False Value (Rivers of London #8), by Ben Aaronovitch

False Value by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


“If there was ever a candidate to be patron saint of computers then it would be Alan Turing. Mathematician, war hero and tragic victim of homophobia.”

And the above quotation is pretty much the only redeeming quality of this entire uninspired mess of a book.

As seems almost mandatory among “hip” authors these days, we have completely unnecessary jumps in the narrated time between chapters. Why can’t people tell their story linearly?! It’s not that hard and Aaronovitch stops jumping around the middle of the book and nothing of value is lost. So, why do it in the first place?

There’s no character development, no furthering any story arc, nothing. Not even the mediocre story of mixing magic, the generally supernatural and technology is fully explored but lacklustrely told and unconvincingly at that.

Even worse: Apart from countless allusions to the Hitchhiker’s Guide, “False Value” alludes to other works of Aaronovitch (probably those graphic “novels”) which I’m not in the least interested in reading.

This book was so boring, I’m surprised I managed to finish it. If you’ve been a fan so far, skip this one and hope for better times. If you haven’t read any “Rivers of London” yet, start at the beginning instead and, if you get that far, pretend this turd doesn’t exist.





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