Is Our Writers Learning: Severed Streets (#SFWApro)

My August entry (all rights to cover image with current holder) is the sequel to London Falling which I read just a few months back (which prompts me to institute a new policy, no more than two books from any one series gets reviewed in this blog category)

The Story: In the wake of London falling, DI Quill and his team of second-sighted cops still have a lot to figure out. What exactly can they do with their powers? How do their powers work? What happened to their mysterious predecessors? And then, during a serious of Occupy-style riots, a phantom begins carrying out Jack the Ripper-style killings, but targeting wealthy white men. Who’s behind it? What’s his endgame? And how do they stop him?

What I Learned: As I said when reviewing the first book, making the characters newbies works much better for me than protagonists who are thoroughly immersed in the supernatural world. Quill’s squad has no idea what’s going on, so I learn along with them. And as they don’t have much information, that reduces the amount of info-dumping (which we get a lot of in some of this genre).

Low Level Is Refreshing: Compared to most of the UF I’ve read, the magic here is very low level. Everything seems to arise from the “memories” of London: there are ghosts and spirits, but not much beyond that. The good guys don’t have anything to work with beyond their cop skills and their second sight. That gives it a noticeably different feel than, say, the Dresden Files, where the magical monsters include anything you can think of (vamps, werewolves, demons, gargoyles) and magic can devastate cities.

I also like the glimpse we get in one scene into London’s magical subculture. The people we meet come off less as wizards and more like an odd little subculture the rest of the world doesn’t get (possibly Cornell intended some sort of geek/fandom analogy, but not necessarily). When a couple of ambitious newbie magic-users announce plans to monetize things, the old hands are positively apoplectic at reducing their art to commerce.

There are signs that magic can do a lot more than we’ve seen, so I’m sure the level will rise as we progress.

Series arc has to balance story arc: As I’ve mentioned before, a series book has to work both as a stand-alone and as part of the big picture (assuming it’s got a big picture and not just adventure after adventure). While I won’t go into detail, what Quill learns about the Smiling Man and Hell this book seems to hint at the future shape of the series.

Silence is not golden: Quill’s boss knows all about the vanished squad of mage-cops that preceded the series. She refuses to say anything. There had better be a damn good reason for keeping her mouth shut or it’s just a cheat.

Info-dump scenes with Neil Gaiman still suck: During a visit to one wizard party, the team meet this mysterious guy whose name turns out to be Neil Gaiman. And yes, it’s th at Neil Gaiman, who reveals he’s one of the Sighted. Possibly if I were more of a Gaiman fan I would be charmed like this … but I’m not, and I wasn’t.

And then we have Gaiman deliver a massive info-dump about London, other cities that “remember” and his personal experiences with the Sight. None of it really relates to the story, which slows down to a crawl until Gaiman finishes. While some of the info is interesting, I’d have cut the scene and maybe doled out a little of the information elsewhere. And yes, I’d have cut Gaiman.

Overall an excellent book, so I can forgive the info dump and Gaiman.