Re: The Rivers of London Series

On 13/08/2024 22:53, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

     The Rivers of London series
 "Tales from the Folly" by Ben Aaronvitch is another set in the
World of the Rivers of London which are short pieces about
characters from previous stories. This was very good but you
have to know something about the series from other stories
to enjoy them. So though I do not have a copy on hand to verify
details of names I thought I would type up bit of information
starting below.
     The Folly is the ancient building which is used as
headquarters for the Magicians who work for and are officers
of the Metropolitan Police Force and are called for any case
with the hint of the other than natural.

A few quibbles.
Perhaps the Rivers should come up sooner, but
how far the stories is about them is variable.
London's big river is the Thames, and many other
rivers join it, inside and outside the city.
Everywhere in this world, substantial rivers
have immortal-ish manoid bosses with big magical
powers who regard themselves as gods.
In the first novel itself, _Rivers of London_
or _Midnight Riot_, Father Thames and his sons
retreated upriver from heavily polluted London
about 150 years ago, or else died... ish.
And since about 50 years ago, new river spirits
appeared, mostly Black women, some children.
Now, Father Thames and Mother Thames and their
families are now fighting over, er, turf.
One role for the Folly is to be peace brokers
in this conflict.
My point is that the Rivers, especially the
males, have long memories; I think The Folly,
built in 1796 to accommodate followers of famous
magician Sir Isaac Newton (well, famous and a
magician in this series) but quite some time
after his lifetime, probably isn't considered
"ancient" in London.
A fan resource says, I assume accurately, that
"Prior to the construction of the 'modern' Folly
building, the members of the Society of the Wise
[for it is they] met on the Bedford Estate in
'a faux medieval tower' or architectural "folly" -
in the sense of a building constructed primarily
for decoration, but suggesting through its
appearance some other purpose."  In other words,
that looked like something out of King Arthur,
but it was, at the time, more or less new.
And what they got in 1796 is basically a
townhouse.  But with laboratories and a
lecture theatre.

As in the Laundry Files doing magic can be very hard on the
brain and spells are difficult to learn but the hero is gaining
power and control as he works.  He has an ancient Mentor who
survived horrific magical actions in WW II when most of the
British and I believe German magicians were wiped out. Mentor
seems to used life extending magics.

Thomas Nightingale claims not to know why
one day, I think in the 1960s, he began to
grow younger.  Magic of some kind seems likely.
German police wizards appear in this book.
In Germany.  In another, _The October Man_,
they seem to be extraordinarily interested
and creepily well informed about Peter Grant
who does not appear.  And who does not appear
to know about them.  It is not particularly
likely that Peter will travel to Germany, but
since riotous things happen wherever he is,
I suppose one would want to know.

     The Mentor has some secrets hidden in a vault and is
relentless in refining the skills of his apprentices, one of
whom goes over to the enemy but seems to sympathize with the
Folly at times. The Senior Apprentice remaining is a
dark-skinned Brit whose father is a jazz musician and mother
is from the Islands with a touch of family magic.

Mrs Grant was born in Sierra Leone, a real
country in Africa.  According to Wikipedia,
"In 1808, the coastal Sierra Leone Colony
was founded as a place to resettle returning
Africans after the abolition of the slave
trade; then in 1896, the inland Protectorate
was created as a result of the Berlin
Conference of 1884–1885.  This led to the
formal recognition of the territory as the
Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate, or
British Sierra Leone."
Mrs Grant is tolerant of ethical magic
that isn't witchcraft.  She does not appear
to be a practitioner.  Peter Grant doesn't
seem to have been exposed to magic before
_Midnight Riot_, although it's curious that
in his school days, anything that he made
in clay, in art class, exploded in the kiln.
His practice of magic has a tendency to
explosions, not to mention events of fire,
flood, and large buildings falling down
under or on top of him quite often.  Which
he isn't doing, but often someone else is.

     Some magicians were disabled by the war experience so
that they have retreated from cities to more comfortable environs.
The Enemy is a powerful magician committing crimes and attempting
to gain access to immense power. So far he has eluded arrest by
presenting the SA with choices of damage to others if captured
or saving the innocents.  He has done some very vile things using
his magic and even more vile things to gain and increase his power.
  There also have a magically powerful cousin of the SA who is
getting preliminary tutoring but will be on staff when she finishes
High School at least; The Folly may send her to college.

To clear this up a bit, in theory anybody
can learn magic, it isn't a special gift.
Performance varies.  And done wrong, it
leads to brain injury.  In one of the
_Tales from the Folly_, it is caused by
brain injury.
Abigail Kamara is intelligent and troublesome
and she gets Peter Grant unwisely to promise to
teach her how to do magic, but Nightingale takes
on that responsibility instead - and only if she
passes school Latin, which Peter expected that
she wouldn't be attempting.  Magic doesn't have
to be in Latin, but the textbooks, up to now
(or the 1940s), are, so you do have to learn Latin.
Peter uses Google Translate.  I think consequences
of thst haven't been shown, yet, but they could be
extraordinarily dramatic.
I don't remember if I've seen Abigail perform any
magic herself, in action, but her Latin is up to it.

SA meets
and socializes with the Deities of the Rivers of London and one
called Beverly Brook will fall in love with him and make him a
father.  So SA gets to travel to the scenes of crimes both inside
London and in the provinces.

This is reading ahead quite a lot.  Remember
Lesley May.  And Simone Fitzwilliam actually does.
_Tales from the Folly_ does explain, or show,
how little rivers are brought about.  I'm not
remembering if saying this is close to "spoiling"
any stories in the collection, or if Mr. Arrowitch
does that himself anyway, in the introductions.

     No better reading for the people sick of the doom that
came from tailpipes or politics so read Ben Arronvitch's work
for a good time.
      bliss