tracey_stewart's review against another edition
5.0
Ben Aaronovitch has an excellent pedigree: he wrote two 7th-Doctor-era serials for Doctor Who, and has written DW novels which I will now have to seek out. And he seems to have been the first to send a Dalek up a staircase. Evil, evil man.
I'm becoming an audiobook voice groupie. Which is going to be a problem here, because the sequel to Rivers of London is not (legally) available in the US. [ETA: It just took patience: they get here eventually!] Mia Michaels, judging on "So You Think You Can Dance", coined a word I've been using ever since. The spelling is debatable, but it is, roughly, "gorgeois" – pronounced "gor-zhwah". That word, for me, is a very good descriptor of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's narration of Rivers of London. (Hey, he pronounced "chaise longue" correctly. If for nothing else I love him for that – and there's plenty more to adore.) He has a deep, dark, dusty voice, and reads aloud like a dream. His character voices are stupendous. London being the (insert something less clichéd than "melting pot" here) that it is, KHS has a variety of not only British regional but international dialects to deal with: male, female, other, Scots, Cockney, British Received, Nigerian, more – all are wonderful. It's lovely to hear him switch from what may be his own voice, here the voice of Peter Grant, to the dry light patrician tones of Nightingale – equally natural, equally fluent, and so different from the sound of Peter that it could truly be a different speaker. There is nothing between Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and the experiences he tells of, no evidence whatsoever that the words he speaks were ever such dead things as print on a page.
The writing doesn't hurt in that endeavor. Ben Aaronovitch's style is utterly natural and conversational, perfectly in keeping with the first-person voice of young Peter Grant, his main character. It's no young adult book – the "f-bomb" is dropped liberally, for one thing, and then there's the violence – but it is the story of the beginning of an apprenticeship, of the opening up of a strange, unsuspected world within the common mundane. Peter's world is, if not turned upside-down, tilted at a startling angle, and everything changes. And then changes again. Then gets a little stranger. I loved that he took every part of it, from the very beginning, back to his classmate and sort-of-partner Lesley to talk over, not worrying (much) about whether or not she would believe him. I think I'm in love with Peter Grant (and Chief Inspector Nightingale), but that could just be the influence of The Voice.
I laughed at this from Wikipedia (be careful of spoilers on the page):
- Police Constable Lesley May; an officer in the Metropolitan Police who, having completed her mandatory probationary period, is expected to go far.
- Police Constable Peter Grant; an officer in the Metropolitan Police who, having completed his mandatory probationary period, is expected to do paperwork.
The story does a fascinating job of limning the difference between the sort of person who becomes a "copper" and the rest of us. I think it was a commercial for some possibly short-lived network series that explained that most people run away from trouble, while first responders run toward it. Here this is underscored, especially in the first chapters: Grant and May, the brand shiny new PC's, are caught up in the tail end of a hideous incident, and wind up standing shaking, covered in blood not their own, faced with a dead family and a scene of horrendous violence – and they field the situation. And come back for more. Most people (I) tend to want to avoid this sort of thing, and having been unable to avoid it once would do absolutely anything to avoid experiencing anything like it again….
I love how this world, this alternate London, was built. There isn't so much a conspiracy of silence as in, say, Harry Potter, where the wizarding world goes out of its way to keep muggles safe ignorance. (I love that Harry Potter exists in Peter Grant's world. It will be great fun to keep that in mind going on with the series, to try to spin it to determine what if anything the Alternate Jo Rowling knew about real wizardry.) In this London, in this world, it's more a matter of the muggles not wanting to see what they can't cope with (or not having the ability to see it), and the wizarding world simply staying rather quiet and out of the way. I love the skepticism, giving way grudgingly to acceptance, of just about everyone; I love Peter's attitude toward the situation in general and his situation in very much particular.
I love how the British title – so much better than the American – is brought to life. The voice of Mother Thames is wise and remarkably feminine and beautifully accented, and the tale of how she became Mother Thames is a small gem of storytelling. And then we go to meet Papa Thames. It's the sort of storytelling I just want to hug to myself and not let go of. And – bonus – I learned a bit. Going on to listen to A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, I could be a bit smug as the author talked about executions at Tyburn.
I loved just about everything about this book. I loved the revelations about what was going on – something which could have been truly awful in different hands, but which was suspenseful and horrifying here. I loved not knowing whether I could trust Aaronovitch with characters' lives. I even loved Peter's ambivalence toward Toby – and that's not like me. I can't honestly think of anything I didn't like. I can't wait to get my hands on the second book (and the third, and so on) – but I wish, I deeply wish, that the audio book was available here. It just won't be quite as much fun without KH-S.
But I have faith that it will be fun.
I'm becoming an audiobook voice groupie. Which is going to be a problem here, because the sequel to Rivers of London is not (legally) available in the US. [ETA: It just took patience: they get here eventually!] Mia Michaels, judging on "So You Think You Can Dance", coined a word I've been using ever since. The spelling is debatable, but it is, roughly, "gorgeois" – pronounced "gor-zhwah". That word, for me, is a very good descriptor of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's narration of Rivers of London. (Hey, he pronounced "chaise longue" correctly. If for nothing else I love him for that – and there's plenty more to adore.) He has a deep, dark, dusty voice, and reads aloud like a dream. His character voices are stupendous. London being the (insert something less clichéd than "melting pot" here) that it is, KHS has a variety of not only British regional but international dialects to deal with: male, female, other, Scots, Cockney, British Received, Nigerian, more – all are wonderful. It's lovely to hear him switch from what may be his own voice, here the voice of Peter Grant, to the dry light patrician tones of Nightingale – equally natural, equally fluent, and so different from the sound of Peter that it could truly be a different speaker. There is nothing between Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and the experiences he tells of, no evidence whatsoever that the words he speaks were ever such dead things as print on a page.
The writing doesn't hurt in that endeavor. Ben Aaronovitch's style is utterly natural and conversational, perfectly in keeping with the first-person voice of young Peter Grant, his main character. It's no young adult book – the "f-bomb" is dropped liberally, for one thing, and then there's the violence – but it is the story of the beginning of an apprenticeship, of the opening up of a strange, unsuspected world within the common mundane. Peter's world is, if not turned upside-down, tilted at a startling angle, and everything changes. And then changes again. Then gets a little stranger. I loved that he took every part of it, from the very beginning, back to his classmate and sort-of-partner Lesley to talk over, not worrying (much) about whether or not she would believe him. I think I'm in love with Peter Grant (and Chief Inspector Nightingale), but that could just be the influence of The Voice.
I laughed at this from Wikipedia (be careful of spoilers on the page):
- Police Constable Lesley May; an officer in the Metropolitan Police who, having completed her mandatory probationary period, is expected to go far.
- Police Constable Peter Grant; an officer in the Metropolitan Police who, having completed his mandatory probationary period, is expected to do paperwork.
The story does a fascinating job of limning the difference between the sort of person who becomes a "copper" and the rest of us. I think it was a commercial for some possibly short-lived network series that explained that most people run away from trouble, while first responders run toward it. Here this is underscored, especially in the first chapters: Grant and May, the brand shiny new PC's, are caught up in the tail end of a hideous incident, and wind up standing shaking, covered in blood not their own, faced with a dead family and a scene of horrendous violence – and they field the situation. And come back for more. Most people (I) tend to want to avoid this sort of thing, and having been unable to avoid it once would do absolutely anything to avoid experiencing anything like it again….
I love how this world, this alternate London, was built. There isn't so much a conspiracy of silence as in, say, Harry Potter, where the wizarding world goes out of its way to keep muggles safe ignorance. (I love that Harry Potter exists in Peter Grant's world. It will be great fun to keep that in mind going on with the series, to try to spin it to determine what if anything the Alternate Jo Rowling knew about real wizardry.) In this London, in this world, it's more a matter of the muggles not wanting to see what they can't cope with (or not having the ability to see it), and the wizarding world simply staying rather quiet and out of the way. I love the skepticism, giving way grudgingly to acceptance, of just about everyone; I love Peter's attitude toward the situation in general and his situation in very much particular.
I love how the British title – so much better than the American – is brought to life. The voice of Mother Thames is wise and remarkably feminine and beautifully accented, and the tale of how she became Mother Thames is a small gem of storytelling. And then we go to meet Papa Thames. It's the sort of storytelling I just want to hug to myself and not let go of. And – bonus – I learned a bit. Going on to listen to A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, I could be a bit smug as the author talked about executions at Tyburn.
I loved just about everything about this book. I loved the revelations about what was going on – something which could have been truly awful in different hands, but which was suspenseful and horrifying here. I loved not knowing whether I could trust Aaronovitch with characters' lives. I even loved Peter's ambivalence toward Toby – and that's not like me. I can't honestly think of anything I didn't like. I can't wait to get my hands on the second book (and the third, and so on) – but I wish, I deeply wish, that the audio book was available here. It just won't be quite as much fun without KH-S.
But I have faith that it will be fun.
awkwardsnitch's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
veronica87's review against another edition
2.0
Reread via audiobook August 2019: Though the first book didn't really impress me very much when I read it back in 2014, I decided to give the series another chance mostly because I needed an audiobook for my treadmill time and this one was available. I have to say that while my initial impressions of the book haven't changed - if anything I think some aspects make even less sense now - I did enjoy the narrator. He brought some of the humor to life in an understated way soooo, I will try continuing with the series via audiobook...for now.
2 stars: plot
3 stars: narration
I know this series gets a lot of love and always comes up in comparisons to the Dresden books but, for me, it just felt a little flat. The London setting was nice and Peter Grant seems to be a solid, likeable character with a dry sense of humor but I kept waiting for the story to grab me by my shirt collar and refuse to let go...and that just never happened. The story takes place in modern London but all the supernatural elements felt tacked on willy-nilly, with no semblance of a mythology to tie it all together or to make sense of it. As for the secondary characters, they didn't fare much better in the fleshing out department than the main hero did, which is to say, not much depth going on for anyone.
Another thing that didn't ring quite true to me is just how easily Peter took the news that the supernatural world even exists. He may as well have been told the sky is blue for all the surprise or disbelief or even doubt he showed. There was never any conflict for him in learning that the world as it truly is is, in fact, quite different from the world as he's always known it. More to the point, there is never any conflict anywhere in the story. There is no real dissension between Peter and any of the immediate main characters with whom he associates. There is, to my mind, no tension between Peter and the female police officer he fancies. Oh sure, there are some supernatural murders to solve but that read like a police procedural and I never got any real sense of urgency from it. Even the conclusion, where a guilty party seemed to give in too easily, seemed devoid of any real gravitas.
I don't expect first books to be perfect and I don't expect characters to be fully realized this early in a series. What I do expect, what I NEED, in order to move forward with additional books is at least ONE character that captivates my interest or ONE relationship that intrigues me (and, no, it doesn't have to be romantic) but unfortunately everything here just fell a little too much on the bland side for my tastes. I found it very easy to find stopping places to put the book down and I usually had to motivate myself to pick it back up again. I'm not opposed to reading more in the series but I won't be tripping over myself to do so.
2 stars: plot
3 stars: narration
I know this series gets a lot of love and always comes up in comparisons to the Dresden books but, for me, it just felt a little flat. The London setting was nice and Peter Grant seems to be a solid, likeable character with a dry sense of humor but I kept waiting for the story to grab me by my shirt collar and refuse to let go...and that just never happened. The story takes place in modern London but all the supernatural elements felt tacked on willy-nilly, with no semblance of a mythology to tie it all together or to make sense of it. As for the secondary characters, they didn't fare much better in the fleshing out department than the main hero did, which is to say, not much depth going on for anyone.
Another thing that didn't ring quite true to me is just how easily Peter took the news that the supernatural world even exists. He may as well have been told the sky is blue for all the surprise or disbelief or even doubt he showed. There was never any conflict for him in learning that the world as it truly is is, in fact, quite different from the world as he's always known it. More to the point, there is never any conflict anywhere in the story. There is no real dissension between Peter and any of the immediate main characters with whom he associates. There is, to my mind, no tension between Peter and the female police officer he fancies. Oh sure, there are some supernatural murders to solve but that read like a police procedural and I never got any real sense of urgency from it. Even the conclusion, where a guilty party seemed to give in too easily, seemed devoid of any real gravitas.
I don't expect first books to be perfect and I don't expect characters to be fully realized this early in a series. What I do expect, what I NEED, in order to move forward with additional books is at least ONE character that captivates my interest or ONE relationship that intrigues me (and, no, it doesn't have to be romantic) but unfortunately everything here just fell a little too much on the bland side for my tastes. I found it very easy to find stopping places to put the book down and I usually had to motivate myself to pick it back up again. I'm not opposed to reading more in the series but I won't be tripping over myself to do so.
tab9's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
allieuofm's review against another edition
4.0
This book was fun, clever, and intriguing all the way through. The audiobook narrator was excellent, the world-building integrated into the story, and the characters were developed and empathetic. I look forward to listening to the rest of the series!
booksandlemonsquash's review against another edition
5.0
I picked up the audio book for this because I love this series and because I was talking to someone about it at the weekend and they’d said how good the narrator was (they were right, he’s fab).
I’d forgotten just how many British-isms, jokes, nerd bits and generally wonderful gems were crammed into this book!
I’d forgotten just how many British-isms, jokes, nerd bits and generally wonderful gems were crammed into this book!
thryn78's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25