Much Less Schadenfreude Than I Was Led To Expect

The Almost Perfect People

Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

By Michael Booth

I've been to Sweden and it's hard to square such a pleasant country with the cascade of gloomy chunky jumper wearing detectives that invade our television and bookshops.

And given that every new scandinoir conjures up a seedy world of moral compromise, secret historical shame and the certainty that society is in a state of terminal decline just why, in survey after survey, do the people of the region vote themselves the happiest in the world.

Michael Booth who is both married to a Dane and living in Denmark sets out to examine the roots of this contradiction. He tackles each Nordic country in turn, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland in turn -  providing a useful insight into their history, culture and idiosyncrasies. 

The blurb, misleadingly, stresses the 'hidden dark side' of the Nordic utopia but the book is in fact much more balanced and nuanced than that. Less schadenfreude and more wry humour.

Recommended.

Like Goldy or Bronzey...

My mother was a woman of fiercely expressed opinions - that the state should seize the commanding heights of the economy, that the Hungarians had it coming in 1956 and that she didn't know the meaning of the word sarcasm. The problem with the last one was that we, as her family, were never sure she wasn't lying when she said it. Certainly she often said things that sounded suspiciously sarcastic - 'I love it when everyone argues around the table' for example - but she continued to deny, until her dying day, that she even knew the meaning of the word. 

I found myself in a similar quandary when reading the excellent and hilarious Dairy of a Fleet Street Fox. In one chapter the Fleet Street Fox (in character) goes into an extended diatribe about how, in modern society, nobody, not politicians or members of the public, will take responsibility for their actions. There is at least a page and a half (it's hard to tell with a kindle) of this with named examples and how this trend to 'twatishness' is growing worse. 

Then, practically one page later, she does an equally long diatribe about how if journalists are racist, misogynistic, misanthropes it's not their fault because these traits are forced on them by repeated exposure to the venality and stupidity of the public. Now if the irony of this juxtaposition is lost on you then I commend for the Order of the Baldrick and suggest you probably read something else. 

My problem is I can't tell whether the Fleet Street Fox is being ironic or not or whether she totally wrote the passages without being aware of the hypocrisy that underlies them. Now I think she's being ironic but like with my mum I suspect I'm never going to know for sure.

A Year of Reviews

It's been a year and a bit since my first non tie-in novel was published and I've read a lot of reviews. I tried not to but I could no more resist them than I could a jumbo sized packet of chocolate covered peanuts. And like the chocolate peanuts I don't think devouring them did me much good but what you going to do?

To commemorate I thought I'd blog some of my favourite review quotes; the criteria being not whether they were favourable or damning but whether they stood out in some way - fun, insightful, clueless, zany or just plain incomprehensible.

Short and Sweet

London. Police. Wizards. Love. (I want this on a T-shirt)
Way better than most of the paranormal police procedurals out there, but from me that's like saying this is the most enjoyable open heart surgery. (Lovely image)
Loved it until page 304, then lost me completely at page 382. (Wonderfully specific)
I f**king love this book. (Hic. you're my best friend aintcha)
DNF. One-word review: tedious.(FOYIC)
I suggest you start reading this book without knowing a thing about it. (Too Late)
sexist author is sexist (I was tempted to respond 'Lazy critic is lazy' but I've been told not to do stuff like that.)

Peter Grant...

...a mixed-race hero - hurrah!
...struck me more like a preppie than a police officer...
There is no Ron or Hermione...
I love his slightly different background and POV!
...seemed to sort of bumble around and take his queues from the other characters instead of standing on his own.
...is a little wooden, although likeable...
...adorable, feisty, and at times completely clueless.
...(and hot…. Peter Grant? Come on, you totally would.)
Sadly, the main character is a bit of a Nice Guy & far too much time is spent going on about women who wont shag him...
...he's not divorced, he's not bitter, he's not lonely, he's not white.
...I think Harry might have been a bit more competent than Peter Grant is.
...no self respecting mixed race person that would ever describe themselves as "a little bit ethnic". I promise you that would get ad-lib if it were on TV.
Had Harry Potter been this boring, I would have rooted for Voldemort.

London...

If the book had included a map this might have been a little bit easier.
I found the geography lessons more interesting than the plot...
Just a shame his UK publisher titled it Rivers Of London. Almost didn't pick it up, thinking it was actually about the rivers of London.
As a native Londoner this book makes me homesick.

The women...

I really could have done without the stereotypical lesbian - because all lesbians look like men and have hair that looks like a bicycle helmet, ya know...
...women aren't just breasts and vaginas, which the narrator and the world of the book often seems to forget.
...his approach to female characters verged on misogynistic (really!)...
...a somewhat magical woman, associated with the River Thames, starts out as a sexy love interest, ends traded to a group of magical country rubes, perhaps as a sex willing concubine.

The Author...

...it seems that this series will be a repository for all his ideas that wouldn't make it into Doctor Who in a month of Sundays - even the Torchwood team would balk at many of them. 
...I'm thinking the author might have some unconscious issues with women.
...is far more interested in jazz and the architecture of London than he is on magic, policework, action, sex, or anything else...

 
The story is...

...definitely a little strange.
I found myself alternately getting bored enough to contemplate giving up, then getting to an action scene that was interesting enough to give me hope that the rest of the book would hold my attention. Unfortunately the slow parts-then-good stuff pattern would then repeat itself...
I didn't know what was going on half of the time.
The plotting is a little herky-jerky at times...
...started out as a fantastic crooked little adventure and ended muddled and boring.
...loafs along with the easy inevitability of Agatha Christie mystery.
...good and boring at same time.
An average Urban Fantasy that is more concerned with London than story or magic or anything else really...
...A fun and intertaining Torchwoodesque story.
Pap, but enjoyable, well-crafted pap.
An unremarkable book full of remarkable things.(1)
It was a bit too swift in places which made following the details of the case difficult.
...a fun, quirky book which is light to read and yet still sinister.
...an innocent will not want to read these books. But, they are fun.
This is a fun and entertaining book that is trying really hard to be even more fun and entertaining than it is.

And as for the style...

The paragraph lengths (very, very long) are also daunting.
The prose isn't perfect - I do wish Mr Aaronovitch had used a few more semicolons and a few less commas...
I don't see how it's different from Anita Blake or The Dresden Files, except for the exotic british slang.
I'm still not sure I approve of how often Google & YouTube were mentioned.
...a concoction consisting of the humor of Terry Pratchett, a dice of Neil Gaiman's characters and plot and finally a fixer kind of guy and supernatural goings on from Jim Butcher.
Is this fine literature? No. Is it well written? Not particularly.
As one who prefers good and[sic] grammar to bad and loathes "metrication" very deeply, this does not appeal.
Like a Mark Billingham rewritten by Robert Rankin.
More popcorn for the mind...

DISAPPOINTED!(2)

Judging by the book blurb and author quotes on the cover, this book seemed like it should have been something I'd enjoy, but I have to say I was disappointed.
I’m not ready for another trip into the fairy world.
The humour evaporates, as does the novelty...
...I initially judged the book by the cover and thought this was going to be written more seriously than it was.
I can't see much resemblense[sic] to it and for me Dresden Files is a lot more funnier written than Midnight Riot.
Disappointing, particularly so given the 4-star average rating. ...The world-building is lacking and inconsistent, actions taken seem out of character, and the ending was a confusing, muddled mess. The Dresden Files this ain't. ...Aaronovitch has several prior books under his belt - most of which seem to be TV novelizations. Never a good sign. No clue how this book has the rating it does.
So boring. Everything from the magic to the characters is paper thin and barely explored.
It was just depressing that the character discovers magic is real but it's directed towards hurting people & quarreling.
I'll give the second book a chance and hope it explains some of the nonsense in this one.
...i found the characters very shallow and couldn't get to grip with them, i kept losing track of the plot, eventually i gave up.
It was perhaps unfair to read a book with such lofty expectations...
...it reminded me too much of China Mieville's Kraken - and reminded me how much more I'd enjoyed that.
...the story itself would fit nicely into a TV procedural without too much grief.  And I don't mean a season finale level episode either, more like the last episode before sweeps start.
I was completely willing to go along with it, until the resolution suspended my disbelief from a very high bridge.
I can't say too much about this book as I gave up after 140 pages...
I picked up Rivers of London expecting to fall in love, but unfortunately I just didn't.
I am a fan of Harry Potter and this book is certainly not the adult version.
It's ridiculous story line made me so angry that I couldn't bare it any longer. I am a fan of Harry Potter and this book is certainly not the adult version.
...read like a verbal A toZ of london with a ridiculous storyline relying on time travel, magic, and the existance of Gods of the Thames.
...plot and characters aren't very original. Wizards and magic - see Harry Potter. Super cop and side kick - see Doctor Who. Even one of the most original characters, Mama Thames, reminded me of The Oracle from The Matrix!!
We read conversation after conversation at location after location, and when things do happen, they are not very interesting.
The concept is great, the story imaginative - the writing however, is awful.

Ewww! It's just too.... British.

The most difficult thing for me with the book was that Aaronovitch used a lot of British slang that I wasn’t familiar with.
I did have a little trouble with the London slang, but I still enjoyed the book.
My main complaint it that it was definitely geared toward a UK/London audience.
My "issue" with this book is COMPLETELY PERSONAL. I'm not familiar with British writing -- I'm too comfortable with American style. So like 75% of reading this book, I totally don't "get" it. It's hard to enjoy the story when I don't feel comfortable with the language. It's like I'm looking on these words but they don't mean anythin to me. It's totally my own failure, I know, and should not reflect the quality of the book.

(1) This is one of my favourites and led to me spending a week saying things like "This is an indigestible plate covered in digestible things."
(2) Try to imagine Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda.

I Fiumi Di Londra

I Fiumi Di Londra - otherwise known as Rivers of London will be published in translation by Silvia Tiles by Fanucci on the 19th January 2012.

This follows hard on the heels of the German edition and means, once the French edition is released this spring, that not speaking English will cease to be an excuse for not buying my book across a large swathe of Europe.

I'm told that Spanish and Hungarian editions are also in the works.

Schwarzer Mond Uber Soho

Black Moon Over Soho
I don't know why it's a black moon but the covers good and it's in German and that's the main thing. Here is the blurb... I have no idea what it says.

Constable Peter Grant ist ein ganz normaler Londoner Bobby. Die Abteilung, in der er arbeitet, ist allerdings alles andere als normal: ihr Spezialgebiet ist - die Magie. Peters Vorgesetzter, Detective Inspector Thomas Nightingale, ist der letzte Magier Englands und Peter seit kurzem bei ihm in der Ausbildung.

Was im Moment vor allem das Auswendiglernen von Lateinvokabeln bedeutet, die uralten Zaubersprüche wollen schließlich korrekt aufgesagt werden. Doch als Peter eines Nachts zu der Leiche eines Jazzmusikers gerufen wird, verliert das Lateinstudium auf einmal seine Dringlichkeit. Peter findet heraus, dass in den Jazzclubs in Soho, im Herzen Londons, plötzlich verdächtig viele Musiker eines unerwarteten Todes sterben. Hier geht etwas nicht mit rechten Dingen zu ...

I wish it was in Russian

I'd love my books to be published in Russian (as well as German and Hungarian) but alas so far this has not happened. Fortunately on the interweb a Russian reviewer has translated the first couple of paragraphs of Rivers of London and since I still own the copyright I have no compunction about nicking it and showing it here...

«Реки Лондона»
Это началось в час тринадцать холодным утром вторника в январе, когда Мартин Тёрнер, уличный актер и, по собственным словам, жиголо, споткнулся о тело, перед западным портиком собора Святого Павла в Ковент-Гардене. Мартин, который был не слишком трезв сам, сперва подумал, что тело было одним из многих празднующих, кто выбрал площадь в качестве удобного наружного туалета и спальни. Будучи прожженным лондонцем, Мартин бросил на тело «лондонский оценивающий» быстрый взгляд, чтобы понять, был ли это пьяный, безумный или человек, пребывающий в депрессии. Факт того, что это было вполне возможно для кого-то быть одержимым всеми тремя симптомами сразу — был причиной, по которой добро-самаритянизм в Лондоне приравнивался к экстремальному спорту — как бейсджампинг или реслинг с крокодилами. Мартин, отмечая хорошего качества пальто и ботинки, только-только квалифицировал тело как пьяное, когда заметил, что оно без головы.

Как отметил Мартин детективам, проводившим с ним беседу, это было очень хорошо, что он был пьян, потому что в противном случае он бы напрасно потерял время вопя и бегая вокруг — особенно, когда понял, что стоит в луже крови. Вместо этого с медленной, методической выдержкой пьяного и испуганного, Мартин Тёрнер набрал 999 и попросил полицию.

Things for next year - The Heroes

I try, as best I can, to avoid buying books in hardback. It's not the price but the size and weight that deters me. Anyone who's tried reading A Game of Thrones or The Evolutionary Void on the tube will attest to the dangers of wrist strain and, worse, the risk of serious injury to one's fellow commuters.

Still there are some authors for whom I just can't wait and Joe Abercrombie is one of them. I'm looking forward to another cynical, black nailed, foul mouthed and blood soaked chapter in the history of the world of the First Law which, according to Amazon, will be mine in March 2011.

Apparently it's actually available from January - so much better!

The Sweet Scent of Blood by Suzanne McLeod

Some people, when writing urban fantasy, like to keep the magical aspects of their world low key and subtle. They aim for a certain understated elegance whereby the fantastic lurks in interstices of the mundane world.

Other people say 'Oh bondage up yours', rip the kitchen sink from the wall and fling in to the bubbling cauldron of story. Susanne McLeod is one of the loud people her spellcracker.com series is filled to the brim with witches, fey, sorcerers, vampires, trolls and the sort of colour that is usually the preserve Jack Vance and people who are seriously off their meds,

Now others have taken this approach and have ended up with either a thick, brown, unappetising mush or a novel so weighed down with cliché that it slips from your fingers and, in defiance of Isaac Newton, falls sideways to strike the opposite wall with enough force to rattle the windows.

McLeod dances past these pitfalls and delivers a book where the weight of the concepts is transmitted perfectly down the arm of story, into the fist prose that connects smartly with the rubbery nose of reader enjoyment. And with my metaphor slipping slowly into the west I think I'm going to stop here...

Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon

When I first conceived the idea of an urban fantasy set in and around Covent Garden I did so secure in the knowledge that, if nothing else, at least the setting would be original.

Imagine my horror when, a mere 10,000 words into my magnificent octopus, the very personable Mike Shevdon turned up in my shop and thrust an ARC of his first novel into my hands. It's an urban fantasy, he told me cheerfully, set in and around Covent Garden.

I said thank you through gritted teeth and promised faithfully to make sure I ordered lots of copies and put them face out. That evening I started reading on the bus home in the hope that it would be terrible but unfortunately it wasn't.

It was actually very good - damn!

Beautifully researched, meticulously plotted and paced to keep you in suspense until the very last page this is an excellent book and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

King Maker by Maurice Broaddus

This is a cunningly wrought retelling of the Arthurian myth set amongst the street gangs of Indianapolis (a city I'm afraid to say I had to look up on Wikipedia). As usual this isn't exactly a review (but it is an endorsement) more a singling out of the aspect of a book that particularly caught my eye.

Spoilers ahead.

The clever thing in King Maker is the shroud of ambiguity that Broaddus wraps around the supernatural for the first half of the book. Many of the characters live in something close to a state of waking hallucination brought on by drugs, mental illness and years of poverty and abuse that even when something indisputably supernatural happens in the text you still find yourself questioning whether it actually happened or not.

This ambiguity prevents the supernatural elements from swamping the horrific reality of the setting allowing the magic to serve as a spot light to throw the characters lives into harsh relief.

Fortunately, for anyone like me who has finished the book, the second novel is due to be published in February 2011 - I have mine on pre-order already.

Things for next Year - The Wine of Angels

I've been waiting for them to reprint this book since I shelved The Remains of an Altar when I was working at Waterstones. Intrigued by the basic premise I went book in the series and found it was out of print. Like many people I hate starting a series midway through but out of print is out of print.

Once I'd read The Remains of an Altar my desperation intensified but fortunately, according to Amazon at least, the book is being re-released in March 2011. I already have my copy on pre-order.

Turbulence by Samit Basu

I was first sent this novel as a very large word file and was asked to read it as a favour to my agent. I procrastinated, as I always do in these circumstances, but finally when at eleven o'clock in the evening there was nothing left to watch on telly I opened the file.

I'll just give it a quick scan, I thought to myself.

Three o'clock the next morning I finished reading with that rare sense of loss you get when you finish a book you never really wanted to end.

I'm terrible at summaries and reviews so I'll just say that it involves superpowers, politics, the limits of human responsibility and is fast paced, deep, crisply written, full of vim, vigour, wit, wisdom and zest.

Plus it's really, really funny. As the man with the long name at the bottom of the cover says...

"You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll gasp and YOU WILL demand a sequel!"

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

I don't write reviews partly because I'm lazy and partly because I don't feel I can do justice to someone's work without doing way more writing than I'm willing to do without a contract. I do like to recommend books that I enjoyed and then loot them for any useful craft wisdom the author might have left lying around their text.

Zoo City by South African author Lauren Beukes is a wonderful fantasy noir thriller and then some and you should read it for that reason alone.

However if you are a writer you should also read it because it is a masterclass of how to weave exposition into your book and when and where to spring those little details that bring a setting vividly to life.

So that's my recommendation and my looting - enjoy.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

I’ve just finished N.K. Jemisin’s ‘The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms’ and a damn fine book it is too. In turns intriguing, terrifying and exciting it follows the story Yeine Darr a formerly outcast scion of the family that rules the world (the eponymous Hundred Thousand Kingdoms) who is summoned unexpectedly to Sky, the centre of all power, as part of a Machiavellian succession plot. Now I like castlepunk but this takes palace intrigue throws in half the spice cupboard and a shelf full of metaphysics and turns the heat up to eleven. I had really good time reading it and that’s what counts for me.

From a craft perspective I was particularly struck by how cleverly Jemisin starts the book. Yeine Darr, the narrator, keeps restarting her story as she remembers things that she needs to tell you before she can continue. Done skilfully, as it is here, this allows Jemisin to lay down some serious pipe without holding up the story or breaking reader immersion and give us an insight into Yeine’s own mental state. I’m looking forward to the next book.

The Painted Man

I was given a proof copy of this book at work, I am the resident geek after all, and because free stuff is free stuff I started to read. I had very low expectations, apart from the Blade Itself (reviewed below) I've become increasingly discontent with fantasy novels. I expected this either to be the kind of generic fantasy in which the author ticks off a list of cliches - obscure hero, wise mentor, vestigial empire - or one of the new breed of 'oh look how cynical I am' anti-Tolkeins where the same cliches are ticked off only this time upside down.

Instead the world building was startlingly fresh and original and the characterisations had that quality that all good writing aspires to - they felt 'true'. Not realistic you understand since human beings are almost never realistic in real life but true.

I'm going to pay the author the greatest compliment I know - I'm going to buy the second volume with my own money.

The Blade Itself

I really like this book. Joe Abercrombie has taken the standard fantasy tropes, young heroes, wise wizards, bold barbarians and distressed damsels and twisted them into the kind of hyperdimensional pretzel shapes that quantum physicists use to describe string theory. I haven't enjoyed a book by an author I didn't know this much since the golden age of science fiction (aka when I was 12 years old).

What I like most about it is that while Abercrombie is going for seriously grim (ala Perdido Street Station) there exists within his work a rich vein of optimism and hope. While an iron determination to stick to the 'life is shit' zeitgeist keeps the plot spirally down to its nihilist conclusion Abercrombie's intent is undermined by his pesky faith in human nature.

The result is a wonderful tension between hope and despair that gripped me all the way to the end of the third volume.

Did I mention that the most sympathetic character is a professional torturer, and I don't mean he's the DESIGNATED HERO I mean genuinely sympathetic. Got to love a book like that. So I want both of you to go out and buy it right away.