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A review by guppyur
Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
2.0
Still a bit of fun pulp, but with more problems.
Problem 1: Authors have always liked to dot their work with references to things they like. Jim Butcher likes aikido, for example, so he made a secondary character an expert. Good, fine. Aaronovitch lacks self-restraint, however, and he's not so much dotted his work as upended the entire bucket on it. His preference is jazz, and its role is both more prominent and more ridiculous. It's a central part of the plot in ways it has no business being. Jazz featured a bit in the previous installment, and if a bit heavy-handed was fine as character background. He's gone far overboard this time, though. He also likes to show off -- not just his knowledge of jazz standards, but of particular versions of them. It's downright masturbatory and it takes me out of the story.
Problem 2: Sex scenes. There are quite a lot, and they're simultaneously overly explicit and profoundly unsexy. If you must have them, you should probably avoid taking the worst of all worlds. Every time he started one, I'd think "oh god, he's trying this again." It also appears to be important to Aaronovitch that his protagonist be a sexual Superman. It reeks of insecurity and, again, takes me out of the story.
Problem 3: Implausibility. At least once I was utterly unable to suspend my disbelief that characters would act as they did, and -- you guessed it -- boom, out of the story again.
It's fun enough if you're willing to overlook all these issues, but a literary award winner this is not. I've not decided whether to continue with the series.
Problem 1: Authors have always liked to dot their work with references to things they like. Jim Butcher likes aikido, for example, so he made a secondary character an expert. Good, fine. Aaronovitch lacks self-restraint, however, and he's not so much dotted his work as upended the entire bucket on it. His preference is jazz, and its role is both more prominent and more ridiculous. It's a central part of the plot in ways it has no business being. Jazz featured a bit in the previous installment, and if a bit heavy-handed was fine as character background. He's gone far overboard this time, though. He also likes to show off -- not just his knowledge of jazz standards, but of particular versions of them. It's downright masturbatory and it takes me out of the story.
Problem 2: Sex scenes. There are quite a lot, and they're simultaneously overly explicit and profoundly unsexy. If you must have them, you should probably avoid taking the worst of all worlds. Every time he started one, I'd think "oh god, he's trying this again." It also appears to be important to Aaronovitch that his protagonist be a sexual Superman. It reeks of insecurity and, again, takes me out of the story.
Problem 3: Implausibility. At least once I was utterly unable to suspend my disbelief that characters would act as they did, and -- you guessed it -- boom, out of the story again.
It's fun enough if you're willing to overlook all these issues, but a literary award winner this is not. I've not decided whether to continue with the series.