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From: Bobbie Sellers <blissInSanFrancisco@mouse-potato.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Rivers of London Series
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2024 08:07:49 -0700
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On 8/20/24 21:44, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> 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.

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

> 
> 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.

> 
> _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
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