Who Is Ben Aaronovitch?
Ben Aaronovitch is an English writer of both screenplays and novels. I found out about him when I read a review of his book Rivers of London in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I liked the sound of the book, so I ordered a hardcover copy. I prefer to read hardcover books as often as I can, but in this case, it wasn’t as easy as you might think…I had to order the Great Britain version of the novel, as no hardcover edition was published in the United States.
Now that I’m 200 pages into Rivers of London, I’m totally in love with the book and the author, so I’ve done a little bit of research to learn more about Ben Aaronovitch. Mostly because I want to read more of his books, but also because I thought it would be a fun first blog post to write here.
It turns out that much of Ben Aaronovitch’s work has been for television, especially for the television show Doctor Who. He’s also written a few Doctor Who novels. I’m not a huge Doctor Who fan, but I’m willing to give anything from Ben Aaronovitch a try now, because I’m enjoying Rivers of London so much.
He also wrote quite a few episodes of a British television series called Jupiter Moon, which I know nothing about. I might look into it, though. As time passes, I’m becoming more and more of an Anglophile. The last two television shows that I really enjoy in a major way were Downton Abbey and Luther. In fact, Luther’s the single best cop show I’ve ever seen.
It turns out that Rivers of London is only the first book in a series of novels from Ben Aaronovitch. The next book in the series is titled Moon Over Soho, and the third book in the series is coming in June of this year. Unless there’s a big change in quality from book to book, you can count on me to read all of them.
Oh, so what is this Rivers of London book all about? Imagine if Harry Potter were a London cop instead of a high school student. So far, he’s become the apprentice of a wizard/inspector named Nightingale, and they’re negotiating with some of the more fantastic creatures who live in and around London. I guess that makes this book “urban fantasy,” but it’s better than any other urban fantasy novel I’ve ever read.