# The Matthew Swift series by Kate Griffin



## Werthead (Jun 9, 2012)

*Matthew Swift #1: A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin*





> Matthew  Swift is an urban sorcerer, someone who can channel the energies of the  city to perform great deeds of magic. He is also dead, torn of pieces  by a shadowy monster. He is therefore confused to be up and walking  around again, with two years passing in the blink of an eye. As Swift  struggles to find out what has happened to him, he learns many of his  friends are dead, his greatest ally may now be a dangerous enemy and  that his only hope of survival may lie with a band of ill-matched  wizards, bikers and fortune tellers who hate one another almost as much  as their mutual foe.
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## Anthony G Williams (Mar 22, 2014)

Yet another recommendation from a review in _Interzone_, *The Madness of Angels *does make me wonder just how many different stories set in an occult version of contemporary London the market can cope with. Currently we have Jacka's _Alex Vera_ novels and Aaronovitch's _Rivers of London_ series, before that we had the stand-alone novels _Un Lun Dun_ from China Miéville (and also _Kraken_ by the same author – yet to be read), Paul Cornell's _London Falling_ (also yet to be read), Christopher Fowler's _Roofworld_, and finally Neil Gaiman's _Neverwhere_. I say finally, but no doubt there are others out there…

*A Madness of Angels* is the first in a series of four published so far, and is recounted in the first person by Matthew Smith, a journeyman sorcerer who was killed by his mentor, the powerful sorcerer Robert James Bakker, two years before. He is therefore somewhat disconcerted to find himself back in the flesh, sharing his body with a collection of strange beings known as the "blue electric angels". He discovers that in his absence Bakker has created a vast occult organisation called the Tower, which has incorporated most of the magical talent in London by the simple expedient of killing everyone who refused to join. Matthew Smith is being hunted but he has revenge in mind and has no intention of giving in, so he recruits an unlikely band of assorted allies and battle commences, with the geography of the city forming an effective background.

Author Griffin slots into the London occult canon at what might be called the "richly detailed fantasy" end of the spectrum. Her style is more similar to Aaronovitch than Jacka, but the pace is slowed somewhat, leading to the book being significantly longer. I thought of Clive Barker's work when reading this (I really must read _Weaveworld_ again, I haven't done so since it was first published). While I generally prefer a fast pace to a long book, Griffin succeeded in keeping my attention, and I will be buying more of this series.

(An extract from my SFF blog: Science Fiction & Fantasy)


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