That's Reassuring, Not. Plus Recent Reading

[davidgillon]

Just been checking the local Covid rates, and Medway is now at the sort of rates the North has been seeing, 346/100k in my bit and not far under 500/100k in others. That's a hundred-fold increase on less than a month ago when we were at 3/100k and far higher than we saw in the first wave.

At this rate we could come out of lockdown with a higher rate than we went in with.

ONS called me this afternoon to ask me to respond to an urgent online Covid survey request they'd sent, where they wanted responses by the weekend. I presumed I just hadn't opened the relevant envelope and went to check the mail, but it looks like I never received it. I'll give them a ring tomorrow if it doesn't turn up. I'm now curious as to what it might be that requires an urgent survey!!

In the actual north, rates are dropping slightly, but my sister's school has another class out and she's out for a fortnight with what her GP is calling a non-Covid virus. Even though she was out sick, she was the one who ended up having to call all the parents to tell them the class couldn't come in, because they found out first thing in the morning, with the head uncontactable (presumably in transit - she arrived eventually).

Entertaining Alexa Discoveries/Showing My Age

"Alexa, play some Ska"

Recent Reading

New Amsterdam, Elizabeth Bear

Reread. Detective Crown Investigator Lady Abigail Irene Garrett meets 'the Great Detective' Don Sebastian Ulloa. She's a forensic sorceror, he's a vampire, they fight crime. While I still like the stories I find I'm irritated by the presumption British rule must be corrupt.

The Last Emperox, John Scalzi

The last in the trilogy. The hyperspace routes that link the Interdependency are collapsing and Emperox Grayland II must find some way to save her billions of people when only the End system will be left with a sustainable economy. Meanwhile convicted traitor and multiple murderer Lady Nadashe Nohamapetan is still out to foment regime change within the entitled nobility and get herself crowned Emperox. Scalzi outright admits in the afterword he left this to the last minute because he was too focused on US politics in 2019 and in places I think it shows. I'm really not sure a couple of people's arcs address their drivers, in one case a major character is literally put on the bus, even though their life's work isn't nearly complete and the argument another character entirely can just pick it up really didn't work for me. On the other hand it does manage to be truly shocking in a couple of places, and Lady Kiva's arc continues to be a delight, and to surprise even her.

Masquerade in Lodi, Lois McMaster Bujold

Having left his home of the last decade following the death of his patron the Princess-Archdivine, Penric and Desdemona have found a new patron in the Archdivine of Lodi (a city which is somewhat Venice-like). Pen's planned nice quiet day doing some translating is interrupted when a ship-wrecked mariner turns out to be demon-possessed, and then disappears from the hospital. Which means it's not Pen's skill with languages they need, but his and his demon Desdemona's ability to track and contain a much less experienced demon through Lodi's masquerade. And fortunately there's a Saint of the Bastard at hand to dispose of the demon when it's found. Complicating matters - what else does Pen expect from his god? - Blessed Chio insists she's coming with him. She's 18, she's spent her life in an orphanage, and it rapidly becomes clear she wants to come with Pen because it's her first chance to spend the night out at the Masquerade.

(And accompanied by a complete re-read of the Penric series to date. Masquerade does fill an obvious hole in the sequence, though there are plenty of others - there's about a seven year gap between Penric's Fox and Masquerade, and we've not seen any stories from when he was at the seminary)

Rivers of London: Detective Stories, Ben Aaronovitch

The first of the Rivers spinoff comic books I've bought. In order for Peter to be promoted to Detective Constable he must talk a senior(ish) officer through several of his investigations. Of course this involves first convincing said senior officer that magic exists.

The added element in a comic-book version is you get to see people, not just imagine them. Peter, Lesley, and Beverly are all much as I imagined them, Nightingale is rather more severe than I pictured him, and I'm not sure if it's Molly is more alien than I expected, or I just wasn't anticipating the mop cap. Seawoll, Miriam Stephanopoulous, Sahra Guleed and Abigail all have walk-on appearances, and while they're all completely believable there's a tendency to show Guleed's hair escaping from her hijab in some of the images, which really misses the point of being a hijabi who elects to cover all their hair.

The first story involves Peter investigating the sacrifice of a goat atop an office block, which turns out to link to a firm of City Lawyers, and a belief you can turn yourself into a god through becoming completely self-centred. (The law firm turns up in either The Hanging Tree or Lies Sleeping, and I think you possibly need to have read this to fully understand that appearance).

And just to complicate things, Lesley keeps texting him and giving him advice.

The second story involves an unexpected discovery in the Apsley House museum - an extra Goya. And this time it's Peter and Lesley investigating, just as she moves into the Folly. I'm very impressed by the way Lesley's mask is handled, slightly less so by the way the curator is portrayed as a leg amputee using a single forearm crutch, which is a bloody difficult way to get around. The investigation leads to Oberon, partner to Beverly's sister Effra, and from Oberon to another old soldier, with a story to tell. There's a picture here of Lesley without her mask, drawn from behind and to the side so you can't see her face, and it's still disturbing - took me quite a while to work out why - more so in fact than the sketch of her from the front.

The third story has Peter investigating a ghost story out in the wilds of Slough, or rather a murder cold case where the victim's ghost has supplied new evidence via a medium. Unfortunately it turns out out even ghosts are unreliable witnesses.

And the final case is Peter and Lesley's first ever investigation, when they were probationers; the case of the digital flasher. And it turns out Lesley being assigned to Seawoll's Murder Investigation Team was no accident, she'd been talent-spotted in advance.

These are short, but entertaining, and there are also several single page strips for which the same can be said, only more so.

Rivers of London, Waterweed, Ben Aaronovitch

Teenage delinquents river goddesses Chelsea and Olympia are staying with Beverly, so when they confiscate a batch of weed off a couple of students running it up the Thame in a speedboat, Beverly then confiscates it off them, which ultimately leads to Peter inhaling and getting a vestiguum off it that suggests whoever is growing the weed is being held captive and forced to do it (a form of modern slavery that's well known in the UK). So he sets out to track it down.

Meanwhile a couple of hoodlums have been sent to deal with Chelsea and Olympia, which goes badly, for them, but doesn't stop them protesting their innocence under interrogation.

Peter's investigation quickly hauls in the two hipster drug mules, which doesn't really help as they know nothing, and in their case that's even true. Adding complications to the investigation are a slimy human dealer called Reuel who Peter's run into before, and a goblin called Lana who fancies herself as an information broker, but quickly finds herself out of her depth.

And pulling all the strings as the violence escalates is the Hoodette, a hoodie wearing, facially-tattooed thug of a woman.

WRT the art, while the artist is the same between the two - Lee Sullivan, Nightingale is noticeably less severe and more modern here - two piece suit vs three piece. Possibly it's meant to reflect Nightingale modernising under Peter's influence (and potentially also growing younger seeing as they're likely several years apart).

Comments

[davidgillon]

And a belated addition to the local rates as I only spotted it later, Sheppey East* is at 1871.5 cases/100,000 - that's higher than the level in Bristol that's concerning enough there's a story about it in today's Guardian. Which from inference says Sheppey is at least the third highest rate in the country.

* I shall resist the temptation to make sheep jokes.

ETA Sheppey is now confirmed to have the highest rates in the country.