#:: Matthew Swift

[texaschainsawmascara]

Knife Angel - Alfie Bradley / Matthew Swift / Walter Oltmann / Andrew Groves x / Marliène Oliver / Siberian bear hunting armor 1800s

[maddiesflame]

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[ilovedthestars]

Hello Tumblr friends, apropos of nothing, I have a book recommendation for you.

If You Think You Would Enjoy:

First person narration that Does Something Cool With It

Urban fantasy that really leans into the urban aspect. The mundane beauty of the city made magical

London Man Investigates His Own Murder While Committing Several More Murders, more at 8

A protagonist who is just an absolute wet pathetic paper bag of a man and knows it

A protagonist(s) who are the exuberant and unhinged personification of telecommunications technology with an unparalleled zest for life and also sometimes murder

Both of those characters are technically the same person

The most breathtakingly gorgeous prose that has ever been used to describe a magically animated pile of garbage

A tone that I feel can reasonably be described as “gritty,” with its refusal to shy away from the blood and grime of reality, but that is also suffused with a deep unflinching love for everything that humanity is

A supporting cast that includes many of the world’s weirdest and most badass women

The protagonist getting beat up and/or stabbed and/or shot and almost dying at least twice per book

A reading experience not quite like any you have seen before or since

Then You Should Read:

The Matthew Swift series by Kate Griffin, starting with A Madness of Angels

If you love the city of London, you will love this book. If you have never been to the city of London, this book will show you what it looks like through the eyes of someone who loves it.

(And also what it looks like when embodied as a giant dragon made of street signs.)

I cannot emphasize enough the gorgeousness of this prose, the geniusness of the urban magic system, and the amount of love for London and for humanity that oozes out of this book. I am also fully convinced that Matthew Swift would be a tumblr blorbo if his books were not mostly out of print and very niche.

It can be a bit hard to get your hands on a physical copy—try thriftbooks or another online used bookseller, or call your friendly neighborhood bookstore and see if they can order it for you. Or just go for an ebook (maybe your library has it on Libby). It is absolutely worth the trouble.

Brief content note while I have you here: There is a fair amount of violence and it is sometimes very lovingly described. Also...don’t get too attached to side characters.

Go read it and then join the approximately 3 people on tumblr who know this book exists and are obsessed with it!!

[chimaerakitten]

one of the funniest parts of the matthew swift series structure is that book 1 matthew says repeatedly that he can’t be killed in any meaningful way, seemingly being mostly chill with the idea, and then half of the malevolent entities in subsequent books also can’t be meaningfully killed and it freaks Matthew the fuck out.

[elexuscal]

come be we and be free

that's the inherent tragedy of Matthew Swift, right? at its core?

the angels were multitude, and more than that, they were free! go anywhere, everywhere, be everything, unfettered! they asked Matthew to join them, and Matthew ceased to be Matthew, was the blue electric angels

and then they are summoned, resurrected. they are the blue electric angels, but they are also Matthew Swift, human, mortal.

and to be mortal is to inherently be constrained. to have a physical body. a body that needs to eat, to drink, sleep, be maintained.

and if it was just that, the electric angels would be happy. they like to eat, to drink, to experience, to be. but being human is so much more than that. it's to be in a social network; to have friends and enemies and people in between; to have morals and duties and responsibilities. 'freedom' is antithetical to mortal existence.

come be we and be free but freedom isn't possible anymore

[uovoc]

It's got a 50/50 chance

... if Hacq had succeeded in what he was actually trying to do (angels in the wires, Swift in the body) ... whose body is it anyway? Best case scenario it's just 100% Matthew 2.0. Problem solved. But it's also implied that it was reconstructed by the angels out of their electricity. Maybe it's just running on pure magic. So if that's the case and you rip the angels out of there, does the body just... disintegrate? Glass God kept the angels in the body, so we never got to see what would happen the other way around. Disintegration does not bode well for the human consciousness. Hopefully Swift had time to name an heir. WORSE case scenario is that he doesn't, Midnight Mayor is annihilated forever, London engulfed by mystical darkness, etc. WORST case scenario is that the office of mayor is attached to the angels

[demondarakna]

Make me a shadow on the wall. A Madness of Angels, Kate Griffin

[essegigi]

Some graffiti caught my eye today... what is Matthew Swift doing in Cagliari, Sardinia...?!?

[loiterer87]

Remember when I said that Kate Griffin's A Madness Of Angels had some great visuals in it and I drew Matthew Swift hiding from the Litterbug? Yeah, I decided to try another...

Here's Matthew facing off against the dragon made of bits of the City of London. I included some concrete to break up the metal bits, but tried to stick to the description best I could. Think it turned out alright...

[false-cowboy]

local man can't find audiobook version of book series, has to actually sit down and read

8 million injured 20 bajillion dead

[shadeslayer]

one of the things i really love with the [social] setting of madness of angels - that also leads to the repercussions of the next books - is that you get this impression that matthew is special and powerful and chosen and epic but its really nailed down on over and over that matthew, as sorcerers go, is actually pretty weak. the actual reason he's the one being leaned on to do these important things, and seen ad a threat and is a danger magnet, is partly the angels but also in large part (imo) the Massive power vacuum left by the towers systematic murder of every other sorcerer

he Is incredibly powerful and important... by default. because the only others are bakker (who aside from being evil is also largely MIA) and dana (who is also MIA). and that's what causes him to be chosen as the mayor imo, that he is the only one with remotely enough power to be in charge of such a large task. and we see it reinforced with pennys everything in MM - sorcerers are insanely powerful.. the question is how they use it

looking at how ppl talk to him, matthew seems to be known as weak only because he just never had interest in cultivating his power. even with the angels there, he still doesnt. hes an unambitious man who goes with the flow and would prefer overall to live a quiet life, and its what causes so much friction between him and bakker w the angels, and why so many doubt his ability to "control" the angels/why it is a somewhat pertinent worry of the angels bein tied to matthew aka the worlds most easygoing guy but also why hes a good fit for the angels bc theyre fulfilled by a quiet life just in the thrills of the mundane. and thats also catherine/kates thesis with the books rly - wonder in the mundane

id say that sorcerers all have access to an equal amount of power [ie their current location] and the distinctions of "power" are drawn around how one chooses to cultivate their power, how they use it, what they use it for, etc. bakker being described as powerful explains it saying he was prone to large flashy displays of magic that he would keep tightly controlled while making it look effortless. sorcerers arent made by their power theyre made by their control - which is why the catalyst for sorcery training seems to always be (matthew, dana, penny) (multiple ppl also reference that the mentor bond w sorcerers is intense/loyal by definition bc of how it comes about) a massive loss of control where an experienced sorcerer steps in and teaches them how to separate themselves from what theyre feeling

we also see this with matthews stance that magic is a perspective/point of view and his ability to magic even in the countryside. that sorcerers are capable of... basically anything almost, if they put the effort in to wrap their brain around the magic. and this is why the angels as matthew are so powerful - they already firsthand understand the perspective of a lot of the powers/ideas/magic in the world, theyre used to having access to it and using it all the time, so matthew does things he wouldve never done or more importantly thought to do bc the angels are the ones making those pulls

which is why its good matthew gravitates to a quiet life & this makes him and the angels such a stable pairing, but the power vacuum created by bakker in those 2 yrs of sorcerer murder means theyre constantly put in situations where they have to pull on intense magic just to cope with whats happening

its just fascinating how the power vacuum thats made in those 2 yrs where matthew was dead and we the reader only hear snatches and tidbits of information about, is the reason for not only the events of the first book but all the later books too. matthews death literally haunts the narrative not only in that he is resurrected and all these other things, but that his offscreen, pre canon death (that we never get to hear in full bc it was, understandably, so incredibly traumatizing he cant think about it too much) was the seeming catalyst for basically... everything. the worst thing he ever did was die

[ilovedthestars]

i am usually not a Major Character Death person, but I'm currently having a surprisingly fun time playing in the sandbox of "what would happen if Matthew Swift got killed and the blue electric angels ended up back in the wires?"

like. would he go with them? would you be able to tell if he had? how would his friends feel about him being dead? how would they feel about a part of still being alive, singing in the telephones? how would he feel about it, if he was still There enough to have an opinion? how would the angels feel about losing sense but regaining freedom?

not to mention, if the blue electric angels and their dead sorcerer companion could be summoned out of the telephone lines once, could it be done again? and would anyone be crazy enough to try?

[kennydied911]

This might be the sleep deprivation talking but Matthew Swift was so right that life is magic is the lifeblood of thousands flowing through the city streets feet pounding pavement like a heartbeat individual and unified all at once :) 🩵

[elexuscal]

i just want Matthew Swift to have some FRIENDS, who don't die or want to kill him, is that so much to ask?!

[uovoc]

If Matthew met his younger (fully human) self... This would be some kind of time travel scenario. Past Matthew would be horrified of course. Demonic possession, things man was not meant to do, abominations, etc. He would want to avert that future at all costs. How do I stop you from happening? he asks. It's easy, says Future Matthew. All you have to do is, when Bakker asks you to summon the angels, you say yes

[demondarakna]

“We are me. And I am us.” - Kate Griffin, A Madness of Angels