Welcome and Introductions!

[Lata]

That series has been on my TBR too, Ronnie.

Too many books, too little time *sighing*

[Vladimír]

Hi,

I have a question to ask, not sure where else to put this (happy to move it to a different thread). The question: Is Ben Aaronovitch a bad writer?

I am a fan of the series since Broken Homes (see my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) in no way am I hating on the author just for the hating's sake. But reading Lies Sleeping now, it really got me thinking.

I used to think the issue was with me - not knowing all the acronyms and getting lost in the millions of minor characters and references from the previous books (and from the graphic novels - now that is crazy) that pop up again. But I am starting to think Ben Aaronovitch is just a bad writer.

Maybe it really is me and I am just too stupid to read these books / my need to understand colloquialisms stops myself from the enjoying the read. But my current theory is that Ben's writing isn't good / clear enough. He drowns the plot in characters, details, asides and musings on architecture that are indistinguishable in style from the really important bits so the plot has no clear follow-through. I love architecture, don't get me wrong, but when every page of a book feels pretty much the same in terms of style and significance, most of the time you don't know what is throwaway exposition and what is actually important making everything pretty much important and that's just quite an exhausting read.

Maybe I'm not expressing this clearly myself. Still: wondering if other people feel the same.

TLDR: Ben Aaronovitch's writing is bad, overcrowded, makes the books hard to read and enjoy reading.

[John]

Vladimír wrote: "TLDR: Ben Aaronovitch's writing is bad, overcrowded, makes the books hard to read and enjoy reading."

putting it like that, you might be right but i am by no means a literary critic.

But I enjoy the ever-expanding cast, meandering observations and the snark. It all feels like a window into Peter’s ADHD-adjacent brain, nicely balanced by Nightingale’s stiff-upper-lip, Tyburn’s menace and Leslie’s sharp pragmatism. The acronyms (e.g. ASBO), random social commentary and rhyming slang are the passwords that insiders identify their connection the Peter Grant universe.

Listening to Kobna (audiobook narrator) makes it perfect.