Review: Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

I almost DNF'd this...and the rest of the series...on page 6. Pro tip, Aaronovitch, saying somebody's speech synthesizer sounds like "An autistic surfer dude" will not improve your status with autistic people.

The story, though, is still worth pursuing, even if its obvious to the reader that Simone is...probably somebody Peter doesn't want to be sleeping with. And sleeping with. Peter is a rather highly-sexed man, and they spend a lot of time in bed. It's not too steamy, but not closed door either.

The plot involves evil magicians and jazz vampires...psychic vampires who are feeding off of jazz musicians. (Aaronovitch is clearly a jazz fan).

It's honestly a sad, bittersweet story. It's a love story, but with no happy ending, and poor Peter just has to keep going and carry on. Of course, he's a Londoner, so he can manage that.

(Plus he's supposed to be with Lesley, I'm pretty sure, face or, well, no face).

Not to mention accidentally starting a new cabal...and one that might not actually be sexist this time.

Review: Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch

People living in the Underground is as much a London staple as a New York one, but Aaronovitch has some fun with it. (London does not, however, have any albino alligators in the sewers).

This particular volume features an oddly competent FBI agent, a goblin, mole people, and "unbreakable" pottery.

(By which we mean really good stoneware. It's magical. But it's not unbreakable because it's magical).

Aaronovitch expands his worldbuilding in each book, but in this one I got the feel he hadn't decided about the mole people before.

Still, it's pretty well written, although in some ways one of the weaker books in the series.

Decent, but nothing special.

I received copies of these books for award consideration purposes.