The October Man

A Rivers of London Novella

By: Ben Aaronovitch

Narrated by: Sam Peter Jackson

Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's Summary

A brand-new stand-alone novella in the Rivers of London series!

Tobias Winter has been assigned to the Abteilung KDA - the Department for Complex and Unspecific Matters. 

Despite the intriguing department name, as Winter explains, dealing with the strange and the supernatural is 'actually 90 percent paperwork'. But this is a story about the other 10 percent of the job: the life-threatening danger part. 

This is a tale about the Queen of the Harvest, the October Man, and the little-known time the vineyard around Trier started to eat people.... 

Winter may be P. C. Peter Grant's German counterpart, but surviving this investigation is entirely down to him....

©2019 Ben Aaronovitch (P)2019 Orion Publishing Group

rivers of London spin-off

Nice, a German version of the rivers of London. Although Peter Grant and Nightingale are mentioned a couple of times, they are no actors in this story. It stands completely on its own legs.

Not as exciting

Not as exciting as the Peter Grant series, so far.......? Hope it will get better with time as characters settle.

what a good surprise!

Out of the description I knew the plot would take place in Germany and I thought Peter Grant would have a trip there. I was a bit sad as I read that it wasn't Kobna Holdbrook-Smith reading the novella, I love his voice and couldn't imagine someone else reading a "Rivers of London" book. I was all wrong. First of all Peter is not coming to Germany, we meet a new apprentice, Tobias Winter. And the Rivers are…. well you'll have to listen by yourself. Sam Peter Jackson is the PERFECT reader for this book being English and German. Living in Germany myself it is so nice to hear the german words accentless spoken. He gave life to Tobias in such a convincing way that I missed Peter and Co only a very little bit. That was a wonderful trip to Trier and the Mosel. Dear Mr Ben Aaronovitch you need to be cloned, one of you must resume writing Peter Grant's stories, I want to see his child growing up. And the other one has to show us Tobias and Vanessa dealing with Vater Rhein and meeting the Elbe River ;-).

The German Peter Grant

It’s not Peter but Tobias has a similar voice.
The German folly has moved with the times and has a lot of paperwork, more likely to shoot centre mass than fireballs, genius loci distrusts them even more (with good reason!), it’s a good start to a new series.

Over all it was Enjoyable and I’m hoping there will eventually be cooperation between the Germans and Brit branches of the magical police.

Deutschlands Flüsse

First of all, kudos to the producers for finding a bilingual narrator for the new German protagonist. Someone who doesn't speak German well would have mangled all the names and expressions (I'm looking at you, Nicholas Guy Smith, in the Johannes Cabal stories).
Secondly, Ben Aaronovitch clearly put a lot of research into how the German police work, the localities and special terminology (I thought that Besondere Umstände for the special response unit was inspired). I wish more authors would do this when setting a book in a country that isn't their own.
We learn that The Folly isn't the only police force dealing with magic but there are equivalents in other parts of Europe, too, and a little about the history of Newtonian magic there.
I also really liked the story which unravels the mystery nicely as it is cranked up to the final confrontation.
More of Tobias, please, maybe he and Peter can solve a mystery together at some point?

Not a satisfying listen

I really love the Rivers of London series and have listened to all of the others several times over. This story never felt like it got going properly to me. The narrator was acceptable, but not as talented as Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. The story felt thin and none of the characters were particularly interesting or appealing. Suddenly I found myself at the end of the book wondering why so many other fans had rated this one so highly.

Oh Dear

having loved the series from the first bookRivers of london was pleased to see a new slant to the stories. How disappointed i have been . The story is convoluted and takes ages to get going . Slipping bits about Nightingale in is teasing but bit seems irrelevant to the story.. The narrator is pretty good and does his best but unlike the other books I will not be reccomending this to friends .

Not Worthy

Really shouldn’t be considered a Rivers of London Novella. The magic is so underplayed as to be inconsequential. I thought the story was weak along with the characters. Pointless purchase.

Disappointing

I have listened to all of the Rivers of London main books and was really looking forward to this one but am feeling a bit disappointed. The magic was there but the twists weren't. I also spent most of the book trying to decipher which German named person was who as these names didn't stick at all. I also missed the places in London which I know from visiting throughout my life. For an audible monthly purchase there wasn't much book for my money. I hope his next book is really something to get my teeth into as this one really fell short.

Disappointing compared with previous of the series

I'm a big fan of the previous books of the Rivers of London series and have read each of them them several times. However, the main character in this novella is one dimensional, and, for me, the plot fails to grip. I gave up after the third chapter.

Must have ran out of ideas

As a fan of the river series I was looking forward to this. Weak story, very little background of the characters and silly German accent by the reader. Really disappointing.

Rehash of other other characters and nothing new. Not recommended.

Definitely not up to normal standard

I usually love books from Ben Aaronvitch, but it’s just wasn’t the same without narration from kobna holdbrook-smith. I never got into it, it was missing something the previous books had.
Plus for the price it was a very short story. I would of expected something of more length/ quality. I’m hoping a new books will go back to old format otherwise not for me anymore.

Great expansion!

Great addition to the Riververs, well worth a listen can't wait to hear more from Peter Grant in the future.

LOVING THE 128K AUDIO

I was dubious to begin but it quickly becomes a highly entertaining instalment to the series.

Top debut by Sam Peter Jackson. Superbly narrated.

Sounds GREAT in the updated enhanced format.