An interview with Ben Aaronovitch, author of the Rivers of London series, who visited Hornchurch Library to promote his new book and hold a Q and A with Havering residents.
Novelist and TV writer, Ben Aaronovitch, visited Hornchurch Library last weekend to promote his new novel, Stone & Sky, the latest in the hugely popular Rivers of London series, described by the author himself as ‘What if Gandalf was in the Sweeney?’.
Rivers of London follows Detective Sargent Peter Grant as he navigates the secret world of magical policing and drags the old London magical institution, The Folly, into the 21st century.
Stone & Sky is the 10th novel in the Rivers series, as well as a range of novellas, short stories and graphic novels.
Living in Havering caught up with Ben after the book signing to chat about what might be in store for Peter Grant in the future, advice for aspiring authors, and whether we’ll see the goddess of the River Rom again in a future book:
(Warning: This interview contains spoilers for Stone & Sky, and the Rivers of London series)
What’s next for the Rivers of London series? Will there be another story arc like the Faceless Man arc?
I don’t know yet – there’s something brewing but I have no idea what’s happening next.
I can feel something coming, but I didn’t know where the Faceless Man arc was going – there was no clear arc until it developed.
There are things brewing, but how they turn up I haven’t worked out yet.
Was it always the plan to give Abigail (Peter Grant’s cousin, and the second viewpoint protagonist in Stone & Sky) more centre stage time, or was that something that developed with the character?
No. Nope – like the bloody foxes (the Rivers series talking foxes that engage in spy craft across the city), she just stole the stage while I wasn’t looking.
When I started writing the Aberdeen story, I realised there were two components to it, there was a countryside component and a city component.
Peter was obviously the city component, y’know, the police procedural mean streets story, while the more fairy-involved, Fae, weird creatures component needed a different character.
And while she was up there, she kind of volunteered (Ben talked a lot in the Q&A about how his characters tell him what they want to do, and he writes for them).
Plus of course, I knew how to write her because I’d already written her novella (What Abigail Did That Summer).
That’s how she took on the role, I didn’t sit there and think ‘I’m going to use Abigail in that role' – she just kind of evolved into it.
I don’t necessarily think in those terms, I wasn’t 100 percent comfortable at first having two viewpoint characters, as the series has been consistently one viewpoint, but it was very useful to be able to go somewhere else.
And then, of course, all the stuff with the mermaid happened, which was just all her.
Have you considered doing a viewpoint from Nightingale’s perspective? (Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale is Peter’s ageless wizard mentor and Guv’)
No, and you’re never going to get a viewpoint – well, you might get a short story from Nightingale, but never a full-length novella. Nightingale’s my secret sauce, y’know, and you’ve got to be careful with your secret sauce – you sprinkle it on like fairy dust. You don’t want to put too much in – he’s great but he’s not the protagonist, so you don’t want to overdo him, but you do like to have him in every so often to spice things up.
It was nice seeing him take on more of a fatherly mentorship over Abigail in Stone & Sky.
Yes, that evolved out of the story, but I just thought – how would Nightingale approach Abigail? Because in some ways, Peter was a kind of warm-up for him, because he’d never taught before.
But Peter is also a serving Police Officer and has responsibilities, whereas Abigail is actually a young person who’s got time and an interest in the minutiae.
Which is weird because Nightingale didn’t have that – he wasn’t like that in school but he had friends who were, so he kind of admires this quality that she’s got that he didn’t have.
He was just really good at spells in the same way he was really good at Cricket and Rugby. In the same way some people pick up musical instruments really quickly, he picked up magic really quickly and was very good at it.
To a certain extent, Peter has it too, though it’s hard to tell because he runs around being so… Peter-y (see Moon Over Soho, Broken Homes etc.).
Peter’s actually a very good wizard now. Abigail isn’t yet, so it’s nice to have a character back down that power level rather than Peter, who’s capable of holding his own – if Peter went up against the Faceless Man now, he’d do much better.
I’m not going to say he’d win, but he’d do much better.
Are there any characters over the course of the books that you’ve based on anyone you know?
The only character who’s actually based on a real person is Seawoll (Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Seawoll, the old-school and foul-mouthed, Met Police stalwart who is consistently frustrated with magic), who is based on a friend of mine who died while I was writing the first book. He was this huge, profane Doctor Who fan from Glossop, and he was just large and shouty and fantastic. I was very upset when he died, and I immortalised him in Seawoll – although he wasn’t a Police Officer obviously, he was a comedy writer.
He was that much of a huge presence, and sweary, and I’ve tried to reflect that in Seawoll. I’m writing him (Seawoll) at the moment, and I had to go back to the original book to recapture that initial creative swearing because I didn’t want him to become flanderised.
I love that you got the subtle nerdiness in there too, which slips out from Seawoll occasionally.
Of course, he’s a Doctor Who fan (like Ben himself, who wrote for Doctor Who in the 1980s), because Colin was a Doctor Who fan – they even played the theme music at his funeral.
What advice would you give to any of our readers who are aspiring authors?
Number 1 – Get a comfortable chair.
Number 2 – Write the book YOU want to read.
The thing is there is no obligation by anyone else in the world to read your book.
You have to be fairly arrogant as a writer, you have to sit down and say ‘I will write 96,000 words out of my head, and someone will give me 20 quid’, and if you think about it, that’s ridiculous.
So you have no right to sell your book however, you shouldn’t be told what book to write.
There are things you can do to make it more publishable, but generally speaking, you shouldn’t compromise the core thing you want to write – so if you want to write a comedy thriller about lesbian psychopaths, that’s what you should write.
It’s possible nobody will buy it, but it’s possible it might become the next big thing. Who knows?
I’m sure a lot of our readers will be interested to know if the River Rom, who Peter had an encounter with in a nightclub in Romford, might ever come back in the series? (In the series, all of London’s Rivers have a god or goddess in human form, known as a Genius Loci).
Ah yes, the Goddess of WKD, who holds court in Attik nightclub. She’s such a great character that I do want to bring her back. People turn up when it’s time for them to turn up in a story, but so far there hasn’t been a story that’s involved her.
I think I might go to Silvertown next, that’s fairly close, so that might give her a reason to show up. Silvertown has a bit of a rough reputation, because it’s right next to the airport so there’s a tremendous amount of smuggling and illegal stuff.
Ah so maybe a hint as to what might show up in a future book?
Well, I don’t know, it’s not a hint, I have to wait for the characters to tell me.
Stone & Sky, and all of the Rivers of London books, novellas and graphic novels are available to buy now, as well as available to borrow from Havering Libraries.