Whatever you’re into is some fascinatingly weird shit.
It’s always interesting what jobs the point of view of an urban fantasy book has. In the Dresden Files, we start out with a Private Investigator. In the Mercy Thompson books, a mechanic. In Rivers of London, a cop.
In Strange Practice, we have a doctor (of the supernatural).
“You are not humans," she said at last, “but you are people . All of you. The ghouls, the mummies, the sanguivores, the weres, the banshees, the wights, the bogeys, everyone who comes to me for help, everyone who trusts me to provide it. You are all people , and you deserve to to be able to seek and receive that care without putting yourselves in jeopardy. What I do is necessary, and while it isn’t in the slightest bit easy, it is also the thing I want to do more than anything else in the world.”
So far as we know, entirely vanilla mortal, but dedicated to providing medical care to supernatural beings. Kind of a cool point of view; something I hadn’t seen before. Although, given that her name is Dr. Greta Helsing, I’m curious how that might change in future books.
Worldbuildingwise, it’s urban fantasy soup. Everything that goes bump in the night is real and coming to find you–but for the moment, mostly hidden from mortal eyes. I like worlds like this, even if they don’t always make sense under scrutiny. We get a nice mix. Vampires (and vampyres, they’re different, see?), whatever Fastitocalon is, mummies, and ghouls. I like it.
Plotwise, we have a bit of minor spoilers, but I really do like the idea of something gone wrong with the really old (from our perspective) electrical technology of the London underground. And a cult of warrior monks, wrapped up in twisted old school Catholic ideology always works.
Structurewise, we get a lot of head hopping. It’s distracting at times and I’m not sure I needed to know the points of view from everyone. But I suppose it works.
Overall, I’m going to have to give the series a chance. It’s a neat start and I’m curious where it goes from here. Onward!
Side note:
London’s lost rivers had taken on a romantic sort of mystery in popular awareness. The idea of waters flowing on and on in the endless darkness under the city streets was deliciously eerie, and of course lost and abandoned tunnels and caverns had always appealed to a certain sort of adventurous spirit. Even the names were evocative: the Tyburn, the Fleet, the Effra, the Westbourne, once broad streams in their own right—now bound and channeled in the bowels of the ancient city, but not entirely forgotten. The old rivers flowed now in a muffled roar and chime of water through cathedrals of tile and brick, unseen arches and coigns of gorgeous complexity guiding and shaping their eventual journey to the sea.
This was fun to read after Rivers of London.