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A review by theaurochs
The Glass God by Kate Griffin
3.0
Very disappointing to have to downgrade this to three stars; I remember loving it deeply the first time around. It's no exaggeration to say that this book series changed my mind on London. Being a country person at heart (or maybe a small town person), the overwhelming nature of such a huge conglomoration of people and concrete and noise was always pretty offputting for me. The magic written in to these books by Kate Griffin (A.K.A. Catherine Webb/Claire North) opened my eyes to the magic of life around me. There can be a joy in the rhythms of a city, and these are the rhythms of modern life. There's a very real point at which we have to take things in life as they are, and do our best to enjoy life, every element of it. Even the grimy bits, or the confusing bits, and especially the uncomfortable bits. Life may well be a bit shit, but we can always choose to find the goodness in things. So was London; a slowly lumbering beast, the likes of which I'd always tried to avoid. By following in Matthew Swift and Sharon Li's footsteps I did my best to mantle the city- I walked like it until it walked like me. And as Sharon in particular would be at great pains to point out, even great lumbering beasts are often just misunderstood. So before I knew it, I was finding the pockets of good things in London- enjoy the rare green spaces, immersing myself in the lights and sounds, and going to a board game pub on Tuesday nights. Without Kate Griffin and this series, I'm not sure I would have managed it.
What an utter shame then to return to this last entry in the magical London series and find that it limps rather pathetically across the finish line. The overall feeling is rote; maybe the publisher needed just one more book in the series, and Griffin obliged. Gone is the deep pathos and empathy of the previous entries; characters replaced with straightforward character traits, oftentimes at odds with how they've previously been portrayed. Not a single character in this book is treated to an arc- they are all unfortunately static. Missing are the sumptuous descriptions of London, the treatment of the streets and boroughs with so much detail and evocative language, that made the City feel like a beautiful fantasy land and yet also entirely real. The humour falls flat far more often than it succeeds. The plot is perfunctory and predictable, and short; prolonged by far too frequent episodes of characters recapping the plot up to that point to each other. One of the main mysteries of the novel ultimately sorts itself out without any input from the characters, and feels decidedly weak.
The plot, such as it is, follows one Sharon Li (Hi, Sharon...); leader of the mystical self-help group Magicals Anonymous and budding shaman. When one day the Midnight Mayor (mystical protector of the city) goes missing, she finds herself reluctantly deputised and needs to find out where he's gone, as well as why shoes keep appearing tied to phone lines, and why there is an unsettling stench of decay in the city's graveyards. She bumbles around London with her bungling IT support/druid friend Rhys, following the clues and attempting to unravel the mystery. It's a familiar setup, allowing us to tour London and the magical underworld thereof, meeting bizarre characters and mysical creatures. Perhaps this familiarity is part of the problem; it feels too close to previous books and almost paint-by-numbers. It seems like we at times revisit bits from previous books and therefore lose out on the wondrous discovery, and at others the sheer volume of magical stuff going on in every street in London makes you question somewhat how the world hangs together. This isn't an issue I've ever had with another Griffin/Webb/North book before or since- she is usually magnificent at creating fully realised worlds, where the consequences of everything extraordinary are fully explored.
In summary, re-reading this mostly made me sad. There are still glimmers of that Webb/Griffin/North brilliance, but this entry feels distinctly phoned in.
What an utter shame then to return to this last entry in the magical London series and find that it limps rather pathetically across the finish line. The overall feeling is rote; maybe the publisher needed just one more book in the series, and Griffin obliged. Gone is the deep pathos and empathy of the previous entries; characters replaced with straightforward character traits, oftentimes at odds with how they've previously been portrayed. Not a single character in this book is treated to an arc- they are all unfortunately static. Missing are the sumptuous descriptions of London, the treatment of the streets and boroughs with so much detail and evocative language, that made the City feel like a beautiful fantasy land and yet also entirely real. The humour falls flat far more often than it succeeds. The plot is perfunctory and predictable, and short; prolonged by far too frequent episodes of characters recapping the plot up to that point to each other. One of the main mysteries of the novel ultimately sorts itself out without any input from the characters, and feels decidedly weak.
The plot, such as it is, follows one Sharon Li (Hi, Sharon...); leader of the mystical self-help group Magicals Anonymous and budding shaman. When one day the Midnight Mayor (mystical protector of the city) goes missing, she finds herself reluctantly deputised and needs to find out where he's gone, as well as why shoes keep appearing tied to phone lines, and why there is an unsettling stench of decay in the city's graveyards. She bumbles around London with her bungling IT support/druid friend Rhys, following the clues and attempting to unravel the mystery. It's a familiar setup, allowing us to tour London and the magical underworld thereof, meeting bizarre characters and mysical creatures. Perhaps this familiarity is part of the problem; it feels too close to previous books and almost paint-by-numbers. It seems like we at times revisit bits from previous books and therefore lose out on the wondrous discovery, and at others the sheer volume of magical stuff going on in every street in London makes you question somewhat how the world hangs together. This isn't an issue I've ever had with another Griffin/Webb/North book before or since- she is usually magnificent at creating fully realised worlds, where the consequences of everything extraordinary are fully explored.
In summary, re-reading this mostly made me sad. There are still glimmers of that Webb/Griffin/North brilliance, but this entry feels distinctly phoned in.