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Welcome to the Follypedia

Welcome to the Follypedia, unofficial home of 'Rivers of London' fans since 2014.

Wiki dedicated to Ben Aaronovitch's book series featuring Peter Grant, police constable and apprentice wizard.

Spoilers

It is best to assume that the wiki will contain spoilers for all published books, short stories and comics.

Rivers of London fandom

All 'Rivers of London' fans are welcome to contribute! I would suggest to keep this Wiki 'in-universe', save for meta pages, for example about the author or translation and publication of the books.

If you don't know how to work with the wikia code, don't worry about it. Just add your text and save it. Same goes for spelling (as you can likely see in my case). Right now we want content, any cosmetic changes can be done by people with more wikia experience or you when you have learned it.

Basic Guidelines (please read)

I believe some rules are necessary. I think these are reasonable:

1. Do not retell a whole book.
2. Don't copy paste text from other sources like Wikipedia. You may however link back to the Wikipedia article.
3. Please source any images you add and ask permission from the artist.
4. Please don't add covers or pictures from Ben Aaronovitch's Blog. Covers will be added in low quality on purpose, similar to Wikipedia ("The copy is of sufficient resolution for commentary and identification but lower resolution than the original book cover. Copies made from it will be of inferior quality, unsuitable as artwork on pirate versions or other uses that would compete with the commercial purpose of the original artwork.")
5. Do not quote long passages of the books. Rule of thumb, if it's longer than a tweet, don't.
6. Be nice to each other and have fun!

Rivers of London—introduction

If you don’t want any spoilers, just go get the first book, ”Rivers of London”, and start reading. Welcome back when you’re ready!

The works

There are novels, novellas, short stories, “moments”, and graphic novels. In addition, there's an RPG, but whether that is canonical or not is unclear.

• The main arcs of the story are told in the novels and, to a lesser degree, in the novellas. These are published as regular books in all formats.
• The other works provide backstory and expands the world. They are not essential to the main plot in general.
  • The short stories have mostly been published as “exclusive” additions to the Waterstone editions (because the author has a soft heart for them), but some have also been published in a collection volume (Tales from the Folly).
  • The “moments” are short glimpses of life, published on the web. Some can be hard to find.
  • The graphic novels are published in all formats. Most are co-authored, and are very varied in content and scope.

Also cf. Adaptations below.

The world

The world of Rivers of London is our own, but:

• Magic is real, can be learned by anyone, but largely forgotten
  • In Europe, it was formalised by Isaac Newton, in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Artes Magicis. It’s never been translated, so to study magic, you’ll need Latin first
  • Practising formal magic has always been a niche occupation. Typically third or fourth sons of well-to-do families were sent to Casterbrook. After school you joined the Society of the Wise, a.k.a. ‘The Folly’
  • Women magic was suppressed… the men thought. Cf. Society of the Rose.
• Most wizards went to war in WWII, and never came back
  • Peter Grant, a young PC in London, just happens to stumble on the last officially recognised Wizard in Britain, DCI Thomas Nightingale, who believes magic is coming back, and that he needs an apprentice
  • (Magic has in fact been resurging since the 1960s. Who would’ve thought that?)
• The are magical creatures, e.g.:
  • Genii locorum, lit. ”Spirits of places” (q.v.)
    • The Rivers of London are not only the physical rivers but equally well the spirits of said rivers. And Peter can not help but noticing that some of these spirits are very physical, too.
  • High Fae, living in Faeryland, and you don’t want to go there
  • …and a lot of people who might or might not be different, but they want to mind their own, thank you!

Articles

Characters

• Beverley Brook
• Frank Caffrey
• The Faceless Man
• Peter Grant
• Sahra Guleed
• Abigail Kamara
• Lesley May
• Molly
• DCI Thomas Nightingale
• Harold Postmartin
• Mr Punch
• DCI Alexander Seawoll
• Miriam Stephanopoulos
• Varvara Sidorovna Tamonina
• Toby (the ghost-hunting dog)
• Lady Tyburn
• Dr Abdul Haqq Walid
• Tobias Winter
• Kimberley Reynolds
• Other characters

Locations

• Ambrose House, site of Casterbrook school
• Cosgrove Hall
• The Folly
• Skygarden

Maps

The following maps were created by the author.

• Rivers of London
• Moon over Soho
• Whispers Under Ground
• Broken Homes
• Foxglove Summer
• The Hanging Tree
• The short stories

These maps were created by other parties.

• The complete series in one map: novels, graphic novels, short stories
• The Hanging Tree Story Map
• Lies Sleeping
• Lies Sleeping Story Map
• False Values Story Map
• Midnight Riot Story Map
• Moon Over Soho Story Map
• Whispers Underground Story Map (in progress)
• Broken Holmes Story Map

Magic

• Spells
• Magical Creatures, creatures, not people.
• Principles of Magic
• Books
• Magical devices

Groups and Organisations

• British Wizards and Witches
• Non-British Wizards and Witches
• The Folly
• Civilians
• Genius Loci
• The Met
• The Quiet People
• Nochnye Koldunyi (Night Witches)
• The Sons of Weyland

Timeline

• Timeline

Reference Lists

• Latin phrases
• Glossary of terms and abbreviations

Meta

Parties Involved

• Ben Aaronovitch (author)
• Gollancz (publisher)
• Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (narrator unabridged audio-books)

Books

• Rivers of London
• Moon over Soho
• Whispers Under Ground
• Broken Homes
• Foxglove Summer
• What Abigail Did That Summer (Abigail novella)
• The Furthest Station (novella)
• The Hanging Tree
• Lies Sleeping
• The October Man (Tobias Winter novella)
• False Value
• Winter’s Gifts (Reynolds novella)
• Amongst our Weapons
• Masquerades of Spring (Nightingale novella)
• Stone and Sky

Shorter stories

• Short stories
• Moments (little bits of fiction, published online via mailing list)
• Tales from the Folly (short story collection)

Comics

• Body Work
• Night Witch
• Black Mould
• Detective Stories
• Cry Fox
• Water Weed
• Action at a Distance
• The Fey and the Furious
• MONDAY MONDAY
• Deadly Ever After
• Here be dragons
• Stray Cat Blues

Adaptations

So far known:

• optioned for a TV series
• an immersive theatre production: Rivers of London - A Hidden Chapter
• Rivers of London Roleplaying Game by Chaosium
• Rivers of London Rap by Doc Brown
• Fan sites