Five Things We Liked About Midnight Riot:
- Point of view choice. You know when you’re reading a book and it catches your attention because it doesn’t quite feel right? Something about it draws your attention to every ‘I’, or name drop and it grates on you like nothing else. Well, this book did not have that problem. Peter was a great choice for a narrator — distracted and detail oriented Peter, who could lead you through old London, and new, with interesting tidbits and extensive knowledge. It was like reading Harry Potter, only Hermione was the main POV character. Questions the reader had were answered. Questions we didn’t have were also answered. We both loved Peter, who was witty and wry, and observant enough to really dig into the world that was being created.
- Science magic. We’re robots, of course we love it when things make logical sense. Urban fantasy, with it’s look at the interplay between magic and technology is always going to be fun. This book really got into the science-y side of the world. Peter does experiments! Newton is the founder of “orderly” magic. It’s a creative way of layering together the modern and the mystical, and one we greatly appreciated.
- Setting. I was born in London, but Dany has probably spent more time in the city proper than I have. She had just returned from a trip there, and there’s a certain amount of delight that you can get from seeing the places you just went in what you’re reading about. From a perspective of having basically no knowledge of London, I found the descriptions and explanations to be interesting and lively, giving me a good sense of the world even without the pictures in my head. But that’s not what we meant by setting. Since we read in English (my fault, why didn’t I grow up bilingual?!) a lot of books end up being set in the US. It was great to have a setting that wasn’t the US, and to look at the way “standard” parts of society work in a different way in (at least) England. Being inundated with with the American Detective, reading about the English version was refreshing (and I realize not that hard to acquire, but you don’t think about it too much until it hits you in the face). There’s plenty to be said about how the setting really played into the book, making it entertaining and fun in being both new and old.
- Diversity. Peter being half black, and a cop, there was a definite tension that was talked about openly in the book. He mentions where he would fall in police classifications and you can practically feel the hostility over it. But it’s not the only kind of diversity brought up. London was not white washed, which was great to see. London’s always a hugely diverse city, and the book stayed true to that reality. It was nice to see it brought up and discussed.
- Women. For being written by a man, this book managed to portray many different types of women without turning them into cliches. Most of the female characters were sexualized by Peter, but between all the women that we were introduced to, none of them felt cardboard or cookie cutter. They had their own lives, far outside of what was going on with Peter. They were not there for set decoration, or for the “sex” factor.
Overall this was a fun read. I think I enjoyed it a little more than Dany did, as I immediately went and read the next book, and she wasn’t that interested in it. There’s a lot of fun to be had in the universe, but it’s also easy to put aside for a while. There were a few pacing issues, Peter would get distracted in the middle of a tense scene to explain the history, and you would want to punch him to get him back on track, but overall it was fun. Easy, and there was a lot to like about it.
Dany’s rating: 4/5 stars
Rosey’s rating: 4/5 stars
robots read 