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Matthew Swift is a character in two separate but linked urban fantasy series by Kate Griffin. Since the novels appear to be fairly obscure (the first I heard of them was through a fellow rper and though I've collected most of them by now, it took almost a decade, and so all of them were originally read via pirated epubs), the chance is you probably haven't ever heard of them, let alone read any of them. This is sort of a primer for Matthew and his world.
The Matthew Swift/Electric Blue Angels series is comprised of four novels, of which Matthew is the titular protagonist. They are written in first person, with a slight twist: often Matthew will use the plural pronouns instead of the singular (e.g. 'we' instead of 'I'). This is because due to a botched resurrection he shares his body and consciousness with an entity known as the 'blue electric angels', a collective born of urban life and magic that used to live in the telephone lines. Most of his series is spent chronicling his attempts not only to adjust to this new life, but to protect his home city of London from various monsters, gods, and magicians gone bad.
The Magicals Anonymous series, on the other hand, only has two novels, in which Matthew appears now and then as a side character. It focuses more on the other types of magic users and creatures inhabiting Swift's world.
To understand Matthew's magic is to understand the idea that it is created by life. Because of the increasing industrialization of modern life, much of the magical world has adapted to a more urban form. Dryads no longer live in trees but in telephone poles and lamp-posts. Golems are created from garbage. There are glass elementals. Matthew pulls electricity from the wires and water from the pipes; borrows the sight of pigeons, rats, and foxes; and recites the fine print on the back of Underground passes to weave protection spells. And the electric blue angels, creatures of chaos that harbor near-god-like power, are essentially snippets of telephone conversations that over time became sentient.
The novels as a whole make distinctions between different types of magic. There are wizards, sorcerors, druids, necromancers, witches, and so on. Matthew's magic is sorcery, which means he draws his power and resources for magic from his surroundings rather than absolutely relying on spells, bodies, gods, or potions. Because London is his home, he is tied to the city and this means that he has trouble in more rural environments.
Matthew stumbles through life much as he did before he died; even though he is a formidable sorcerer and even more so with the power of the angels, he comes off as unlikeable, a bit of a slob, and not very impressive upon first meetings. He is insular and tends to fly under the radar whenever he can, wearing a shabby overcoat that is imbued with magic to keep him largely invisible. This appears to be habit more than anything else, though it often keeps him safe. While Matthew has a tendency to be world-weary and antisocial, the angels are very curious about the world as experienced through a human body and tend to be more naive, cheerful, and impulsive bordering on erratic. They also have literally made his brown eyes blue, like a really unsettling bright blue that everyone seems to comment on.
A really important piece of Matthew's history, implied by 'resurrection', is that several years ago he was ripped apart by a monster who turned out to be someone he knew and trusted. He'll readily tell people that he died but the details he might keep to himself because Trauma and also Gore. Suffice to say that bits of him were left behind but a body was never found, because as he was dying he tried to call someone and got the angels instead. And somehow they sucked him into the phone lines where he cohabitated with them in pure consciousness form for two years.
And then the resurrection, which he was understandably sour about since he went from all that freedom to a flesh cage again, and he never asked to be brought back, and the magical world kind of went to shit while he was gone, so.
By the last book in Magicals Anonymous he's made his peace with being mostly human again. You also get to see how the angels fare when it's just them in his body for a while, which is... Not Well. Matthew and the angels are linked not just physically and mentally but with a strong emotional bond. They really can't deal well with being separated, nor do they particularly want to be at this point. Still, Matthew himself seems to live perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop, for his death to actually stick, and his status as a resurrected person weighs heavily on him.
As of the second book he has an additional job which he never asked for: the Midnight Mayor, protector of the city of London. That's actually where this journal's username comes in: Domine dirige nos means Lord lead us, and is London's motto. The Midnight Mayor is one of those esteemed offices that somehow still ends up being thankless, and since the title is transferred upon death of the previous holder, it seems more something you get saddled with than you truly aspire to. While there are plenty of perks, Matthew especially just seems to really hate bureaucracy: he won't even put a name plaque on the door, claiming that it is "like putting your signature in the devil's logbook". His office is a disaster area, he rarely checks his email and refuses to carry a mobile phone, and his personal assistant ends up tying up a lot of his loose ends for him. Still, Matthew considers it his responsibility to keep the city safe and prioritizes as best he can. He has a real sense of justice, as well as mercy, and despite the revenge motif of the first novel (because, y'know, his death wasn't exactly a peaceful one) isn't really big on killing. In these ways he differs dramatically from the previous Mayors, presumably for the better because he does not rely on politics to make his decisions for him but strives to do what he feels is right.
I use Alexander Skarsgård for my PB, not because I think Matthew is meant to be that pretty, but just because I happened to find a very nice urban photoshoot of him in a long coat and he has that special blend of young-old hot-not dork-god that I think embodies Matthew's vibe quite well.
Matthew has an apprentice, Penny, who nearly destroyed the city in the second novel when someone stole her hat. While it seems the norm for sorcerers to take on apprentices she is only Matthew's second. The first, Dana, was killed during the events of the first novel. It's implied that the mentor-apprentice relationship is an incredibly close one in normal circumstances but he doesn't appear to have the same intimacy with Penny that he did with Dana, probably because he feels responsible for what happened to his first apprentice.
The first three books feature another character he becomes close to, Oda. She, originally from an anti-magic cult, begins as a semi-antagonist but quickly becomes a trusted ally. Alas, she dies eventually as well. A lot of people end up dying around Matthew and it's a real guilt point with him.
Sharon, the protagonist of the Magicals Anonymous series, is a shaman, an incredibly rare magical type that is even more in tune with the city than sorcerors like Matthew, and can see 'the truth of all things', past and present, within it. She becomes his deputy mayor and I ship them like burning even though nothing comes of my dreams in canon.
Kelly is Matthew's personal assistant, a perky magician known as an Alderman who is sworn to support and protect the Midnight Mayor and takes on dragon-like powers in combat but in general is just a super-sweet and dedicated manager who is 99 percent smiles and 'keep calm carry on'.
Despite all these amazing women in his life, Matthew gets with NONE of them and it's really frustrating. Some reviewers have come to consider him an asexual character, but I'm not so sure it isn't just that he has no time for relationships, and is completely awkward and oddly off-putting to characters in the books. Maybe it has something to do with his stinky coat.
---
Look, the two series are fantastic and I highly recommend finding copies if you can. Griffin's writing is at times a little difficult to get through (the phrase 'purple prose' gets bandied around A LOT in reviews), but it is well worth it for the world-building alone, and the characters are very real and a lot of fun. And the vibe is a really good mix of hilarious and heart-breaking.
For more info you can check out this pretty comprehensive overview of the books-- though when it says the angels give Matthew the ability to draw power from the city it's not really correct. He had that before as a sorcerer; the angels specifically just tend to be a nuclear option of pure blue fire. So there may be other things in there that aren't quite right. But it has links and stuff to other resources, character lists, and so on so if you are interested, please do check it out!
The books
The Matthew Swift/Electric Blue Angels series is comprised of four novels, of which Matthew is the titular protagonist. They are written in first person, with a slight twist: often Matthew will use the plural pronouns instead of the singular (e.g. 'we' instead of 'I'). This is because due to a botched resurrection he shares his body and consciousness with an entity known as the 'blue electric angels', a collective born of urban life and magic that used to live in the telephone lines. Most of his series is spent chronicling his attempts not only to adjust to this new life, but to protect his home city of London from various monsters, gods, and magicians gone bad.
The Magicals Anonymous series, on the other hand, only has two novels, in which Matthew appears now and then as a side character. It focuses more on the other types of magic users and creatures inhabiting Swift's world.
The magic
To understand Matthew's magic is to understand the idea that it is created by life. Because of the increasing industrialization of modern life, much of the magical world has adapted to a more urban form. Dryads no longer live in trees but in telephone poles and lamp-posts. Golems are created from garbage. There are glass elementals. Matthew pulls electricity from the wires and water from the pipes; borrows the sight of pigeons, rats, and foxes; and recites the fine print on the back of Underground passes to weave protection spells. And the electric blue angels, creatures of chaos that harbor near-god-like power, are essentially snippets of telephone conversations that over time became sentient.
The novels as a whole make distinctions between different types of magic. There are wizards, sorcerors, druids, necromancers, witches, and so on. Matthew's magic is sorcery, which means he draws his power and resources for magic from his surroundings rather than absolutely relying on spells, bodies, gods, or potions. Because London is his home, he is tied to the city and this means that he has trouble in more rural environments.
The git
Matthew stumbles through life much as he did before he died; even though he is a formidable sorcerer and even more so with the power of the angels, he comes off as unlikeable, a bit of a slob, and not very impressive upon first meetings. He is insular and tends to fly under the radar whenever he can, wearing a shabby overcoat that is imbued with magic to keep him largely invisible. This appears to be habit more than anything else, though it often keeps him safe. While Matthew has a tendency to be world-weary and antisocial, the angels are very curious about the world as experienced through a human body and tend to be more naive, cheerful, and impulsive bordering on erratic. They also have literally made his brown eyes blue, like a really unsettling bright blue that everyone seems to comment on.
A really important piece of Matthew's history, implied by 'resurrection', is that several years ago he was ripped apart by a monster who turned out to be someone he knew and trusted. He'll readily tell people that he died but the details he might keep to himself because Trauma and also Gore. Suffice to say that bits of him were left behind but a body was never found, because as he was dying he tried to call someone and got the angels instead. And somehow they sucked him into the phone lines where he cohabitated with them in pure consciousness form for two years.
And then the resurrection, which he was understandably sour about since he went from all that freedom to a flesh cage again, and he never asked to be brought back, and the magical world kind of went to shit while he was gone, so.
By the last book in Magicals Anonymous he's made his peace with being mostly human again. You also get to see how the angels fare when it's just them in his body for a while, which is... Not Well. Matthew and the angels are linked not just physically and mentally but with a strong emotional bond. They really can't deal well with being separated, nor do they particularly want to be at this point. Still, Matthew himself seems to live perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop, for his death to actually stick, and his status as a resurrected person weighs heavily on him.
As of the second book he has an additional job which he never asked for: the Midnight Mayor, protector of the city of London. That's actually where this journal's username comes in: Domine dirige nos means Lord lead us, and is London's motto. The Midnight Mayor is one of those esteemed offices that somehow still ends up being thankless, and since the title is transferred upon death of the previous holder, it seems more something you get saddled with than you truly aspire to. While there are plenty of perks, Matthew especially just seems to really hate bureaucracy: he won't even put a name plaque on the door, claiming that it is "like putting your signature in the devil's logbook". His office is a disaster area, he rarely checks his email and refuses to carry a mobile phone, and his personal assistant ends up tying up a lot of his loose ends for him. Still, Matthew considers it his responsibility to keep the city safe and prioritizes as best he can. He has a real sense of justice, as well as mercy, and despite the revenge motif of the first novel (because, y'know, his death wasn't exactly a peaceful one) isn't really big on killing. In these ways he differs dramatically from the previous Mayors, presumably for the better because he does not rely on politics to make his decisions for him but strives to do what he feels is right.
I use Alexander Skarsgård for my PB, not because I think Matthew is meant to be that pretty, but just because I happened to find a very nice urban photoshoot of him in a long coat and he has that special blend of young-old hot-not dork-god that I think embodies Matthew's vibe quite well.
The friends
Matthew has an apprentice, Penny, who nearly destroyed the city in the second novel when someone stole her hat. While it seems the norm for sorcerers to take on apprentices she is only Matthew's second. The first, Dana, was killed during the events of the first novel. It's implied that the mentor-apprentice relationship is an incredibly close one in normal circumstances but he doesn't appear to have the same intimacy with Penny that he did with Dana, probably because he feels responsible for what happened to his first apprentice.
The first three books feature another character he becomes close to, Oda. She, originally from an anti-magic cult, begins as a semi-antagonist but quickly becomes a trusted ally. Alas, she dies eventually as well. A lot of people end up dying around Matthew and it's a real guilt point with him.
Sharon, the protagonist of the Magicals Anonymous series, is a shaman, an incredibly rare magical type that is even more in tune with the city than sorcerors like Matthew, and can see 'the truth of all things', past and present, within it. She becomes his deputy mayor and I ship them like burning even though nothing comes of my dreams in canon.
Kelly is Matthew's personal assistant, a perky magician known as an Alderman who is sworn to support and protect the Midnight Mayor and takes on dragon-like powers in combat but in general is just a super-sweet and dedicated manager who is 99 percent smiles and 'keep calm carry on'.
Despite all these amazing women in his life, Matthew gets with NONE of them and it's really frustrating. Some reviewers have come to consider him an asexual character, but I'm not so sure it isn't just that he has no time for relationships, and is completely awkward and oddly off-putting to characters in the books. Maybe it has something to do with his stinky coat.
---
Look, the two series are fantastic and I highly recommend finding copies if you can. Griffin's writing is at times a little difficult to get through (the phrase 'purple prose' gets bandied around A LOT in reviews), but it is well worth it for the world-building alone, and the characters are very real and a lot of fun. And the vibe is a really good mix of hilarious and heart-breaking.
For more info you can check out this pretty comprehensive overview of the books-- though when it says the angels give Matthew the ability to draw power from the city it's not really correct. He had that before as a sorcerer; the angels specifically just tend to be a nuclear option of pure blue fire. So there may be other things in there that aren't quite right. But it has links and stuff to other resources, character lists, and so on so if you are interested, please do check it out!
