Book Review: Turbulence (2013) by Samit Basu

As newspapers have folded or drastically slimmed down as a result of people getting their news and opinion from the web, one crucial piece of collateral damage has been the demise of the newspaper book review. Once upon a time any half-decent book would appear in paperback bearing blurbs from newspapers both large and small, anything from the New York Times to the Kingston Whig Standard. These reviews weren't a foolproof guide to a book's quality, but it was a lot better than the situation we're in now. These days paperbacks arrive on the shelves barnacled with glowing reviews from bloggers, online fanzines, and other authors. The problems here are obvious. The bloggers and fanzines are usually uncritical promoters of most anything that falls into their field of interest, and authors are doing favours for friends, publishers, or in the expectation of getting their complimentary reviews repaid in kind. It's become common to come across cabals of authors in various genres and sub-genres who seem to have nothing but good things to say (in print) about their fellow club members. It's all very cosy and does a great disservice to readers.

Having been burnt several times in the past by novels recommended by authors, I've no one but myself to blame for reading Turbulence. The fact that four of the quoted reviews are from blogs with the word "geek" in their name should have provided ample warning. But wait! I think I'll blame Mike Carey and Ben Aaaronovitch, two of the best writers in the urban fantasy fiction genre, because their gushing reviews of Basu's novel are what made take a chance on it. I won't quote their blurbs, if only to spare them the embarrassment. Turbulence is about what happens when the passengers on a London to Delhi flight arrive at their destination to find that they've all been gifted with superpowers, from the odd to the frightening. What follows can charitably be described as fan fiction for people besotted with Marvel's X-Men franchise. There are cinematic fight scenes, much fretting over the responsibility of having great power, and a lot of B-grade quips. The only creative wrinkle is that all the characters are Indian. Basu had a great opportunity to do something more with his concept, specifically the idea of superheroes all being members of the developing world. One intriguing aspect of comic book superheroes is that at one level they are projections of Western (primarily U.S.) power and ideals. How does being an Indian superhero change what a superhero does? Would the caste system still exist amongst Indian superheroes? From Untouchable to Unstoppable? There are a lot of cultural and political ramifications to the idea of Indian superheroes and Basu hasn't addressed any of them.

The SF/Fantasy field is stuffed with bland and bad writing, and good writers like Carey and Aaronovitch don't do readers any favours by pointing them towards vanilla novels like Turbulence. In fact, they damage the reputation of their genre as a whole by promoting books that any discriminating reader is going to be disappointed by. Clearly, the publishing world needs a superhero who has the power to stop first-rate authors from promoting second-rate novels.

Book Review: Whispers Under Ground (2012) by Ben Aaronovitch

For those of you unfamiliar with Ben Aaronovitch's supernatural mysteries featuring Peter Grant, let me get you up to speed. Grant is a cop with the Metropolitian Police. He's attached to the Folly, an unofficial unit that investigates supernatural crime in the greater London area. Oh,and Grant's also an apprentice wizard. Now if all this sounds distressingly like a "'allo, allo, allo, what's all this, then?" version of Harry Potter, it most definitely isn't. In fact, Grant never misses an opportunity to make a joking reference to various famous fictional wizards and the like. The Grant novels are first and foremost police procedural mysteries, and this one is the best of the bunch.

The previous Grant mysteries, Rivers of London and Moon Over Soho, were smart, written with wit and imagination, but suffered from some plotting that went slightly off the rails. That's not a problem this time around. A man is found murdered in Baker Street tube station, stabbed with a pottery shard that carries with it a whiff of magic. Grant's investigations lead him to, among many places, the Tate Modern, a goblin market, and an underground community inhabited by...but that would be telling. Suffice to say that the action is brisk, exciting and full of invention.

There are two things that make these novels appealing; the first is that they are among the best police procedural mysteries currently on the market. Detective Grant doesn't spend all his time running around using magic spells and so on; in fact, the use of magic is fairly restrained. Grant utilizes all the resources of the Met, and does so in an enthusiastic and believable manner. Also, Grant really likes his job, and the pleasure he takes in his work is a refreshing and delightful change from the usual mob of morose coppers cluttering up crime fiction. The other aspect of the Grant stories that's praiseworthy is the way in which Aaronovitch brings London to life. The Big Smoke isn't just a backdrop to these mysteries, it's really a main character. Aaronovitch is more than a little bit in love with London and he brings that passion to every page of his novels. He also deserves credit for showing a London that's not a cliche mix of Victorian architecture and Dickensian characters, which is usually the result when you mix London with a hint of the supernatural. This London is vibrantly multicultural. Grant himself is mixed race, and is more comfortable in tower blocks and council houses than a drawing room or private club. Now if only Aaronovitch could churn these mysteries out faster.

Book Review: Sixty-One Nails (2009) by Mike Shevdon

I wouldn't normally review a book I quit halfway through, but in this case the novel's failures point out the strengths of two very similar authors. Sixty-One Nails is in the urban fantasy genre, the urban in this case being London. The protagonist is Niall, a nobody-in-particular until he collapses on a Tube platform with what looks like a heart attack. It turns out he's just survived an attack by the Untainted, the name given to pure blood fairies, or Feyre, as they're called here. It seems that Niall is some kind of half-breed fairy and the Untainted want to kill people of his ilk. Niall is saved by Blackbird, a fairy woman, and she explains that there are seven Feyre courts residing in London, and Niall must seek the protection of one of them.

I threw in the towel on Nails for two reasons: one, the plot kept slipping back and forth from first to neutral. Two, Shevdon is vanilla all the way when it comes to prose and world-building his magical London. The pedestrian prose isn't a major problem (J.K. Rowling has made billions with an ABC writing style), but when it's allied with a second-rate imagination it creates a fatal problem. Shevdon's attempts to describe magic and the magical world are weak and infrequent; they all feel like slightly reworked bits from Harry Potter and Star Wars. He also succumbs to the curse of many fantasy writers: prolixity. Rowling was one of the worst offenders in this regard in the last four Potter books, but she's far from alone. I know from having shelved books at the library for five plus years that sci-fi/fantasy writers are the pulp and paper industry's best friends. In Nails, a lot of the excess paper consumption stems from the characters spending far too much time debating their every move and option. Poor Niall can't open a door without having a long natter about it. And London, as a setting, is not used to full advantage. A few place names are mentioned, but other than that the action might as well be taking place in Chicago.

Shevdon is working the same side of the street as Mike Carey and Ben Aaronovitch. Both of these authors write urban fantasy series set in London. Carey's features a private eye/exorcist named Felix Castor, and Aaaronovitch's hero is Peter Grant, a young copper and apprentice wizard. Both writers keep their stories moving at a brisk pace, and their magical elements are clever and believable, not just add-ons to liven up a standard adventure story. Both of these writers make London come alive in their novels; in fact, in both series London qualifies as an important secondary character, not just a location. Carey & Aaronovitch have their faults (Carey's books could use some pruning), but if you want to attempt an urban fantasy series they're the boys to measure yourself against. Here are my reviews of the latest appearances by Felix Castor and Peter Grant.

Book Review: Moon Over Soho (2011) by Ben Aaronovitch; Vicious Circle (2006) by Mike Carey

I'm reviewing these two supernatural mystery/thrillers together because the authors are creatively joined at the hip. Both have created an alternate reality London in which the supernatural is very real and very dangerous.

Aaronovitch's previous novel featuring DC Peter Grant was Rivers of London (my review here), and it was a very successful attempt to combine the world of the supernatural with a police procedural. It sounds unlikely, but he pulled it off. The only serious problem with Rivers was that the plotting was weak, with a major sub-plot about the gods of London's rivers going nowhere. Moon is equally entertaining, but also suffers from plot problems. The story this time revolves around the mysterious deaths of various jazz musicians, and then there's the strange and dangerous Pale Lady, a woman with a very feline personality. Moon is a very fun read, but once again Aaronovitch does a poor job of handling multiple storylines. The Pale Lady story eventually connects with the deaths of the musicians, but it's not obvious how or why it does. Or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention.

Mike Carey has no problem with plots. His novels are rich with incident and detail, and the plots are well-developed. In the second Felix Castor novel (the first is reviewed  here) Felix is up against a cult seeking to raise one of Hell's fiercest demons. Carey takes the private eye route with his novels, making Castor a Philip Marlowe of magic. The previous Castor novel was way too long, and this one is also a bit prolix. One example: long after Carey has established that Castor is good at picking locks, he has his hero give a long description of a lock he ends up not picking. Simply put, Vicious could be significantly leaner with no drop in literary quality.

An interesting thing about Aaaronovitch and Carey is that they make London one of their main characters. In both novels the action rarely moves out of the city, and the authors are almost loving in their descriptions of the city's streets, buildings and neighbourhoods. Both writers are also equally good at world-building. London invaded by the supernatural seems quite likely in the hands of these writers. Finally, the Grant and Castor novels deserve to be praised as mysteries every bit as much as they get respect as supernatural thrillers. Plot problems and prolixity aside, these writers create more  mystery and excitement than a great many straight mystery writers.

Book Review: Rivers of London (2011) by Ben Aaronovitch

Right now the book world is awash in fantasy literature. This is largely thanks to the twin aftershocks of Harry Potter and the Twilight books. Anything, it seems, with a fantasy or horror element, and any mash-up entangling the two with other genres, gets a warm greeting from the publishing industry. This has produced a lot of dreck, usually involving Buffy clones finding romance as they splatter the undead.

Rivers of London avoids zombies and romance, and is mostly successful, largely thanks to some solid comic writing and a clever mash-up of a police procedural and the world of magic. Our hero is Peter Grant, a young police constable who looks to be headed for a dull, behind-the-scenes job in the Met. All that changes when he's assigned to guard a crime scene involving a headless corpse and then ends up taking a witness statement from a ghost. From there it's a short step to becoming an apprentice wizard under the tutelage of Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who is, yes, a fully-fledged wizard. Nightingale's remit, which is known only to a few of his superiors, is to investigate supernatural crimes and keep the peace on the otherworldly side of London.

The headless corpse is the first in a series of gruesome deaths perpetrated by a vengeful ghost who is using the bodies of Londoners to reenact a bizarre and bloody Punch and Judy show. On top of trying to collar the murderous ghost, Grant and Nightingale have to keep the peace between the gods of London's rivers. London apparently has many rivers, mostly hidden, but each has it's god, and Mother Thames and Father Thames rule over them all.

Aaronovitch has a slick, chirpy writing style that owes a lot to Terry Pratchett, and he's smart enough to have Grant make a couple of references to Harry Potter just so we know that Grant realizes he's dropped into an absurd and improbable world. Aaronovitch also does a good job of explaining, or creating a theory of, how magic works. This is always a bit of a problem in books about magic; the authors either ignore the how and why, or they come up with a dopey, New Age-y explanation. Aaronovitch takes a more technical approach, and it works rather well. Even better is his decision to make the cop elements as real as possible. Take away the magical element and this would be a solid police procedural mystery; Grant talks like a cop, he follows Met protocol, he relies as much on police equipment as he does on magic, and he really seems to enjoy being a policeman.

Where Aaronovitch runs into trouble is with the plot. The final section of the book is a bit of a mess. The first problem is that the author begins to tie himself into thick, confusing knots explaining the magical and supernatural logic behind what's happening. Another bad decision is to have a climactic scene set in a packed Royal Opera House in which the killer ghost reveals himself and a massive riot breaks out. The problem is that this isn't the finale of the book. The riot ends, the reader's excitement evaporates, and the real end comes a short time later. The opera house scene is very Pratchettesque, but Sir Terry would have ended the novel right there.

Notice something? I haven't mentioned the river gods when discussing the killer ghost plot. That's because Aaronovitch fails to make the two plots intertwine in any meaningful way. That would be fine if the river gods' story was a sub-plot, but it isn't. A big chunk of the novel is devoted to dealing with the various gods and, while all of it is interesting and clever, it really doesn't have a damn thing to do with the main plot. The river gods need their own novel, not a superfluous role in a ghostly murder mystery.

There's a sequel to Rivers of London called Moon Over Soho (werewolves, I expect), and yet another is in the pipeline. I'll definitely read the next one and hope that the author has let an editor get a look at it first.