'Rivers of London' - Ben Aaronovitch (Part One)

Jeanne of Necromancy Never Pays and I are reading together again. Last time we spent a hugely enjoyable few weeks going through the weird world of ‘Total Oblivion (More or Less)’, where much of the action takes place on the Mississippi river. We had so much fun ‘messing about on the river’ that we decided to return to a watery setting, as we read Ben Aaronovitch’s debut comic fantasy novel ‘Rivers of London’, where much of the action takes place around the Thames.



Image Source.

No, not that kind of action.

‘Rivers of London’ is a police procedural/London fantasy mix, written in what I tend to think of as the base style of a lot of mainstream contemporary British media. If you’ve seen ‘Dr Who’ (a program the back cover of this novel says Ben Aaronovitch wrote for), original ‘Torchwood’, ‘Sherlock’, ‘Life on Mars’ or even ‘Merlin’ you’ll probably recognise familiar comic hallmarks in ‘Rivers of London’. The protagonist Peter, a copper who at the beginning of ‘Rivers of London’ is dreading being assigned to a future of ‘making a valuable contribution’, rather than zooming around in unmarked cars as part of CID, is a typical straight Brit comic hero. He’s self-analytical, a bit self-depreciating, hopeless with ladies, a bit average and a bit prone to drifting into speculative day dreams that lead him to blurt out words which make him want to melt into the ground:

‘Trident was always on the lookout for black officers to do hideously dangerous undercover work, and being mixed race meant that I qualified. It’s not that I don’t think they do a worthwhile job, it’s just that I didn’t think I’d be very good at it. It’s important for a man to know his limitations and my limitations started at moving to Peckham and hanging around with yardies, postcode wannabes and those weird skinny white kids who don’t get the irony in Eminem.

‘I don’t like rap music, sir,’ I said.

Neblett nodded slowly. ‘That’s useful to know,’ he said…’

As a life long Brit, who grew up watching this kind of character fumble his way endearingly through life Peter is a very recognisable character; a man who is both adorable and at times rather frustrating.

The secondary characters (who I mostly adored) are also pretty stock characters of recent comic British fashion. Peter quickly finds himself swept up by a magical plot, which takes him away from any prospect of a future in case files and paperwork (a plot trajectory that I initially described to Jeanne as Peter ‘being cast as a special, special snowflake, in comparison to his much more talented female colleague.’, which I’ll come back to in my second post). His new governor, the well preserved Inspector Nightingale is old school, posh, a bit awkward in a casual situation, technologically lacking and mysteriously uncomfortable with practical questions about his background and the strange magical life he’s brought Peter into. He feels very much like many a kindly, but secretive mentor figure I’ve read before. Lesley May, Peter’s colleague and best friend is the long suffering, focus of Peter’s affections, whose comedy element comes partly from her put downs of Peter and partly from being the straight woman to his rather more dreamy ‘easily distracted’ personality. Her governor is a shouty, red faced realist, who would very much like the magic to GO AWAY!

In the course of their investigations Peter and Nightingale meet Beverley (omg Beverley!! My favourite character), daughter of Mama Thames. Beverley may be the flesh embodiment of an ancient water source, but she is a thoroughly modern sweary, sarky young woman obsessed with taking Peter’s governor’s jag everywhere. She’s your typical snarky, sharp comic subversion of fantasy, who dragging magic into the twenty first century just by existing as a magical being who, rolls their eyes and wears captioned t-shirts. And Molly, Nightingale’s mysterious and supernatural help, who ‘does for him’ is the mysterious, unspeaking fantasy creature who nonetheless makes themselves understood through the use of expressive facial configurations, the kind of creature you’ll find cropping up regularly in Pratchett’s work (although he generally prefers his unspeaking, expressive characters to be animals). Finally, there’s Toby, the obligatory comic dog who Peter picks up following a murder and who is funny because he is a dog, prone to doing contrary doggy things and giving knowing looks.

Aaronovitch also includes a lot of comic subversion, which is designed to gently discomfit the characters within the book and produce a mild involuntary laugh from the shocked reader. He uses the traditional rhythmic pause before this subversion, which will clue anyone who has been taking in British media from birth that they should be aware that this particular kind of subversion is coming. I personally love this particular comic technique, but personal feelings aside I have to say it’s probably currently over used in British media. Like I said, this novel is full of pretty familiar, comic material. Despite its commitment to gender mixing and comic undermining, it lacks real technical subversion and instead it follows in well worn, lovely traditions. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and I don’t want to imply that somehow I have lost my affection for these comic tropes (come on they are so much part of my culture, I’m genuinely not even sure who I would be without them). However, I do think that ‘Rivers of London’ is missing the sharpness that media which uses these comic techniques needs if it’s going to be...let’s say exciting and invigorating (eh, sorry I’m kind of vague today), instead of just kind of...sweet and comfy.

Jeanne and I have only read up to chapter seven so far (we'll be posting our feelings on the rest of the book next week) and there could be much more surprising stuff to come, but at this point it’s difficult for me not to find ‘Rivers of London’ lacking in comparison with the work of more daring and funny genre stalwarts who have mixed the world of police/detective fiction with SF and comic fantasy. I think the early Watch books in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series are technically tighter (in terms of writing, humour and plot) than ‘Rivers of London’ has been at any point so far. If I were reccing for this (awesome) sub-category of police-fantasy I’d go on and on about those books first (then try to convince everyone they should read ‘The City and The City’, ‘Through a Scanner Darkly’ too, even if they’re not laugh out loud funny). Comparing this book just with other British media, which isn’t fully comic fantasy (or fantasy at all), but which makes reasonably extensive use of the same comic methods ‘Rivers of London’ is peppered with, even though I have my troubles with Who and Sherlock, there’s something oh so special about the way they’re produced that makes them zing, that makes me care, cry, flinch and laugh throughout. And surprisingly, considering that Aaronovitch has been a Who staffer, that sharpness, that deep, human slicing cut seems to be missing here. The laughs are funny, most of the time and like Jeanne I haven’t laughed out loud at a book in some time, but to me it feels like something is missing, something that could make this novel special. Perhaps I just haven’t read far enough in yet and it’ll turn up later, but right now it’s fun and a bit flufftastic despite the occasional appearance of gore and violence.

Still, there is something endearing and fun about the way Ben Aaronovitch writes traditional, light comedy in a contemporary British style. Perhaps, if I’m looking for excitement and difference then I should concentrate more on the interesting way he plays around with mixing fantasy and SF combination in his debut novel. In her first post about the book, Jeanne asks what I’m most eager to find out next I’d say I’m most interested in finding out, just as Peter is when he runs his scientific experiments, how the magic of this world works practically. I’m greedy to see the logic behind Aaronovitch’s fantasy world, because mixing Fantasy and SF is always such a fascinating concept, such an interesting extension of the idea that despite its real world implausibility, much of fantasy should contain rigorous internal logic to make it easy for readers to believe. Adding fictional scientific justification into that mix of internal logic just seems like such an interesting idea, a covert form of genre mixing if you like.

More from both of us next Monday, but for now I'd love to hear what you think of 'Rivers of London'. If you haven't read it, does it sound like the sort of book you'd like to try?