Friday
Jan272006
Tales from the Nightside - Simon R. Green
Friday, January 27, 2006 at 1:35PM
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You may never see London in the same way again, there is always something lurking in that darkened ally way.
Simon R Green is a man whose work I have either loved or hated - there has never really been anything in between for me. Hawk and Fisher I really liked Deathstalker - has not really done anything for me to be honest with you. However one day - in a fit of temper I wondered into a local bookshop and found a book that interested me enough to buy it and the book that followed it. The title of the book was Something from the Nightside and it was the first in the Nightside series - and man was I pleased that I did!
The books are set in modern day London but just not as we know it. The main city is unchanged but you are introduced to the underbelly of the city by the hero (?) of the story John Taylor. Taylor is not from London - well not the London we all know anyway. He is from the Nightside, a place that exists along side the city, a place where it is always 3am, and a place where people come to indulge in the pleasures they would be punished or derided for anywhere else. All in all - the Nightside is a very strange and scary place.
This may sound a lot live Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, and there are indeed a lot of similarities, (you can almost see the Nightside as a twisted and more surreal London Below), but for me this does not detract from the story its self. Taylor is a man who lives in the city - having left the Nightside a great many years ago, and he now makes a living (of sorts as a PI) and stays well out of the Nightside - well that is until he gets a case that means he will have to go home again.
From the get go these books have a feel of the old Mike Hammer films (you know the standard PI in his office and in walks a Dame with legs that go all the way......) and the noir feel worked really well for me. I have always liked that style of writing and always have the sort of picture in the back of my mind when I read those kind of books. Green manages to ensure that the noir style does not gravitate to the ridiculous - which it could do easily - and keeps the reader entranced as he introduces them to a new side of the city.
There are issues with the book - it does not compare all that favourably with Neverwhere but then I don't think that it was ever intended to be the same thing (not to mention the fact that Green and Gaiman have different writing styles). In addition to this I found the end a little disappointing - I had hoped it would be a little more surprising, but that it seems was not to be, however it was not so disappointing that I did not read the second novel - Agents of light and Darkness so that says a lot.
As I have progressed through this series I have found that I have stopped seeing the Neverwhere comparisons and now just see Greens universe - and all in all it is an enjoyable one. You have the mysterious forces, the bad guy who seems to have something to do with Taylor’s past, the mystery of his mother, why is it that everyone wants Taylor dead and why did he really leave in the first place.
All in all this series is a nice piece of light reading, with great characters and fast moving plots - and hell if nothing else you cant beat a book that has avenging angels, a guy who kills people with a razor but just wont die himself and more things that go bump in the night than you can shake a stick at - sounds good to me!
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You may never see London in the same way again, there is always something lurking in that darkened ally way.
Simon R Green is a man whose work I have either loved or hated - there has never really been anything in between for me. Hawk and Fisher I really liked Deathstalker - has not really done anything for me to be honest with you. However one day - in a fit of temper I wondered into a local bookshop and found a book that interested me enough to buy it and the book that followed it. The title of the book was Something from the Nightside and it was the first in the Nightside series - and man was I pleased that I did!
The books are set in modern day London but just not as we know it. The main city is unchanged but you are introduced to the underbelly of the city by the hero (?) of the story John Taylor. Taylor is not from London - well not the London we all know anyway. He is from the Nightside, a place that exists along side the city, a place where it is always 3am, and a place where people come to indulge in the pleasures they would be punished or derided for anywhere else. All in all - the Nightside is a very strange and scary place.
This may sound a lot live Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, and there are indeed a lot of similarities, (you can almost see the Nightside as a twisted and more surreal London Below), but for me this does not detract from the story its self. Taylor is a man who lives in the city - having left the Nightside a great many years ago, and he now makes a living (of sorts as a PI) and stays well out of the Nightside - well that is until he gets a case that means he will have to go home again.
From the get go these books have a feel of the old Mike Hammer films (you know the standard PI in his office and in walks a Dame with legs that go all the way......) and the noir feel worked really well for me. I have always liked that style of writing and always have the sort of picture in the back of my mind when I read those kind of books. Green manages to ensure that the noir style does not gravitate to the ridiculous - which it could do easily - and keeps the reader entranced as he introduces them to a new side of the city.
There are issues with the book - it does not compare all that favourably with Neverwhere but then I don't think that it was ever intended to be the same thing (not to mention the fact that Green and Gaiman have different writing styles). In addition to this I found the end a little disappointing - I had hoped it would be a little more surprising, but that it seems was not to be, however it was not so disappointing that I did not read the second novel - Agents of light and Darkness so that says a lot.
As I have progressed through this series I have found that I have stopped seeing the Neverwhere comparisons and now just see Greens universe - and all in all it is an enjoyable one. You have the mysterious forces, the bad guy who seems to have something to do with Taylor’s past, the mystery of his mother, why is it that everyone wants Taylor dead and why did he really leave in the first place.
All in all this series is a nice piece of light reading, with great characters and fast moving plots - and hell if nothing else you cant beat a book that has avenging angels, a guy who kills people with a razor but just wont die himself and more things that go bump in the night than you can shake a stick at - sounds good to me!
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