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A review by daveparry67
A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin
3.0
I was drawn to this by a friend who enjoyed the very British references & London town setting & shared that appreciation… I’ve not read anything quite like this... the main character wakes up, but not from sleep; it’s some sort of regeneration, back to life as before but so much is different…. It’s all a bit weird & dislocated & gradually we’re introduced to an underworld of magic which we’re not all able to see where different beings have different powers & rivalries & power struggles lead to ultimate battles to save the world, all set in an electrified urban landscape, unmistakably London but with a whole new perspective…
So he’s a sorcerer who’s been brought back by his former teacher, who also killed him, to extract the electric blue magic he has inside him... & he’s looking for revenge & encountering enemies & allies in various, brutal, magical battles in the streets of London as he goes... Magic flows through the city, like the arterial movement & the language of tickets & barriers & fares & journeys in the underground; he calls up spirits for protection & the electric blue magical power runs through the ‘phone lines & his blood... it’s all quite rhythmic & flowing to be honest, he taps in to the well worn traces of history’s legacy as he tracks his prey...
I’m torn between finding the ‘ally who’s really an enemy’ (or ‘enemy who’s really an ally’) thing either a clever look at the mixed motivations that come from stress/threat or just a bit confusing & worn out... makes for a bit of intrigue in the action though, which continued apace... Allegiances were not as they seemed, as if our perspective was being toyed with, I even wondered if maybe our hero is really the villain & his target for assassination really the good guy... sadly the title of the book on Goodreads suggests this isn’t the only book in a series, so we suspect he’s bound to survive...
Is this any more than a gory, fiery, magical romp through a series of battles with conveniently, successively more tricky adversaries that’s just intended to distract us from real life or are there any deeper observations & lessons to draw from it? If not, it’s no less entertaining or worthwhile! It’s a long book & I suppose if I’m honest I wanted a bit more; there was a bit of a twist in the conclusion but I was ready to stop long before we got there; it was a bit of a slog by the last third of the book. All the same I did enjoy inhabiting this world; I’d like a computer generated virtual reality version of the London depicted here to explore at my leisure...
So he’s a sorcerer who’s been brought back by his former teacher, who also killed him, to extract the electric blue magic he has inside him... & he’s looking for revenge & encountering enemies & allies in various, brutal, magical battles in the streets of London as he goes... Magic flows through the city, like the arterial movement & the language of tickets & barriers & fares & journeys in the underground; he calls up spirits for protection & the electric blue magical power runs through the ‘phone lines & his blood... it’s all quite rhythmic & flowing to be honest, he taps in to the well worn traces of history’s legacy as he tracks his prey...
I’m torn between finding the ‘ally who’s really an enemy’ (or ‘enemy who’s really an ally’) thing either a clever look at the mixed motivations that come from stress/threat or just a bit confusing & worn out... makes for a bit of intrigue in the action though, which continued apace... Allegiances were not as they seemed, as if our perspective was being toyed with, I even wondered if maybe our hero is really the villain & his target for assassination really the good guy... sadly the title of the book on Goodreads suggests this isn’t the only book in a series, so we suspect he’s bound to survive...
Is this any more than a gory, fiery, magical romp through a series of battles with conveniently, successively more tricky adversaries that’s just intended to distract us from real life or are there any deeper observations & lessons to draw from it? If not, it’s no less entertaining or worthwhile! It’s a long book & I suppose if I’m honest I wanted a bit more; there was a bit of a twist in the conclusion but I was ready to stop long before we got there; it was a bit of a slog by the last third of the book. All the same I did enjoy inhabiting this world; I’d like a computer generated virtual reality version of the London depicted here to explore at my leisure...