Review: Lockwood & Co

This is a short review of Lockwood & Co, both the entire book series and a little bit about the Netflix show at the end. It focuses mostly on the books, though, as the Netflix show has only 1 season (and likely will never get more) and I am an author first and foremost.

As usual, it’s not really a review. It’s more a list of my thoughts, hopefully interesting remarks, and perhaps lessons to learn from this piece of media. I am especially interested in stories that have been adapted multiple times. Seeing what is cut, changed or streamlined to fit a long book into less time on the screen is extremely instructive.

This review is spoiler free for the first part. After the spoiler barrier (clearly indicated), I go into a bit more depth and have to give away spoilers.

What’s the idea?

In an alternative version of England (though we mostly stick to London), ghosts are a rampant problem. In fact, they called it “The Problem”. Nobody knows why, but since a few decades ago, more and more ghosts have left their graves to haunt the world again, often with fatal consequences.

Fortunately, children often have “The Talent”: the ability to still see the ghosts. This means that most children in this world do not go to school, or do any playful fun stuff, but they are paid to fight Visitors every night. With a rapier, iron chains, salt, and magnesium flares.

As expected, this quintology (5 books) follows the Lockwood & Co agency as they fight different types of ghosts. The books are mostly standalone adventures in that way, getting one or two new cases and solving them. But there is, as usual, an overarching story in which you slowly unravel the origins of The Problem.

As stated in the introduction, these books mostly entered my radar because they were adapted (into a pretty well-received show). But the general premise is also solid and convinced me to really give it a shot.

What did I like?

These books are mainly aimed at teens and young adults. In most books like that, the use of language can be a bit too simplified, and it can shy away too much from concepts like death.

Not this one, as expected. I found the prose to be accessible and simple, but littered with many word choices and descriptions that are just a bit more specific and interesting than your typical prose. All the way through, many people die, many ghosts are described as horrifying without holding back, and the prose that performs this task is quite good.

The main characters are all unique, fleshed-out, and a worthy addition to the story. Some develop a lot, some barely, but they’re all interesting characters written in a good way.

I also liked that they tried to do a little bit more than just tell a story.

• At least in my version, there was a small “scary” image at the start of each chapter. (Obviously one related to what you’d be experiencing in the coming scene.) And the headings were in that custom Lockwood & Co font.
• Each book had a sort of small glossary of ghost-related terms, which is both useful in case you forgot what something means (though I never had that problem) and simply makes the world feel more alive.
• Every book ends with a newspaper article. (Or, rather, the final chapter starts with a newspaper article that wraps up the case in some interesting way, and then we get our typical epilogue or final resolution.)

Nothing major, but nice touches that show care and detail.

The ghost stories themselves were always “good”, but rarely “great”. Each case had something odd about it, some new details or new way of fighting that ghost, which is what you want to keep the conflict varied and exciting. But just as often, things just happened (for good or bad), because there are sometimes no clear rules for what a ghost can or can’t do. Oh, sure, this thing happened now because the ghost is “strong” or whatever, but it didn’t kill you I guess because of “plot armor”.

These individual stories are really carried by the solid premise of this world. The series starts out really well by explaining some core, unbreakable concepts of The Problem and how to fight it, while having action and interesting conflict already. Such as those rapiers and iron chains I mentioned before, or that ghosts are tied to a “Source”. Destroy or “dampen” that Source, and the ghost is gone, that’s how it’s always worked.

Again, I have to commend the author for choosing something specific. Why salt? Why iron chains? Why magnesium flares? Some aspects were probably chosen because they have been linked to ghosts and spiritualism for centuries, others simply because they were cool. But they’re specific, and that always works better. If ghosts could be defeated with “any weapon” whenever the plot needed that, it would be far less strong. If ghosts could have 10 different reasons for appearing, instead of always having a single clear Source, it would muddle the waters even more. (More on that on what I did not like, soon.)

The same is true for the overarching thread. The recurring mysteries and reveals across the five books, mostly about the origin of The Problem and how to actually solve it for good. (Instead of killing one ghost and two more pop up.)

This is well-done, sure. It was just interesting and mysterious enough to keep me reading with interest.

I also, however, predicted 99% of it correctly without effort. And parts of it (especially the ending) were a bit lackluster.

What did I not like?

So let’s start there. I thought some foreshadowing and some decisions for the overall direction of the series were … obvious? Is that a bad thing? I’m not sure.

I’ve written loads of books, analyzed loads of stories, and read even more than that. That obviously makes it easier to spot patterns and makes you more likely to completely predict the trajectory of a series. Despite basically going through the motions for the final part of the series, as everything I thought would happen …just happened, I still liked reading it. It was still well-done and a fine overall mystery.

In my own work, I struggle with the opposite. My own hyperactive brain is so unpredictable that my stories often turn out too hard to predict for readers. I have actively been training myself, the past few years, to simplify stories and be a bit more formulaic. So maybe this is just a me thing.

Similarly, the author amped up what ghosts could do and how to defeat them significantly near the end. Probably to end the series on a “high note”. It felt unnecessary to me and went against the well-established specific rules that I liked so much. Without giving spoilers, let’s just say that suddenly some things are possible, and some things defeat ghosts too, and it all happens a bit fast.

I think the series peaked with the first two books. It’s not unusual for the first one or two entries to be strongest, as they probably had more time and contained all the strongest ideas of the author. Once those are a success, the other entries are written faster and have less editing. In this case, however, it feels a bit different.

The later books were certainly not lackluster, or rushed, or bad by any means. They just felt predictable to me and like repeating the same moves. The same repeating scenes or relationships or jokes, without any progression or development.

This would’ve been fine if we slowly worked towards solving that big mystery. But as I just stated, a large part of that happens suddenly and by breaking rules, while I had predicted everything else already.

I think the author was right to cut off the series before it became stale. I think five books is actually the perfect amount. The ending still leaves a lot of things open, but I wasn’t eager to read more ghost stories to be honest.

Perhaps that’s just the creative soul inside me. I just wished the author had done a little bit more with the premise, a little more advanced and creative uses of ghosts, ghost culture, the established rules, etcetera in the later books.

What about the Netflix show?

I’ve often said I barely have time for reading. Well, I have even less time for watching shows or movies!

This review was delayed by a bit because it took me a while to watch the full first season. Yes, it’s only 8 episodes of less than an hour, but I could only watch one per weekend.

At the same time, isn’t this proof enough? I wasn’t so eager to watch the next episode that I went out of my way to do so. That I said “let’s move all that work to tomorrow, I need to know what happens in episode 5!”

This is, of course, related to reading the books first. I have an idea of what happens in episode 5 already.

But that’s not the full story. Because, well, the Netflix show is not the full story.

I was surprised to see that they adapted multiple books in the first season. They changed quite a few things. Some really didn’t need changing, others I can understand. Major things were either left out or sped through. I don’t think anyone who watched the show actually gets any of the important details that make the books good.

The result is a show that has the general vibe of Lockwood & Co, but to me feels like a different version of it. One that’s slightly too fast-paced and too busy with rapidly moving through major plot beats.

For example, when I started the show, I was surprised they had gone for a somewhat “modern” look. Lockwood & Co leans very much on that more old-school, old England period that Harry Potter also used to an extent. A period almost modern, but before internet or cellphones or anything that would get in the way of a good ghost story. And this is explainable too: The Problem would halt most progress and throw a country back into chaos.

But the show has a very modern look, which is instantly portrayed by the chosen font, but inexplicably has no actual modern tools or developments.

It tries to straddle that line, and sometimes it succeeds for me, sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s not bad in any sense. It’s also not as amazing as some claim it to be.

The actors are all great. The set pieces are mostly good too. The script does a fine job streamlining and speeding up the stories. My main gripe is not with that adaptation, per se, but with the decision to heavily speed it up in the first place. What’s wrong with just doing the first book for the first season? Now they had to move around major events or give them to other people (that ruin them a bit), just to compress the timeline so much.

Funnily enough, I watched the first few episodes and clearly pinpointed moments where they made a smart budget decision. It’s one of those things that I subconsciously notice by now. When they decide to do a scene in a clever way that doesn’t require (much) special effects, or gets some expensive actors out of it, or anything else to simply lower costs without changing anything about the script.

I thought they did that very well. For example, there’s an early scene where Lucy and Lockwood are in a park at night (having a disagreement; otherwise you would not be out at night with ghosts all around!). The scene ends by Lockwood suddenly lighting a flare and saying something like “We need to move. I see at least X ghosts of type Y behind you.”

Do we actually see the ghosts? No! We just get a shot from the “perspective” of the ghosts, watching Lucy and Lockwood from a slight distance, wobbling the camera a bit. That is incredibly cheap to do. It’s literally just a scene with two people talking in a park now, and one lighting some basic fireworks. But it works. It’s fine for what it is and they didn’t need to waste money on designing some ghost effects for just a few seconds.

So I was surprised when the show was cancelled. It was well-loved, despite my criticisms I thought it was one of the better things I’d seen, and I thought it probably had a small-scale production with a tiny budget. But no, it did have a proper budget, and now I wonder (again, and again) where money like that goes.

I don’t know what to think of the book series; I know even less what to think of the show. It’s good? It’s not great? Maybe my perception is tainted? Maybe I can recognize that the adaptation was well done, but that it just wouldn’t have been the general style or vibe I would’ve ever gone with?

That’s all I can say without spoilers.

Conclusion

What to think of this series? I think the prose was really good (simple without being simplistic), the characters a highlight, and the premise so strong that it automatically leads to plots with action, momentum and reveals. I think it was well-written and well-executed, but I missed some “spice”, some really creative risks or wacky ideas surrounding the ghosts and agencies. I found parts of it highly predictable, but that might just be me.

As usual, my reading time is the best indicator of quality. I read all five books within a month or two, and I barely have time for reading these days! That shows I never slowed down or took a break, because the books were that easy to read and interesting.

And I guess it mostly has the premise to thank for that.

• Giving kids superpowers (and making adults depend on them) is always a great idea to appeal to that audience :p
• It’s obvious that ghosts returning is a tough, scary problem to be solved. (So obvious that it’s literally called The Problem and needs no further explanation when setting up the book.)
• While it’s a problem that leads to action and urgent movement all the time, which gives you a fast-flowing plot for free.

I don’t know if the author intends to write more books in this world. We’re obviously missing a lot of what came before and what comes after. And as I said, it feels like there’s way more to do with that premise. At the same time, I wouldn’t be able to give very specific ways to write more books in this universe. It also feels like these 5 books did all they need to do and it’s fine to close it out there.

A series of good books. Nothing life-changing, also certainly not a waste of time.

The show is fine too, but perhaps best if viewed on its own. If you don’t read the books or forget about them, that single season is just a good season of television, a different “version” of Lockwood & Co.

Spoiler Barrier!

Below I just want to dive into some specific reasons why I liked or disliked things. This requires giving spoilers, of course.

Stop reading now if you don’t want any of that!

Predictability

Okay, so the big “mystery” about The Problem has several parts.

• It’s not an accident or natural occurence. It was caused by Marissa Fittes (and Rotwell, though they seem considerably less important) long ago, as they investigated Death and the Other Side.
• By using tricks (such as drinking ectoplasm from ghosts, and preventing them to move on from life) she has managed to keep herself alive. So her granddaughter (Penelope Fittes) that plays a role here is actually Marissa Fittes, and she never died.
• But by walking through the ghosts’ domain and disturbing them, they stirred them up and made them come back to the real world. Then Marissa built her entire empire and wealth on providing the “solution” to that self-made problem.

Maybe I’ve read too many stories. Maybe I’m too cynical about the real world. But I had this down almost perfectly, from the very first book.

• Of course the ones who stand to benefit from The Problem actually caused or sustain it.
• Of course at least one of those two “originals” is still around and plays a massive role, or it wouldn’t be mentioned over and over.
• Of course it would be a twist like them not actually being dead, or living forever, or “being resurrected”
• And so forth

From a more objective, distanced view, I can see that the overall arc was still very well done and satisfyingly answers a lot of questions. Speaking strictly personally, I was more and more bored as the series continued. Because everything I had assumed from book 1 just … happened. And usually without that much consequence or surprise.

In such cases, I always want to ask the question: Okay, how would I have done it differently? It’s easy to say something didn’t work; it’s more instructive to think about ways it could have worked (for you).

We might keep a lot of the original idea, but simply make it a little less “neat”.

• Yes, Fittes & Rotwell created The Problem. But it was an accident and they really tried to stop it by inventing the tools (rapier, salt, etcetera)
• Their grandchildren, however, liked their wealth and status. So they went against their parents in some big way and continued the scam. => This actually creates more backstory and interesting conflict to explore, and potentially trauma/hatred that still runs deep.
• Until, at this point, The Problem has gone out of hand and it is no accident anymore.
• We might meet a character from those families who “defected” and spills the beans, fearing for their life.
• We might meet another agency that has a suspicion this is the case and starts making actual tools to solve the problem, which Fittes & Rotwell obviously dislike. So they spy on that agency, try to bring it down with force or politicking. (And that “weird agency” could easily be Lockwood & Co, if we enhance George’s skills as a mad scientist and make him actually invent new tools against ghosts.)
• A lot of this information might have been “buried” with Fittes & Rotwell (the “original duo” :p), so we can still have that tomb scene, we can still have some scary graveyard scenes or maybe even chasing their ghosts to have a talk.

By introducing different perspectives, different ideas within the family, a large conspiracy but also brave people trying to break it, I think we get a more interesting overall conflict. It has more perspectives, more angles, more things to explore, and it’s less … “neat”. Yes, that’s the right word. Stories shouldn’t be neat and wrapped up with a bow, if you ask me. They should be neat enough to follow, and otherwise have jaggy edges that cause you to wonder, think and theorize.

Now it’s just “Fittes & Rotwell bad, the rest good”, and “Oh abracadabra, eternal life for Fittes”. Her entire fallout with Rotwell is just glossed over and ignored, as if that second agency never existed at all.

It would also help with working towards an ending. This way, you can take clear step after step to gain power, invent a new tool that eliminates a new class of ghosts, slowly break the conspiracy and get more “defectors” to your side.

Which brings me to …

The ending

This book ends with defeating Marissa. This (probably) prevents The Problem from getting worse (but not ending it in any way). The agency has grown to five people now, it’s the most popular in London (as was Lockwood’s stated goal all along), and it basically ends on “and no we’ll just continue to fight ghosts together every day”.

Which is fine! It’s a good ending, it wraps up most things neatly, and I like that it’s not a happy ending where miraculously all trouble has disappeared. The meaning of life is not to solve all problems and then go lie in bed all day. The general message of “life goes on, and we’ll just keep being an agent every day and have fun” is a great one.

At the same time, it feels a bit hollow. The Problem is left in a vague state. Inspector Barnes forces them to cover up the whole thing, so to anybody outside of the main characters, nothing actually changed or mattered. And it ends with some vague hint that Lucy and Lockwood might become a bit more than friends, but it’s so vague it might as well not be there.

Everyone else has survived with no lasting consequences, even though some (Kipps, George) were close to dying. The mystery of Jessica’s death glow in her room is not really resolved; I think the story tried to go for a “Lockwood accepts the past now and will live in the present, so all reminders of the past are let go”, but it’s not really executed.

It feels as if the author was planning to write another series in this world that actually solves things. But even if they wanted to do that, the ending of this book would not set that up in any way.

Is that bad? Is that good? I just said I don’t like neat endings, or overly happy endings, and stories are most interesting when there are lasting consequences to everything. I can only speak from my feeling: the ending was fine, but hollow. I wasn’t sad to leave this world, which I usually am, especially after reading a long series where you’ve been with characters for a while.

And I think that would have been completely different if the ending—perhaps the entire final book or two—were constructed in a slightly different way.

Repetitive Moments

I want to give some examples about what I mean with “repetitive moments”. This is a common issue with writers, one that I worked hard to learn and fix myself, so this might help someone.

The books try for a sort of “will-they-wont-they” with Lucy and Lockwood. It regularly has scenes where they are “suddenly all alone” or “it’s late at night and I notice we’re alone”, and it tries to go for some tension about some potential relationship between them.

This is fine. You can get a lot of tension out of two people trying to figure each other out, or figure out their own feelings. Both in stories and in real life, of course, to which all readers can relate.

But these moments are just the same every time. There is no progression. No development. It’s not moving towards anything, it’s just a wishy-washy “well nothing actually happened again” by the end. (And by the end of the entire series, there is still no answer or clear final development.)

The same is true with arguments. Lockwood and Lucy have the repeated argument about him viewing ghosts as bad spirits to just kill, while Lucy takes too many risks and tries to communicate with or understand them.

This is fine conflict! It’s an interesting debate! But after seeing it once or twice … there needs to be some development here. Otherwise you’re just repeating an issue, and a repeated argument grows stale and annoying. Half the time, Lockwood inexplicably bursts at Lucy. The other half of the time, he’s immediately “everyone believes you, Lucy, calm down”, which is also hard to believe given the things Lucy sometimes claimed :p

To a new writer, this might feel like a good thing. Conflict! A repeated source of conflict that keeps the story tense! Hopefully you agree with me that this is not tense or interesting, it just grows extremely annoying and slow after a while.

How to change that?

Well, here’s a radical idea: after two awkward moments between them, have Lockwood/Lucy ask the other out on a date.

Yes. Just try it. It doesn’t need to be a success. It doesn’t even need to be a good idea—does love ever cause rational decisions?—there just needs to be some decision.

Now the scene continues its tension, waiting for the other’s response. The tension carries into the entire house, as now they don’t know what to do around each other until they’ve had their date. The tension carries into the chapter with the date.

And then you can still cut it off. You can have them realize it’s too dangerous, or they can’t work together anymore, and they just say “forget it, we’re friends”.

If the author didn’t actually want to bring Lockwood and Lucy together, that’s obviously fine. But a simple approach as I described above would actually make stuff happen and make them come to that realization in an interesting way, as opposed to just repeating the same arguments in many scenes.

An alternative approach would be to give one of them a love interest. Which makes the other jealous, or makes them act weird, or whatever.

You can do a lot of things. But stories are only interesting if things progress and decisions are made, even if they’re stupid or will eventually bring you back to square one.

And don’t get me started about that whole (third?) book when Lucy decides to leave the agency because she is “afraid she is a danger to Lockwood” because of some half-baked prophecy that goes nowhere. That entire part just felt incredibly silly to me. It wasn’t a very strong motivation, it didn’t lead to a lot of interesting new ideas (plot-wise or character-wise), and she was always going to come back by the end of the book. Of course she was!

And when you finish the series, what did that prophecy (which comes again, in a different form, in book 5) actually do? Nothing. It didn’t come true, not even in a cryptic way, and it just made Lucy scared and hesitant to do awesome stuff—which is the reason we read the books.

I just mentioned a few things here, but there’s a much larger list of them. A few repetitive arguments or scenes? I can handle that, sure. I do it in my own books too, because sometimes that’s all you got. You don’t have the words to develop it further, or it only develops in the next book, or you just want to remind the reader of an ongoing conflict and nothing more.

But so many of them? Not great.

The show and its pacing

I just wanted to quickly remark on some general lessons learned from the adaptation.

There is some good streamlining. We often cut ahead to where research has already been done, or they’re already prepared and entering their ghost challenge.

The idea to pull in Barnes immediately and have him exert constant pressure on Lockwood (by saying that Lucy is illegal, for example) is also good. It adds more urgency and ties the entire world together, instead of making it feel like 3 teenagers running around and focusing on tiny things. They shuffle other things around too, to make them meet Marissa Fittes earlier or have George communicate his research in a more “visually engaging” way.

There are some okay decisions. Such as adding a best friend for Lucy that she loses in that tragic event. (Tragic event is in the book; the best friend who seems permanently ghost-locked and gets a lot of attention is not.) It was probably added to give this more weight and to give her those expository moments where she “explains her current situation” in a recording/letter to that friend. Because of that, it’s also a bit forgotten after the first episode and didn’t really pull its weight for me.

And then there is some bad streamlining. For example, the first three episodes of the show do the entirety of book 1. This is an issue and I heavily disliked this.

I was looking forward to the entire back section of that book which takes place in Combe Carey Hall. They do research, they build up this incredibly scary ghost house by digging up stories and mysteries. Then they enter and it’s just page after page of tension, ghosts, that red room, etcetera. It’s good. It’s the highlight of that book.

The show, however, takes so little time that we skip the entire research and build-up phase. We get a few quick comments from George, hunched over a table littered with papers, and that’s that. The actual killer (of Annabel Ward) is only introduced halfway through book 1, which means in the show they are introduced and have their “big reveal” in … what, the span of 25 minutes? That’s too short.

The entire history with the monks, the hidden compartments in the building, the clues that Fairfax is the killer … it’s rushed over to the extent it might as well not even be there.

These days, streaming services seem to completely forget that action and climaxes are only as strong as their build-up and consequences. I thought a show like this would understand. The books do a great job at pacing the research (for a haunting), taking time for the actual night and problem solving, finding the killer. This could’ve translated to screen quite easily, but they just squashed it all into three minutes of exposition and then a reveal or action scene.

And this becomes especially astonishing when you get further into season 1, and the pace slows down again? They take more time for book 2, or certain specific parts of it, whereas I think those could have been sped up without much issue.

Another issue that’s unfortunately quite common. We rush through the opening, incredibly afraid to lose readers or attention. But then the middle becomes incredibly slow and muddy by comparison, and we lose all the extra time we gained as well. So it’s a lose-lose situation.

Nevertheless, these are criticisms by a writer who is actively analyzing this. Purely from an entertainment perspective, the show is quite good and I didn’t mind watching it.

Are these horror stories?

Finally, finally, I touch on an aspect I completely overlooked in this article. These are ghost stories. It’s clearly marketed as a thriller/horror series.

In a way, this is a bit overblown. It’s really not that scary. A lot of the time, you’re not doing anything with ghosts at all. And you know there are five books, so putting one of the main characters in danger … isn’t actually putting them in danger.

And especially over time, the horror-factor lessens. Because you’ve seen ridiculous situations and they still get out scot-free. Because you now the author isn’t one who’s likely to make it really horrible or really gruesome.

At the same time, there are certainly some tense and interesting scenes. Especially at the start. (Perhaps because I don’t normally read these kinds of books and I didn’t know what kind of author this was yet.)

At the time, I slept in a room to the side of the house, attached to a balcony. My parents were renovating the house and I was basically moved to a different weird bedroom all the time.

I heavily dislike closing doors/windows, because I want fresh air and I want the temperature of the room to follow outside temperature. (Cold + Fresh Air has been proven to improve health and sleep quality immensely. So: windows open when you sleep!)

But starting that first book … man, I jolted upright a few times from weird noises. The door to the balcony—which is low and easily accessible from ground floor—was wide open. And I heard all sorts of strange noises. The door slammed shut once (during a small storm in the Netherlands). The electricity in our house has been so poorly wired that lamps can literally flicker or go on/off without reason. (Hence the renovation!) Sometimes the neighbor’s cat is howling on our roof as if they’re dying.

You can probably see how reading ghost stories, in a new dark bedroom with stuff like that happening, did in fact cause me some scared dreams. And I say that as a good thing. Good stories should make you feel stuff, and being scared or tense is a feeling.

And with that personal anecdote I will end the article. Darn it. I always intend to write a short article, no more than 500-1,000 words. And they always end up over 6,000 words!

Now you know where those high word counts on my front page come from :p