Review: London Falling by Paul Cornell

I don't quite recall how I stumbled upon London Falling - most likely a blog post? This is the hazard of putting books on a "for later" list and not getting them until months after. It's the first of a series - the second of which will come out in a few days (May 22, presuming North American release is the same time as the UK one).

London Falling is a... hm. It self-describes as an urban fantasy, but I wouldn't call it that. If I had to mush genres together to get this, I'd say it's a police procedural supernatural horror. I've ordered it that way because it really is a police procedural first (the fact that the crime is supernatural in origin isn't immediately known - the officers grow into the knowledge with the reader), and I've added the "horror" genre because it's darker than the average urban fantasy. There's a feeling of reality even in the frankly unbelievable because the characters are with you on it, and that speaks more to horror than fantasy as a genre.

Man, the book is good. The writing really takes you into it - I have strong visuals in my head (which is pretty unusual for me - oddly, I think the last one was another Brit police + magic novel: Ben Aaronovitch's Midnight Riot) from it, and it's sticking with me despite not writing this review immediately after reading. It's perhaps not a surprise, in retrospect, to find that Paul Cornell writes for television and comics as well. The writing feels rich in visuals without being overly described.

For me, knowing I have no problem with supernatural as a genre, I almost felt it a pity that I knew about it in advance... I would have liked to discover it in the novel rather than on the cover. Sorry I'm not giving you that chance either, but it's really unavoidable when you're holding the book because of all the blurbs and description. Perhaps it's for the best, though, because I could see someone who wanted a "real" story being totally frustrated when it goes off into the supernatural.