The October Man, the most recent entry in The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaaronovitch, is a novella for people who already love the series. It gives already-addicted readers a look at the wider world of magic without providing enough depth to lure a new reader in.
For readers familiar with the series, The October Man fills in some small bits of history, particularly the great battles in World War II. Most especially, it provides a quick glimpse of Nightingale’s past that begs for further development. Also, the German embassy gives a description of Abigail that only increases my sense that she needs to headline her own series sometime soon.
On the other hand, the novella’s newly introduced characters are not well-enough developed to draw new readers in, and are too scant to hook even regular readers. Tobias Winter is someone readers have never met before outside of a brief entry in Aaaronovitch’s blog, “Moment Three.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a very distinctive voice. Two or three times he sounds like Peter, which he shouldn’t–he’s Peter’s counterpart, not his clone. The rest of the time he is a flat narrator: He’s less enthralled with magic than Peter, he likes too cook, and he carries a flamethrower in his car. That’s not much to hang a story on.
It’s not like Aaronovitch can’t create new, defined characters in fewer pages. Hatbox Stanley in “A Rare Book of Cunning Device” (free on Audible; go listen!) is quite distinctive. We knew who Peter was a few paragraphs into Rivers of London aka Midnight Riot. Tobias Winter, however, is a near blank.
The story itself decent but not fireworks-worthy puzzle. With no real investment in the characters involved, there’s no emotional payoff, and the solution and clues all fit so well in the established magical framework that there is little world-building joy, either. Readers already knew the events portrayed were possible. Tobias even knew all of this existed as a possibility. German official magic appears to operate exactly like English magic, which is understandable in a way, but also a bit disappointing: English magic has a number of regional variations, so it would seem German magic ought to have a different flavor to it, a national twist.
The October Man may be the start of something that develops satisfactorily, but on its own, it is a mild entry for the already-entranced completist.
On the other hand, False Value is on its way soon, and that promises more Peter, more Rivers, and more fun.
See what FangirlNation thought of other entries in the series here: (hint, this reviewer is one of the addicted completists she mentions in the article).
