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Foxglove Summer (Rivers of London #5)
I, um, may have prevailed upon the kindness of friends to read this book, since it's not out in the U.S. 'til January (at which point I shall be buying it promptly!).
I was really dissatisfied with this book, so be aware that this is mostly complaining. :P
First - there was stuff I liked! I really enjoyed the rural setting -- these books have such a fantastic sense of place; it's one of the things I love about them-- and the new little bits of expanded information about the universe. We know what Molly is! (I loved Peter's delight at finding out.) We know a little more about Ettersburg and what happened there, and we're starting to meet more magical people in the vicinity. I also absolutely loved the creepy midnight unicorn hunt and the scene where Beverly rescues Peter on the train with her shotgun full of scrap iron. :D And the series' snarky sense of humor is still a whole lot of fun.
But the book as a whole ... I dunno. Was it just me or did this book seem to wander a lot? The pacing was so loose and sprawling and lacking in tension. I was enjoying it in the beginning, when Peter was wandering around the countryside and we were following him around. But I expected it to tight up later and it just ... didn't. I understand that actual police work involves a lot of standing around, waiting for leads, thinking things will go somewhere and then discovering that they don't -- but it doesn't make great drama. After awhile there was this start-and-stop pace to the book that got really frustrating, where the tension would suddenly ramp up like it was leading to something, then drop away and everyone would stand around for awhile. Scenes repeat over and over ... how many different times did Peter visit the Marlowe and Lacey houses, sit around in the kitchen talking to people, and then leave? Or stand around in a parking lot or field or police break room chatting with Dominic about some inconsequential clue? And this is fine for awhile (the books in general are fairly loose and sprawling; it's just how they're paced), but I kept thinking the tension was going to ramp up towards the end of the book, and yet it never really did. Even the scene where Peter trades himself for the girls felt weirdly lacking in tension, especially since what happens next is that he and his captors wander off into the woods and .... fall asleep.
It also seemed like the book failed to answer some of the really fundamental questions about the mystery. Most notably, unless I missed something important, what was the explanation for the two identical girls with similar-but-not-identical DNA? Zoe went into the woods with one baby sister and came out with a different one, but I couldn't figure out where the second baby came from (besides "fairyland"), or why they looked the same. I think it would've made more sense to me if the changeling was cloned off Nicole, but she doesn't seem to have been, because the DNA is different. Another of Derek's illegitimate children? If so, who is her birth mother? A fairy? And if so, when did that happen? Also, she seemed like a normal little girl, while the one raised in fairyland (who is 100% human as far as we know) is the creepy different one.
Also, the whole thing with the cut-down forest and the swap happening at Midsummer (WHICH NO ONE IN THE BOOK EVEN SEEMED TO NOTICE) was such a blindingly obvious "fairies are involved here!" red flag. I did kinda wonder about the timing of everything and why this family, why now, but "because fairies" is a pretty good explanation. Still, it bugged me a lot that the two-Nicoles situation never was explained to my satisfaction.
Another thing making this book feel slightly directionless and frustrating was how little it dealt with major plot threads from previous books. Or with anything from previous books. We got a little follow-up on the Lesley situation, at least to the point that we know a) she's still alive, and b) she doesn't seem to be working with Nightingale (which I remember was one of the major fan theories for her turncoatism at the end of the last book), but the ENTIRE ensemble was missing this book except for a bit of Beverly and a couple scenes with Peter talking to Nightingale on the phone, and I really missed them! I enjoyed the rural setting but I wasn't expecting Peter to spend the WHOLE DAMN BOOK in Herefordshire and away from the rest of the cast.
So yeah, I enjoyed parts of it, and it definitely held my attention to the end -- it's not that it was a bad book, it just didn't seem to hold up all that well to the previous books in the series, IMHO. But maybe that's just me?
I was really dissatisfied with this book, so be aware that this is mostly complaining. :P
First - there was stuff I liked! I really enjoyed the rural setting -- these books have such a fantastic sense of place; it's one of the things I love about them-- and the new little bits of expanded information about the universe. We know what Molly is! (I loved Peter's delight at finding out.) We know a little more about Ettersburg and what happened there, and we're starting to meet more magical people in the vicinity. I also absolutely loved the creepy midnight unicorn hunt and the scene where Beverly rescues Peter on the train with her shotgun full of scrap iron. :D And the series' snarky sense of humor is still a whole lot of fun.
But the book as a whole ... I dunno. Was it just me or did this book seem to wander a lot? The pacing was so loose and sprawling and lacking in tension. I was enjoying it in the beginning, when Peter was wandering around the countryside and we were following him around. But I expected it to tight up later and it just ... didn't. I understand that actual police work involves a lot of standing around, waiting for leads, thinking things will go somewhere and then discovering that they don't -- but it doesn't make great drama. After awhile there was this start-and-stop pace to the book that got really frustrating, where the tension would suddenly ramp up like it was leading to something, then drop away and everyone would stand around for awhile. Scenes repeat over and over ... how many different times did Peter visit the Marlowe and Lacey houses, sit around in the kitchen talking to people, and then leave? Or stand around in a parking lot or field or police break room chatting with Dominic about some inconsequential clue? And this is fine for awhile (the books in general are fairly loose and sprawling; it's just how they're paced), but I kept thinking the tension was going to ramp up towards the end of the book, and yet it never really did. Even the scene where Peter trades himself for the girls felt weirdly lacking in tension, especially since what happens next is that he and his captors wander off into the woods and .... fall asleep.
It also seemed like the book failed to answer some of the really fundamental questions about the mystery. Most notably, unless I missed something important, what was the explanation for the two identical girls with similar-but-not-identical DNA? Zoe went into the woods with one baby sister and came out with a different one, but I couldn't figure out where the second baby came from (besides "fairyland"), or why they looked the same. I think it would've made more sense to me if the changeling was cloned off Nicole, but she doesn't seem to have been, because the DNA is different. Another of Derek's illegitimate children? If so, who is her birth mother? A fairy? And if so, when did that happen? Also, she seemed like a normal little girl, while the one raised in fairyland (who is 100% human as far as we know) is the creepy different one.
Also, the whole thing with the cut-down forest and the swap happening at Midsummer (WHICH NO ONE IN THE BOOK EVEN SEEMED TO NOTICE) was such a blindingly obvious "fairies are involved here!" red flag. I did kinda wonder about the timing of everything and why this family, why now, but "because fairies" is a pretty good explanation. Still, it bugged me a lot that the two-Nicoles situation never was explained to my satisfaction.
Another thing making this book feel slightly directionless and frustrating was how little it dealt with major plot threads from previous books. Or with anything from previous books. We got a little follow-up on the Lesley situation, at least to the point that we know a) she's still alive, and b) she doesn't seem to be working with Nightingale (which I remember was one of the major fan theories for her turncoatism at the end of the last book), but the ENTIRE ensemble was missing this book except for a bit of Beverly and a couple scenes with Peter talking to Nightingale on the phone, and I really missed them! I enjoyed the rural setting but I wasn't expecting Peter to spend the WHOLE DAMN BOOK in Herefordshire and away from the rest of the cast.
So yeah, I enjoyed parts of it, and it definitely held my attention to the end -- it's not that it was a bad book, it just didn't seem to hold up all that well to the previous books in the series, IMHO. But maybe that's just me?
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That part of the story felt terribly underdeveloped, which wouldn't have been so weird if it were a minor subplot, but it was the central part of the plot. And the ending felt so rushed. I could've done with another big chunk of plot involving fairies at the end, and a lot less of Peter and Dominic wandering around in cow pastures and sitting in the police canteen.
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And why do you think they were reversed in character? It was clearly nurture over nature, so the half-human one raised as human girl was that, and the fully human one raised as fairy nobility didn't have any regard for others nor considered other human people rather than means to give her stuff. And I don't think magic is a biological "power" in this universe. I assumed she just learned the suggestion thing or obtained it by being in that realm so long, like places can confer powers to biological humans like the Rivers.
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On the other hand, I think I would've been more happy with this book if I'd picked it up with no knowledge of the others -- it just felt a bit weak to me compared to the rest of the books in the series. It wasn't terrible, it just didn't feel up to the standards of the other ones. Maybe I'll like it better on the re-read.
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What I missed in FS, apart from all the usual ensemble characters, was an explanation for why the Queen wanted the girls in the first place, or why she wanted Peter, or anything about her motivations. She never really seemed to have a personality, unlike most of the other villains in the stories - even Mr Punch, who's similarly vague about why he wants to do all this, at least has the 'spirit of riot and rebellion' thing going on.
But for me it was all worth it for the scene where Peter beats the crap out of the tree, which broke my heart into tiny little pieces, and also for all the Ettersberg backstory and Hugh quoting the Iliad at Peter in an effort to express how amazing Nightingale is ♥
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I agree with you about the queen -- I think a lot of my complaints about this book just come down to the plot not hanging together very well at the end (at least, I didn't think so) and a lot of the "how" and "why" being left terribly vague.
But all complaints aside, this book has some great character stuff (REPRESS HARDER, PETER, I DARE YOU) and gave us some more building blocks to put together a picture of the magical world and how it works!
I think the lack of supporting cast was why I went almost immediately from this book to "Birdcage", which had been sitting on my Kindle for awhile because LONG RIVERS OF LONDON FIC WHEEEE -- because this book left me unsatisfied on the ensemble front, so I really wanted more of them! (And the close proximity between me reading FS and reading "Birdcage" is also what made me really notice how seamless the transition was; you do an amazing pastiche of Aaronovitch's writer voice.)
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yes, me too
(Anonymous) 2014-12-19 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)Oh, and what about Stan's stash? Was there really a drugged-up unicorn (or unicorns) wandering the countryside? And if so, did that have any significance?
And who cut the forest down, and what was their motivation? I can't figure out that one at all.
I really enjoy all of these books, including this one, but this one seems different from all the others in that none of the clues handed out during the story are ever explained, and don't really even seem relevant.
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My take on it was that, given that they are half-siblings, Nicole (as used in the books) must've been Derek's and the Fairy Queen's child -- dudes really make questionable choices in these books -- who was swapped with Derek-and-Victoria's child, Not!Nicole. Wasn't Nicole described as looking interesting and compelling? Her lack of magical demifae abilities may be traced back to her age; the only other demifae we know is Zach, who's really quite ordinary apart from his appetite and his ability to crack locks (which again, he may have only acquired at puberty or over a long period of time). Vice versa, while Not!Nicole is a human child, she's spent her life with magic practitioners...and part of the whole RoL narrative is that anyone can learn magic if only given enough time and practice.
But I agree with you about the problem of the WHY, really: In folklore, human children are taken and swapped for fairy children, but the reason for that appears as murky as ever. Which is a shame -- to some degree, I think, Aaronovitch managed to subvert the changeling myth, but his solution remains strangely incomplete.
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