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Rivers of London (book series)

The Rivers of London series (alternatively, the Peter Grant or the PC Grant series) is a series of urban fantasy novels by English author Ben Aaronovitch, and comics/graphic novels by Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel, illustrated by Lee Sullivan.

Bibliography

Novels and novellas

Short Stories

Tales from the Folly

Tales from the Folly, a short story collection, was published in November 2020.

It contains the following stories:

PART ONE: THE PETER GRANT STORIES

  • The Home Crowd Advantage
  • The Domestic
  • The Cockpit
  • The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Granny
  • King of the Rats
  • A Rare Book of Cunning Device

PART TWO: THE OTHERS' STORIES

  • A Dedicated Follower of Fashion
  • Favourite Uncle
  • Vanessa Sommer's Other Christmas List
  • Three Rivers, Two Husbands and a Baby
  • Moment One: Nightingale - London September 1966
  • Moment Two: Reynolds - Florence, Az. 2015
  • Moment Three: Tobias Winter - Meckenheim 2012

Graphic novels

The graphic novel series is cowritten by Andrew Cartmel. Initially published serially, the individual story arcs later appeared as graphic novels. All the graphic novels are published by Titan Comics.

Future installments

Aaronovitch has announced some forthcoming titles on his personal blog.

Aaronovitch has announced several works within the same fictional universe, but set outside the chronology of the main series. These works include a short story entitled 'Cock of The Wall' focusing on Petrus Aelius Bekemetus, who Aaronovitch describes as a "temple official/Londinium wideboy" – i.e. set in Roman London which Peter Grant briefly visited in the third book of the series.

Main characters

  • Police Constable, later Detective Sergeant; Peter Grant; an officer in the Metropolitan Police and the first official apprentice wizard in sixty years.
  • Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale; head of the Folly and the last officially sanctioned English Wizard.
  • Lesley May; Police Constable colleague of Peter's in the Metropolitan Police.
  • Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Seawoll; Senior Investigation Officer at the Westminster Murder Investigation Team.
  • Detective Sergeant Miriam Stephanopoulos; case officer of the Belgravia Murder Investigation Team and 'right-hand man' to DCI Seawoll.
  • Detective Constable, later Detective Sergeant Sahra Guleed; attached to Belgravia Murder Investigation Team, often works with Peter when his cases are in London.
  • Dr Abdul Haqq Walid; world-renowned gastroenterologist and cryptopathologist.
  • Frank Caffrey; LFB (London Fire Brigade) Fire Investigator, ex-para and a key "associate" of the Folly.
  • Professor Harold Postmartin D.Phil. FRS BMon, "Postmartin the Pirate", Archivist and expert for the Folly.
  • Molly; The Folly's domestic helper, whose species is not entirely clarified, but she has been referred to as fae-like in the novel Foxglove Summer.
  • Abigail Kamara; Peter's annoyingly persistent teen-aged cousin, the de facto founding member of the Folly's Youth Wing. Lives at the same estate as Peter's parents.
  • Beverley Brook; "daughter" of Mama Thames and goddess of Beverley Brook, a small river in South London; in later books, Peter Grant's girlfriend and mother of his twin daughters.
  • Cecilia Tyburn Thames; aka Lady Ty, "daughter" of Mama Thames and goddess of the River Tyburn.
  • Oxley; god of the River Oxley, one of the "sons" of Father Thames and his chief negotiator.
  • Toby; Peter's dog, who can detect magic, indicated by yapping.
  • Varvara Sidorovna Tamonina (aka. Varenka Dobroslova); Russian/Soviet witch (Night Witch), magical WWII veteran (365th Special Regiment of the Red Army), later living on her own in Britain with a magically extended lifetime.
  • Indigo; a talking fox and master spy. Assigned to protect Abigail.

Stories listed by internal chronology

In a blog entry, the author has provided a list of the stories, by internal chronology.

On the page where the official order is given, the author writes: "One caveat – the short story The Home Crowd Advantage is obviously set in 2012 during the London Olympics, but because it was written before the chronology of the series had firmed up it contains a number of anachronisms. I've learnt to be philosophical about this sort of thing." Many of the stories give vague dates, and some of those dates conflict with the official series order (compare Foxglove Summer and The Furthest Station). The short story collection Tales from the Folly includes a note above each story indicating which of the novels it is set between.

Reception

Sarah Shaffi wrote for The Guardian:

Reviewing the ninth book in the series, Amongst Our Weapons, in The Guardian, Lisa Tuttle wrote:

Adaptations

On 1 May 2019 it was announced that a television adaptation of Rivers of London would be produced by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's production company, Stolen Picture. However, according to Aaronovitch, the series is "still in the same state of permanent pre-pre-production". On 7 July 2022, a new TV adaptation of the book series was announced, to be produced by Pure Fiction Television, See-Saw Films, and Unnecessary Logo—Aaronovitch's production company. On 2 November 2023, it was announced that John Jackson would be lead writer on the television adaptation. On 11 November 2024 it was announced that Sky Studios has acquired the adaptation, which will premiere on Sky in the UK.

At Dragonmeet convention in London, on 30 November 2019, it was announced that a role-playing game based on the book series would be published by Chaosium. The game was released in PDF first on 30 November 2022, with the print version released 17 April 2023

See also

References