The Rivers of London Series

[Bobbie Sellers]

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.

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.
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.
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. 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.

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

[BillGill]

    The Rivers of London series

    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

Aaronovitch is my favorite fantasy author. So go
get them.

[Tony Nance]

    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.
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.
    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.
    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.  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.
    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

As coincidence would have it, I just finished Winter's Gifts last night;
and I read Tales from the Folly back in January. I very much enjoy the
entire Rivers of London series, and I'm looking forward to future entries.

Tony

[Robert Carnegie]

    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

[Robert Woodward]

Post by Robert Carnegie

    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.

Which I won't quibble with, however ...

<Snip>

Post by Robert Carnegie
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.

In chapter 17 of _Broken Homes_, Varvara Sidornova stated that August
Bank Holiday in 1966 was the day she started to get younger ("opened a
door into summer").

<Snip>

Post by Robert Carnegie
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.

Nightingale wonders if his teaching methods need improvement in _False
Values_ because Abigail, like Peter, was generating explosions.

More to the point, in the most recent graphic novel, _Stray Cat Blues_,
Abigail was using magic in issue 4 (just out today, Aug 21st, in the
USA).

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Robert Woodward
More to the point, in the most recent graphic novel, _Stray Cat Blues_,
Abigail was using magic in issue 4 (just out today, Aug 21st, in the
USA).

I'd not bothered to track the comics down, as one I checked early on
didn't have Ben Aaronovitch as the author. Checking the wiki now, they
all appear to so I don't know what happened there - I blame Amazon
metadata failure.

Well, now I have to go lose some money. I guess they're fully canon with
the books?

Cheers - Jaimie

[BillGill]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Robert Woodward
More to the point, in the most recent graphic novel, _Stray Cat Blues_,
Abigail was using magic in issue 4 (just out today, Aug 21st, in the
USA).

I'd not bothered to track the comics down, as one I checked early on
didn't have Ben Aaronovitch as the author. Checking the wiki now, they
all appear to so I don't know what happened there - I blame Amazon
metadata failure.
Well, now I have to go lose some money. I guess they're fully canon with
the books?
Cheers - Jaimie

First off: I haven't read many comic books since I grew up,
something like 60 years ago. And I don't care for them. I
did read a lot of them when I was young. Partly because that
was what we had where we lived.

That being said, I tried one of the Rivers of London
comic books, and didn't care for it. I have tried to read
it 2 or 3 times, and just can't get into it. Not having
read them does mean that I don't get some of the comments
that are scattered through the books.

Bill

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Robert Woodward
More to the point, in the most recent graphic novel, _Stray Cat Blues_,
Abigail was using magic in issue 4 (just out today, Aug 21st, in the
USA).

I'd not bothered to track the comics down, as one I checked early on
didn't have Ben Aaronovitch as the author. Checking the wiki now, they
all appear to so I don't know what happened there - I blame Amazon
metadata failure.
Well, now I have to go lose some money. I guess they're fully canon with
the books?
     Cheers - Jaimie

First off:  I haven't read many comic books since I grew up,
something like 60 years ago.  And I don't care for them.  I
did read a lot of them when I was young.  Partly because that
was what we had where we lived.
That being said, I tried one of the Rivers of London
comic books, and didn't care for it.  I have tried to read
it 2 or 3 times, and just can't get into it.  Not having
read them does mean that I don't get some of the comments
that are scattered through the books.
Bill

Well Bill Gill i have been a fan of comic books most of my life
startng with Puck the Comic Weekly as soon as I could sit up and look
at the Sunday Examiner so about 1940 or 1941. From the Comic Weekly
in color to the daily strips I loved them all. Well I did not
understand some of them but if the strip was there I read it.
In the late 1960s I got into the Underground comix, and in the late
1990s Anime (on PBS before Dr.Who) from KCBS then into Manga aka
Japanese comics. I still am a comic fan but these days who would
have believed it in 1940-1960 that a great city Library would have
sections for Graphic Novels and manga! I would not have thought
it possible and am still amazed at the available wonders of the
San Francisco Public Library System but mostly the Main branch
dowhhill from my 'hood.

Last week at SFPL-Main i found the following.

Rivers of London. Here be dragons / written by James Swallow ; script
edited by Andrew Cartmel ; created by Ben Aaronovitch.
I vastly prefer the textual novels of this series. If I see the rest of
the graphic novels in this long series at the SFPL-Main I will likely
pick them up to read due to my voracity. I cannot quite put my finger on
why I do not like this graphic novel but indeed that is the case. It
seems at times that I had read this before which I put down to the
familiarity with the written rather than the drawn work. It seems
to be well executed with color somewhat subdued and over all dark tones.
Nothing wrong with the characters though the elven characters are not
to my personal taste but the artist has a rather different conception of
elves and so did the creator.

Fan and non-fan concur, it seems that ROL:HBD lacks something in
the drawn version.
Every good idea cannot be a total winner, not with everyone.
Otherwise you guys would be bubbling over about the anime "Planetes"
which is pretty hard science about characters who pick up trash from
orbit. I will look for my notes. But they may not be more extensive
than that.

bliss

[Robert Woodward]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Robert Woodward
More to the point, in the most recent graphic novel, _Stray Cat Blues_,
Abigail was using magic in issue 4 (just out today, Aug 21st, in the
USA).

I'd not bothered to track the comics down, as one I checked early on
didn't have Ben Aaronovitch as the author. Checking the wiki now, they
all appear to so I don't know what happened there - I blame Amazon
metadata failure.
Well, now I have to go lose some money. I guess they're fully canon with
the books?

Pretty much so; I have noticed only one possible discrepancy (and it
might be a case where the book was set earlier than the graphic novel).

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Robert Woodward
More to the point, in the most recent graphic novel, _Stray Cat Blues_,
Abigail was using magic in issue 4 (just out today, Aug 21st, in the
USA).

I'd not bothered to track the comics down, as one I checked early on
didn't have Ben Aaronovitch as the author. Checking the wiki now, they
all appear to so I don't know what happened there - I blame Amazon
metadata failure.
Well, now I have to go lose some money. I guess they're fully canon with
the books?

So far, the main comics stories, whoever is
writing, are treated as "real" and to be
mentioned in the books. There are short,
mostly one page "Tales from the Folly"
pieces, which are basically jokes.
Distributed differently in comics issues
and paperback collections are nice, mostly
!real-world factual articles about the
story background, at least some of which are
credited to Postmartin. Some or all of the
comics can also be got as e-book editions.
I don't know if that includes all of those
features.

So there's an antique "haunted" car around,
and I'll say a law firm of The Little
Crocodiles club that shows up in whichever
book it is where Nightingale decides to deal
with that - they're in _Detective Stories_
first, a series and collection of Peter's
unseen cases, mostly with Lesley May, which he
is presenting as evidence for a promotion of
rank to Detective Constable.

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Robert Carnegie

     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.

Quibble away but remember I am old and my feeling are easily
hurt as the boys in alt.drugs.psychedelic will not tell you.

Post by Robert Carnegie
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.

Since I do not have these books at hand I quote
no names. Lesley May is mentioned above as the apprentice
of Nightengale, who because of an extreme facial disfigurement
goes over to the enemy. She generally wore a mask to conceal
the damage to her face.

Post by Robert Carnegie
_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

I read all these books and many more from the San Francisco
Public Library. I already have too many books bought when I was
making money and could not resist the latest paperback ath the
SF store that used to be two blocks away.

bliss

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by Robert Carnegie
This is reading ahead quite a lot.  Remember
Lesley May.  And Simone Fitzwilliam actually does.

    Since I do not have these books at hand I quote
no names.

What I mean is that you're mentioning later
story events, that could be called "spoilers"
which distract a reader where themes are
developed.

I have to re-read the first book myself -
which has some unpleasant violent scenes -
but as far as I remember in the first two,
Peter has romantic and erotic feelings
towards Lesley May, but she does not
express feelings for him at that time.
Peter tells us later that Lesley claimed to
observe that Peter's romantic relationships
with other women do not last longer than
three months, that he always loses interest.
This doesn't account for him growing up as
the series runs.