Something from the Nightside

Rating:
Summary: Not a bad little book.
Review: A good journeyman's effort at noir fantasy. The author tries to strike somewhere between Raymond Chandler and Neil Gaiman's _Neverwhere_, and doesn't quite manage to attain either, but he comes close enough to be readable and entertaining if you don't mind the occasional cliche, or don't mind the occasional long monologue when a character gets introduced.

If you're a fan of pulp noir and/or pulp fantasy, it's worth reading. Some of the imagery is quite novel, the book is well-paced (mostly), the characters are reasonably engaging. It's not the most wildly original book I've ever read, but by no means the least, either, and even the cliched parts are executed enjoyably.

One note: a number of events in the book quite clearly set this up to be the first of a series, and everything that could be resolved between the covers, isn't.

Rating:
Summary: Quick read but a good one
Review: A short book but a good one. This book sits at two hundred and thirty three pages but not a one is wasted. It is about a "PI" who has a gift finding things. The catch is that he is from a place that exists parallel to ours and Magic, Gods, Devils, Monsters and other assorted things exist there. This world is similar to Neil Gaiman's parallel universe and even has many similarities to Simon Green's other famous city of "Haven" set in his Hawk and Fisher novels.

I read this book in about two hours and I enjoyed it. It's not often I get a chance to read a really short book that's good and it is refreshing sometimes to have a book jump right to the point and not have pages upon pages of descriptive writing, not that that's bad or anything, it's just not necessary every time.

Rating:
Summary: Good but disappointing
Review: Although I'm giving this book four stars, I found it very disappointing. In a way, 'Something From the Nightside' is a victim of its first chapter. After reading chapter 1, I thought this was going to be one of the best books I ever read.

It was some of the wittiest, most hard-boiled fiction I'd read in my life. Better still, I knew this was going to be a dark fantasy novel. I expected a quality noir/horror novel that would easily match everything that had come before it. That's how good chapter 1 was.

And this book could have been great-- if it had followed in the 'literary' style of chapter 1. Unfortunately, the book almost immediately generated into a very cinematic, action-oriented story, with little room for narration or character development.

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh. As my rating shows, this book definitely isn't bad. It features a whole host of captivating characters. But like many novels these days, it was just-- too movie-ish.

I don't want to read a cross between a good dark fantasy novel and a Nightmare On Elm Street movie. If I wanted bucket after bucket of non-credible action sequences and cornball special effects, then I'd rent a flick. What I want is quality writing, and fresh, believable action scenes; not just a bundle of cliches. In parts, this book follows in the footsteps of the over-the-top horror scene, and it's not to its credit.

Still, I do recommend the book, with reservations. I'm sure I'll read another Simon R. Green novel before long.

And when the book that this should have been comes out, I hope somebody tells me.

Rating:
Summary: Brain candy noir, hard-boiled
Review: For those who have read Gaimon's "Neverwhere," the idea of a London that exists in parallel but separately from the everyday London will be familiar. But Simon Green's alternate London, which he calls "the Nightside," is a far grimmer place than Gaiman's quirky Neverwhere. It's populated by the likes of Shotgun Suzy Shooter, Razor Eddie, pedestrian-eating cars, and the supernatural dregs of uncounted worlds and times. The Nightside is a dangerous place, but it can be equally enticing to those who live there.

"Something from the Nightside" is the first of a series of novels about John Taylor, a man with the gift of finding things. He grew up in the Nightside but left it for the safety of ordinary London. As the story opens, he's barely making it as a private investigator. In walks Joanna, an obviously desperate (and rich) woman in search of her missing daughter. The two venture into the Nightside, where Taylor encounters friends and enemies (sometimes they're the same) and must deal with a macabre and deadly series of events.

This slim book begins at a furious pace, and the author keeps the action revved up through all of its 230some pages. Taylor's background (and he has an intriguing history) is important to the plot, but it's given briefly, almost as if the book were a sequel trying to bring new readers up to speed. Green's tried to combine the feeling of hard-boiled detective fiction with horror and dark fantasy. It's an interesting mix, and partially successful. There's not a lot of character development, just scene after scene of bizarre encounters and narrow escapes. In many places the characters feel like stereotypes and the plot twists are expected. But Green writes with an energy that keeps the reader going, "Something from the Nightside" is not a book with any deep meaning or particular literary merit. But it is a good read--and a fast one.


Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Detective/Fantasy Novel
Review: Great read, started and finished this book within a few hours. It keeps your attention going from one spot to the next.

Mainly this is a story about the detective, John Taylor. We start out with the clasic run down office, and a beautify lady. and then the action begins as only Simon Green can write.

What i think is BAD: I would have liked to have read more about the detective in this novel as information about John are incomplete (future novel??).

Rating:
Summary: A Place Even A Rat Would Leave
Review: Hidden in the dark core of London is The Nightside, a place where it is always 3 A.M., and every arcane and twisted appetite can come for satiation. Creatures from all the planes gather here, and not for idle chitchat. And the gods, for the most part, avoid it like the plague.

John Taylor is a 'finder.' It you pay him enough he can find anything, whether you want him to or not. For the past five years Taylor has refused to enter The Nightside, fearful of a heritage that has made him one of the most feared an hunted men in a place where everyone hunts. But nothing is forever, and the detective is offered a huge fee to discover the whereabouts of a young runaway who was last seen wandering the streets of The Nightside, drawn like a moth to the fire.

With this beginning, Simon Green opens a new series about a run down noir detective whose territory is a place where no sane person would ever go. Taylor is a strange cross between Angel and Philip Marlowe - full of attitude, wisecracking, and haunted by his past. And The Nightside has a great deal of Los Angeles in its bones.

Green's error is in getting carried away with the Raymond Chandler imitation. The plot is excellent, and The Nightside, if a bit derivative, is the kind of place where a hard-boiled detective with a 'private' third eye should be able to find countless interesting cases. The prose is a bit too over-blown. Caught by the necessity of establishing Taylor's character and the overarching weirdness of this little bit of occult geography, Green has allowed the writing to outrun itself. The result is something that sounds like Chandler but without that writer's ability to stab an image through the heart in the space of a sentence.

Everything said and done thought, this was an interesting story despite some predictable twists. Hopefully, the narrative will calm down a bit as the series establishes itself. Green has a lot of experience writing top grade popular fiction, so I suspect that The Nightside will become yet another success for this talented writer.

Rating:
Summary: Step into the nightside, and prepare for the macabre
Review: I nabbed this solely because Jim Butcher (of the Harry Dresden series) recommended it on the cover. I hope that this is a first book in a series, as there's a lot of good groundwork here, and a heck of a lot expository prose that would be entirely wasted if it wasn't a set up for more to come.

John Taylor (no relation to the singer) is a detective in London, who escaped "the Nightside" five years ago. What's the Nightside? Think Twighlight Zone, or Outer Limits, but add in a heavier dash of macabre, evil, shadow, whatever you'd like to pull from your worst nightmares and darkest impulses.

It is a place that is not really in the world, but sort of beside it, buried in the heart of London, where all manner of dark and horrible things await - and where John Taylor is going with his new client, to rescue her child from something truly evil.

In the Nightside, John can find anything - it's one of his many psychic gifts (that only function in the Nightside), and people fear him (although why he isn't sure, though he's pretty sure it has something to do with his mother, whom he doesn't really know, and about whom he's even less enlightened).

This was good. I'll read more if it turns into a series, though I heartily recommend you skip the passage with the large insects. It was very very gross.

'Nathan

Rating:
Summary: Interesting idea, but too repetitive
Review: I picked up this book because the concept interested me and because I've enjoyed other books by Simon R. Green. I very quickly learned that things are different, in the Nightside. Things are also apparently very repetitive in the Nightside. One particular instance that sticks out was that cars are not always cars in the Nightside, sometimes they are something else, in the Nightside, and one would be wise to avoid stepping out in to traffic lest one of the not cars should eat you. In the Nightside. Since I was told that little tidbit about cars twice in two pages, I figured that, in the Nightside, cars might be different. It was so blatent that I checked to make sure I just wasn't reading the same page twice, because, as you may have figured out, things are different, in the Nightside.

I got the feeling that this series may be for those with a short attention span. Several concepts and ideas were very interesting, but I could not get past being continually reminded that things are not as they seem, in the Nightside. Unless you are particularly fond of being constantly remided of the same thing over and over and over again, you may want to stay away from these books. If you have a tolerance for being continually reminded over and over and over again that you are indeed in the Nightside, then you might just enjoy these books. But remember, things are not what they seem, in the Nightside.

You get the idea, in the Nightside.

Rating:
Summary: Whatever
Review: I was surprised after I finished reading this book. It had really good reviews and I just didn't see what others were seeing. The main character of the book did seem to possibly have a decent sense of humor, but I spent his entire time describing the Nightside and just how different it was from the real world. I mean, the entire time he was discribing over and over just how different it was. He would then explain in detail over and over each and every character in the Nightside. Augh! how boring! Give action, less talk! The only reason I gave three stars was because the main charcter did have promise. I would like to see what the next book sounds like. Hopefully Green will be finished with the describing and get to the action.

Rating:
Summary: Throwing the book against the wall, in the Nightside
Review: If it weren't for the overuse of the phrase "in the Nightside", this book would be an average little thriller. Unfortunately, the repetitive use of "<fill in the blank>, in the Nightside" had me ready to run screaming from the room before I was halfway through the book. Some paraphrased examples: "Things are not always as they seem, in the Nightside". "Dreams/nightmares often come true, in the Nightside". I can only put up with a certain amount of cheese and cliche, and this book exceeded its quota.