Rivers of London: Water Weed
June 4, 2019 12:44 PM - by Andrew Cartmel - Subscribe
When two of the less well-behaved River goddesses, Chelsea and Olympia, decide to earn a few quid on the side, Peter and Bev find themselves drawn into a sordid cannabis-smuggling operation, controlled by London's new queenpin of crime - the brutal and beautiful Hoodette!
OK, I've never heard of this (though I am decades behind on graphic novels). What exactly is this and what does it compare to?
Ok, so Rivers of London is an urban fantasy detective novel series starring Peter Grant, whose mother was an immigrant from Sierra Leone and father was a jazz musician. He becomes the first new member of the wizarding cop unit in since World War 2 and is mentored by the only remaining member of the wizarding cop unit, who fought in World War 2 and has been generally horrible at paying attention to anything that's happened since.
It's great for dealing with third culture issues, does well with a black male protagonist, and great if you like jazz, cities, architecture, and the ruthless application of the scientific method. It's got some issues with women in the first book, some shitty lines in the second book, but then it gets a better.
The backs of the books have a quote about 'what if Harry Potter joined the fuzz', which I kind of hate, because a) it's not really that much like Harry Potter other than it's British urban fantasy and b) Harry Potter joined the fuzz. Like, in canon. He became an auror. The protagonist, Peter, isn't very much like Harry in that he's a giant science fiction nerd who really likes solving problems through the power of friendship (or at least communication).
It's mostly a series of novels, but there are graphic novels that tie into the main storyline (like this one). The art is great for cars and then middling-to-poor for everything else. The stories are generally decent, but if you don't already have the emotional attachment from the novels, probably not worth checking out first.
The first book in the series is called Midnight Riot in the US and Rivers of London everywhere else.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:44 PM on June 11, 2019
Ok, so Rivers of London is an urban fantasy detective novel series starring Peter Grant, whose mother was an immigrant from Sierra Leone and father was a jazz musician. He becomes the first new member of the wizarding cop unit in since World War 2 and is mentored by the only remaining member of the wizarding cop unit, who fought in World War 2 and has been generally horrible at paying attention to anything that's happened since.
It's great for dealing with third culture issues, does well with a black male protagonist, and great if you like jazz, cities, architecture, and the ruthless application of the scientific method. It's got some issues with women in the first book, some shitty lines in the second book, but then it gets a better.
The backs of the books have a quote about 'what if Harry Potter joined the fuzz', which I kind of hate, because a) it's not really that much like Harry Potter other than it's British urban fantasy and b) Harry Potter joined the fuzz. Like, in canon. He became an auror. The protagonist, Peter, isn't very much like Harry in that he's a giant science fiction nerd who really likes solving problems through the power of friendship (or at least communication).
It's mostly a series of novels, but there are graphic novels that tie into the main storyline (like this one). The art is great for cars and then middling-to-poor for everything else. The stories are generally decent, but if you don't already have the emotional attachment from the novels, probably not worth checking out first.
The first book in the series is called Midnight Riot in the US and Rivers of London everywhere else.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:44 PM on June 11, 2019
I put off reading this one for a while, because while I'd love to read more about the other rivers, I really didn't want to deal with more of Sullivan's idea of wetsuits. Which, well, turns out that there really weren't much in the way of the rivers in this at all, so I guess that wasn't an issue (I was really hoping for at least an appearance of Lady Ty). But the art ended up being gross in other ways - like, I have fewer issues with the lack of clothing during the hoodette sex scene half as much as the weirdo anatomy. It's honestly hard to tell when Sullivan is drawing someone a little off to depict them as having fey ancestry versus him just not understanding clothes or college parties.
I did like Peter's reaction to drugs and white drug dealers, which seemed very in line with his character and background - the interplay between Nightingale, who is pretty blase about the entire thing, and Peter, who had to deal with growing up with a junkie dad, was a good note.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:57 PM on June 11, 2019
I did like Peter's reaction to drugs and white drug dealers, which seemed very in line with his character and background - the interplay between Nightingale, who is pretty blase about the entire thing, and Peter, who had to deal with growing up with a junkie dad, was a good note.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:57 PM on June 11, 2019
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posted by Ber at 1:15 PM on June 11, 2019