Stone and Sky - Ben Aaronovitch ***

I am somewhat amazed that, despite having read all 10 main novels in the series, this is the first of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series that I've reviewed. It might seem odd that a book in a series with that title is set in and around Aberdeen, but you need to realise that the 'rivers' in question are genii loci - spirits of a river, one of whom is present.

What I love about the series is that it combines police procedural (Aaronovitch delights in details like airwave radios and stab vests) with magic. In the early books, the central character, DS Peter Grant, is a newbie to the whole magic world, but ends up posted with a specialist unit dealing with magical threats (and trying to drag them into the twenty-first century). This time round, the oddities include dangerous magical beasts, kelpies and mermaids.

This is, unfortunately, probably the weakest in the series. In part this is because Aaronovitch splits the first person narrative between Grant and his niece Abigail, who is not with the police but is apprenticed to the unit's head, Nightingale. This really weakens the police procedural nature of the books, as Abigail does her own thing. Also, I find this middle-aged man's attempt to give the inner narrative of a young black woman a little queasy-making, telling us that something is 'bare vexing' or 'Nightingale says you've got to buss sleeves and ting when you're finessing the bush'.

Aaronovitch usually gives us a big scene of high risk, this time on an oil platform in the North Sea (though again, splitting the narrative with Abigail, who isn't present for the denouement, weakens the drama), but the whole context seemed less effective and more contrived than it is in most of the earlier books. And of the main characters, both Nightingale and Beverley (Grant's wife and a genius loci) feel underused, except in the 'with a single bound she was free' ending.

Reading this inspired me to restart the whole series with the original Rivers of London - and immediately I realise why I enjoyed the early novels so much: it is much better, plunging you into the action. By the end of chapter two, we've had a decapitation, a witness who is a ghost, a baby thrown out of a first floor window and a man's face falling off. Here we have a possible sighting of a magical big cat. Within days I was already on book 4 - but I felt no such urgency to carry on reading with Stone and Sky. But it's not just the action - Grant's narration is far more fun in the early books and there's a constant, driving energy that just isn't present in Stone and Sky. It's not the end of the world - even Terry Pratchett had a bit of a dip around this point of the Discworld series before getting even better. Hopefully Aaronovitch can get his mojo back too.

Stone and Sky is not a bad novel. Compared to many real-world fantasies, Aaronovitch's skill shines through: he can't help give us a readable book with occasional flashes of humour to lighten the dangerous situations. But it almost feels as if the author is trying to mix a young adult romantasy novel in Abigail's chapters and the more heavy duty matters in the Grant chapters, and it doesn't quite work. Whatever you do, read the other books first - don't start here - but if you have done so, it is still worth adding this to your Rivers of London reading.

You can buy the Stone and Sky from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Bookshop.org.

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:

Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Search This Blog