Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
A young man studying magic is called on to find the supernatural causes behind some hideous crimes. Ben Aaronovitch gives a delightful fresh spin to these ideas in a new series of urban- fantasy police procedurals.
In “Midnight Riot,” Peter Grant sees his career with the London police heading toward a dead-end transfer to clerical work. He is rescued by Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale and his one-man department for the paranormal. One of Peter’s duties is to learn magic. It’s a slow process of repeated practice.
Peter has a minor role in investigating a beheading on the streets. The beheading is part of a series of murders with a telltale sign of magic use available in the destroyed brains of the autopsied victims.
The second book of the series is being released just a month after the first. In “Moon Over Soho” Peter engages some help from his father. Peter is uneasy with his dad, who is a heroin addict and a brilliant but unsuccessful musician. He has the large record collection Peter needs when he suspects there is a jazz vampire who has been feeding on London musicians for decades
The stories are told by Peter, who is cheeky and funny. He is also something of a geek who will drop in a “Doctor Who” reference now and then. Not coincidentally, Aaronovitch wrote for “Doctor Who” before taking up novels.
London is an equal character in the books. The shops and streets are convincingly realistic even when they are being destroyed by supernatural rampages. The modern city and its history are both key to the stories.
The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Executioness by Tobias S. Buckell
Tobias Buckell had a commission to write a fantasy novella, and he hired Paolo Bacigalupi to write a second novella and help create the world.
The stories were released as audio books last year and are now available in attractive individual volumes each with an introduction by the other author.
In the story, Khaim is being overrun by bramble. It’s a nasty weed with deadly needles that are very hard to dig out. The growth of bramble is a side effect of using magic. It’s been declared a crime to use magic, but the effects of those crimes pop up everywhere.
In the city, magic users are publicly executed. Raiders attack cities and countryside to abduct the children and raise them in the Way, a religion that rejects magic.
The alchemist of Bacigalupi’s story is looking for a scientific way to defeat the bramble. He sacrifices everything for the sake of his research. While looking to defeat magic, he also resorts to using it as the only way to stop the disease threatening his daughter.
For his part, Buckell set out to write a story with a middle-age heroine. Tana is forced to take her father’s place as an executioner. His executioner ax is about all she has left when raiders enter the city and carry off her sons.
She follows them and builds a reputation as a warrior when she tries to attack them. She learns to embrace this reputation and finds a way she can make a difference.
The joint effort at world-building is very well done. Both stories feature interesting mature characters and ideas that reflect our world.
Bacigalupi’s story was recently nominated for a Nebula award as one of the best of the year.
