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herewiss13It makes me vaguely enraged that I get a CNN breaking news update to inform me that former politician Geraldine Ferraro has passed away, but I have to log onto my Friends List to learn that Dianna Wynne Jones passed away. I haven't read nearly as much of her work as I ought to have, but given how very influential and popular she was, some more official recognition of her passing seems warranted.
::sigh::
I actually turned the computer on to rave about "Midnight Riot" by Ben Aaronovitch, which is about a police constable in London who sees a ghost and is subsequently apprenticed to the only wizard on the London police force. It's amazing. Other people have talked about the spirits of the River Thames (which are very cool), but my favorite part was the fact that the main character is cunning. He's not scientist, but he's got a rationalist background and so he tries to puzzle things out. Magic interferes with electronics, so he takes a bunch of old electronic calculators, lays them out in a line and casts a spell to see how far the techno-scrambling effect goes. He's not codifying magic (Newton did that), but he is trying to figure it out from a 21st century perspective. Harry Dresden tells you how magic works, Peter Grant is trying to tell himself how it works. The difference is very intriguing. It's not often I want to immediately go out and buy a book that I just finished reading from the library, but this is a series I want to commit to early. The fact that there's already a sequel out: "Moon over Soho" is just a bonus.
I should also mention that the writing is very _very_ droll. If you like that sort of thing, it'll hook you within the first page. Otherwise, YMMV.
::sigh::
I actually turned the computer on to rave about "Midnight Riot" by Ben Aaronovitch, which is about a police constable in London who sees a ghost and is subsequently apprenticed to the only wizard on the London police force. It's amazing. Other people have talked about the spirits of the River Thames (which are very cool), but my favorite part was the fact that the main character is cunning. He's not scientist, but he's got a rationalist background and so he tries to puzzle things out. Magic interferes with electronics, so he takes a bunch of old electronic calculators, lays them out in a line and casts a spell to see how far the techno-scrambling effect goes. He's not codifying magic (Newton did that), but he is trying to figure it out from a 21st century perspective. Harry Dresden tells you how magic works, Peter Grant is trying to tell himself how it works. The difference is very intriguing. It's not often I want to immediately go out and buy a book that I just finished reading from the library, but this is a series I want to commit to early. The fact that there's already a sequel out: "Moon over Soho" is just a bonus.
I should also mention that the writing is very _very_ droll. If you like that sort of thing, it'll hook you within the first page. Otherwise, YMMV.
