who falls in with an eccentric senior officer who is the last remaining officer tending the previously-thought-obsolete supernatural division, periodically slapped with some acronym, but mainly named after its grand but archaic headquarters.
The eponymous rivers are an ongoing feud between the "godess" of the lower Thames, and the "god" of the upper Thames, in which the main characters get embroiled.
The magic system is excellent: it's not too detailed, but it rings very true, with the combination of lots-of-practice and poring over dusty latin tomes which are informative but the main character thinks need more scientific method. And that the senior officer knows enough to be getting on with, but admits he's not always a scholar, and he'd like to know questions like "where magic comes from" but doesn't.
It's exactly the sort of setting I love, and does it very well.
Although I have a nagging dissatisfaction that the plots of the books don't hold up as well as the setting and characters -- I remember the books vividly, but I can't usually remember what was the instigating incident or how it was resolved.
London Falling (Paul Cornell)
Like the above, but by Paul Cornell. A bit more TV-show-y, which could be a plus or a minus. A more explicit devil figure.
Both book series are quite multicultural and make a creditable stab and gender equality. I've some caveats, it sometimes feels a bit ostentatious "lets describe this character's cultural history so the reader doesn't miss it", but that's probably necessary so the reader _doesn't_ miss it. Certainly both are much better than most books I read, and represent a British view of multiple races rather than an American one.
Man in the Empty Suit
Man in the Empty Suit has the most fascinating premise. The protagonist invents time travel, and every birthday goes to an abandoned hotel where all of his selves at different ages meet for a large birthday party with only him there. He has a set of rules for how to socialise with himself without giving away what's going to happen, though he keeps them imperfectly.
For most of his life, he's been looking forward to his 39th birthday, who was famous for wearing this especially fine suit, but that year, when he gets to the party, he finds someone has killed the 40-year-old self, and all the Elder selves tell him they know, but don't know what happened, and he has to solve the mystery, especially how all the elder selves still exist.
Unfortunately, not all of the book lives up to the premise.
But there are lots of lovely little touches about what its like to socialise with yourself, which is a sort of introspection I love (eg. in the last few episodes of Dollhouse).