The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (Nightside) [Hardcover]

Simon R. Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2010 | Series: Nightside (Book 10)

John Taylor, the PI with a knack for finding things, gets a visit from Walker-the powerful, never-to-be-trusted agent who runs the Nightside on behalf of The Authorities. He tells John he's dying, and wants to offer him an important job: His....

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The gripping, suspenseful, and wry 10th tale in the Nightside supernatural detective series proves every bit the equal of Jim Butcher's better-known Harry Dresden books. The action picks up not long after 2009's Just Another Judgement Day as Lord Screech, an elf claiming to be a peace emissary who has just negotiated a treaty between powerful elvish rivals, enlists PI John Taylor's help in getting safe passage to a portal to another realm. Despite his misgivings about Screech's honesty, Taylor and Ms. Fate, a transvestite crime fighter who might have heard of taste, but only as something other people had, battle werewolves and Neanderthals to deliver Screech to his destination and tackle several other challenges. Longtime fans and first timers alike will applaud Green's blend of fantasy, mystery, and humor. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

John Taylor, the Nightside’s finest PI, returns for a series of particularly difficult jobs. First, he’s hired to escort an elf across town. It doesn’t seem like much, but elves are not well-liked in the Nightside, and that turns a simple cross-town drive into an epic battle. Then Larry Oblivion, the Dead Detective, asks for help finding his younger brother, who hasn’t been seen since the Lilith War. Taylor saw him disappear, but his Sight indicated that he wasn’t dead, so he’s out there somewhere. As if that weren’t enough, Walker, the agent of the Authorities who’s an old friend of John’s father, wants something from John. Walker’s dying, and he wants John to take on a job. Taylor knows better, but accidents do happen. Taylor’s snappy wit and quick thinking make for another entertaining Nightside volume. While the Nightside books do rather follow a formula, it’s one that delivers consistently. The Nightside may be the most bizarre place imaginable, but it’s fun to read about. --Regina Schroeder

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1 edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441018165
• ISBN-13: 978-0441018161
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #553,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Simon Green is the author of the bestselling DEATHSTALKER cycle, the New York Times bestseller ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, and many other novels. He lives in Bradford-upon-Avon in Wiltshire.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The future of the Nightside, January 6, 2010

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (Nightside) (Hardcover)

Walker has always been a central force in the morally grey Nightside -- he'll do just about anything, good or bad, to maintain the status quo.

But all that changes in the eleventh Nightside book, along with a lot of other stuff in the mystery zone between good and evil. Unfortunately "The Good, The Bad and the Uncanny" is a mixed bag of supernatural plots: it seems less like a cohesive book than a trio of interlaced short stories, and two of them suffer from some severe issues with pacing... but the subplot about Walker and John is tragically, horrifically brilliant.

As usual, John has weird cases -- first he has to get an elf lord (nicknamed Screech) from one of the Nightside to the other... and Walker is determined to stop him (cue werewolves, Neanderthal bikers, etc). As payment, Screech has some mildly freaky news for him. Then John is hired by Larry Oblivion, a zombie detective who wants to find his brother... except John can't find him. Oh yes, and his brother Hadley Oblivion, the terrifyingly divine Detective Inspectre, is back in the Nightside.

Finally, John is contacted by Walker, who reveals that he's terminally ill, and wants John to be his successor in the Nightside. Of course, John refuses -- and as he investigates the whereabouts of Larry's brother, Walker keeps popping up to show John the good, the bad and the uncanny about his job. The problem is, he isn't revealing everything to John -- and John starts to realize that Walker is more dangerous than ever before.

"The Good, the Bad and the Uncanny" is probably the wobbliest Nightside novel thus far -- it's basically a novella with two short stories twined around it, with very little connecting them. The central story about Walker is absolutely brilliant, a dark gem about temptation, fanaticism and mortality, but one of the side-plots is never really finished (except for a "to be continued" at the end), and the other is wrapped up rather hastily.

Fortunately the Nightside is as weird and deliciously freaky as ever; Green dabbles in a mansion dragged into hell, a transvestite super-heroINE in a fluffy pink car, the ultimate drug den, and a lobotomized Argus who can see the entire Nightside. And his writing is as vivid ("she grinned back at me like a shark scenting blood in the water") and clever as ever (when a trio of witches start yelling "All hail John Taylor, who shall be king hereafter!", he just says, "Alex put you up to this, didn't he?").

And there's a brilliant climactic scene with John and Walker, reminiscent of Christ being tempted by the Devil with all the kingdoms of the world... except this is the Nightside. On the other hand, some sections are stretched out -- there's a thirty-page car chase, and a forty-page flashback that has little to do with the plot.

Snarky anti-hero John Taylor is in some unpleasant situations here, especially since his gift sometimes doesn't work right, and we see how rock-hard John's principles can be. And Walker is a tragic, frightening figure here, a fanatical man who has sold his soul to maintain the Nightside, and is faced by the question of what will happen when he's gone. The Oblivion Brothers aren't quite as engaging -- often they seem like pallid copies of Dead Boy and the Walking Man.

John Taylor sees "The Good, The Bad and the Uncanny" in the eleventh Nightside novel, a wildly uneven affair that leaves one door open for mayhem in the next outing. Worth reading, but flawed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars getting tired, February 20, 2011

By 

genie533 (Iowa, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (Nightside) (Mass Market Paperback)

I loved my first Nightside books - they were quirky and engaging. Now - they just seem tired (or am I tired?). John's constant internal dilemmas have gotten old. I've begun to wonder, "does it make sense that anyone can be ethical and good in a place that is so black and pridefully foul?" ...yes I think I've just gotten tired of Nightside and probably won't read anymore.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flying carpets, biker neaderthals, twisted religious men. Just another day in the Nightside, January 11, 2010

By 

The Mad Hatter "Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book... (NY State, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (Nightside) (Hardcover)

The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny is the 10th volume in the always strange Nightside series by Simon R. Green. The strangeness is at an all-time high as the Nightside is still reeling from the events of Just Another Judgement Day, which was one of the quickest volumes and more of an interlude than anything else. I read Just Another Judgement Day right before this one, which lays the ground work for the crux of Uncanny.

If you haven't read the other Nightside books do not skip ahead to this volume as it would ruin everything that happened prior. Green does nothing if not build off everything that is seemingly unimportant from past volumes and he is still not scared of killing off some fairly prominent characters. The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny shows that Green is still able to push the envelope with John Taylor as he hasn't lost the touch of putting him in situations that seem unwinnable just to somehow sucker punch his way out of. The series formula has not wained on me at all, which is especially telling of such a long running series.

Flying carpets, biker neaderthals, twisted religious men, hot pink transportation, and the truth about the running of the Nightside are all covered this time around. To start we get a nice little almost novella of Taylor taking a case to get an Elf to the otherside of the Nightside, which from what I can remember is the first such instance of this race having a role in the Nightside. Green takes it from the angle that Elves and their ilk should never be trusted and rightly so. In typical style Taylor enlists aid for the trek. This time around from the little seen Ms. Fate who is a kind of like an Emma Peel drag queen superheroine. She is much more likable than I was expecting. At first I was missing Deadboy, but Ms. Fate more than holds her own with her dialogue and battle skills. After Taylor clears up that trouble he is accosted by Larry Oblivion to help find his brother Tommy who has been missing since the Lilith War saga. We get Larry's origin story from his point of view, which was nice for a change of pace. A lot of closure happens this time around as things come to a head for many characters including Taylor who gets a 'best of' tour of sorts from Walker in his attempt to have Taylor better understands what it means to be Walker.

Fans of the series will not be disappointed as a real showdown with Taylor and Walker finally happens. Through it all you gain a deeper insight into the underpinnings of the Nightside and the growth of John Taylor. The one flaw in the series is the constant repetition of some lines such as "in every way that matters." Yet Green certainly moves the story along at a fox's pace. This is setting everything up for the penultimate volume in the series as Green has said he will stop at the twelfth volume. The groundwork has been laid to give the series a strong show stopper.