Diary of a madman?
The Grimoire Diaries review
Production company – Stone Fable
Rating – 
***RELEASE DAY REVIEW***
The way that my release day reviews usually occur, is when I get approached by the production company or the creator with advance episodes for me to dig into. This time however I approached the creator to try and snag some early episodes. I saw the show mentioned on Reddit, and I messaged them regarding a review, and guess what? I got sent the pilot episode!
Only going off the pilot episode, this will be a rather limited review, but at least I won’t be struggling to try and avoid spoilers. Enough of this preamble though folks, on with the review!
So what’s it about?
Antiquarian bookseller William Moore begins this diary, feeling that the world is stranger than he first thought, and genuinely worrying if he is losing his mind. The events that inspire this diary start off in a rather mundane manner. Something that could be fobbed off as just one of those weird afternoons.
After a post work meetup with his best friend Harriet, the evening takes a very serious and scary turn for the worse. William soon realises with a feeling of impending doom that all is not as it seems in London, and he’s thrown into a world of Faerie and folklore. A world that apparently exists alongside our, normal world.
Is it any good?
There are many parallels I could draw here. The psychogeographic style of Peter Ackroyd, the strange juxtaposition of the real and the fantastic by authors like Susanna Clarke or Ben Aaronovitch. This is no simple pastiche though. There is an original story to be explored.
The voice acting is pretty good. Better than average to be honest. William reminds me a lot of David Ault and Jonathan Sims, which I’m sure you’ll agree is no bad thing. Apart from him, the cast is rather limited. He narrates the main bulk of the story, while other characters are voiced by actors.
The 3 brain score is literally because I only have one half hour episode to go on. I can’t, in good faith give it top marks yet, because it’s still a relatively unknown quantity. I will definitely be revisiting it in the future though, and I’ll restore it as necessary.
Final thoughts
The pilot episode here was enough to drag me into this strange alternate London, and (at the risk of sounding like an insufferable, spoiled brat) I would have liked a few more early episodes to dig into, I’m not going to be waiting around for weeks to get to the bits I haven’t heard though, so that’s a small victory.
The pilot episode was released on YouTube. While that’s not really a deal breaker I hope that the full series gets a release on all of the podcatchers too.
If you like Rivers Of London, Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norell, or the works of Peter Ackroyd or Alan Moore, then you’ll find a lot to enjoy here. I suggest you subscribe and see for yourself.
You can get The Grimoire Diaries here:
For more great reviews, I recommend GreatPods