Magic Eater

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British Urban Fantasy Genre - Rogue Magic User Sub-genre.

British Urban Fantasy (“BUF”) deserves to be categorized as its own genre these days because of the consistency of its tropes and cliches. For example, in BUF we will always find a lower caste character proud of his lack of social skills, education, courage or other virtues who has a more upscale and virtuous girlfriend for no discernible reason but who has some innate supernatural gift and demonstrates courage and a host of other virtues while fighting off the Big Bad.

This book nails all the cliches. The main character is “Joe Lakes.” The scare quotes follow from the fact that “Joe” was discovered naked - except for socks - washed up on the shores of a lake in England's Lake District. Since that time he has been a janitor at a local hospital where he has an uncommonly low class job, even for a BUF hero. He has a flirting relationship with Dr. Chloe and nothing special is happening to him, except he indulges in the oddjob investigation of supernatural happenings.

His life changes when he notices that he is being stalked by a homeless woman. Returning the favor, he gets involved in strange murders, talking foxes, octopus-like “soul vampires,” and a potential Armageddon. The story moves like a well-edited lightning bolt.

The best part of the book is Stott's fast-talking ne'er do well character, Joe Lakes. His asides and double-talk, which I assume depict the patois of the Lake District, were ranged from fairly entertaining to very entertaining.

I am not sure that I understand some of the logic of the mystery aspect of the story, but I really didn't care because I was entertained, which is how I measure these books.

This is obviously the origin story of Joe's cycle of stories in the “Uncanny Kingdom” world that Stott appears to have mapped out with various characters. At the end of this book, we have a vague idea of what the Uncanny Kingdom is - more speculation actually - and we are drawing a bead on who Joe is, but that answer is obviously for the next book. We also have a couple of necessary stock supporting characters in place for further developments.

As I said, I was entertained. Although I have pointed out cliches, cliches make for dependability, and Stott played with the cliches in some new ways. I liked Stott taking the action out of London and into the Lake Country for a change of scenery, although the setting really didn't factor into the book all that much. I am sure that I will follow up with the next book in the series.