Customer Reviews

Hex and the City (Nightside, Book 4)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

John Taylor lives in the Nightside, an alternative London, where it's always 3 AM and the sinning and magic never stops. You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant. At Rick's Cafe, they serve Dodo and Dragonburgers--but carry a piece of unicorn horn to detect poisons---just in case.

John Taylor was born in the Nightside. He tried to leave a few years ago, but a missing persons case brought him back. Can't say anyone would blame him for leaving. He was orphaned early. His father drank himself to death when he discovered what his wife (John's Mother) really was.

Some folks call John Prince, while others make the Evil Eye sign whenever he approaches. More than one person tried to kill him when he was growing up. He has a Talent. He can find anything in the Nightside. Folks hire him as a Private Investigator.

Lady Luck made John Taylor an offer he couldn't refuse. Find the origins of the Nightside. If he succeeds, she'll tell him who his mother is....

"Hex and the City" is another fast-paced dark fantasy story full of quirky characters and places. "Hex" is the fourth in the Nightside series. So far, I haven't been disappointed by any of them. They're so hard to put down, my techie husband who never reads anything but tech manuals and history picked one up when I was in the doctor and has read the whole series. I had to hide "Hex" from him til I was done!

The books are a blend of Raymond Chandler and Glen Cook's supernatural detective novels. Taylor's a likeable character who despite his hard edges, falls hard for a damsel in distress, and will do about anything to help a kid.

For the most part, the "Nightside" stories stand on their own, but I strongly recommend that you read all of them: "Something Good from the Nightside", "Agents of Light and Darkness" and "Nightingale's Lament".

Hex and the City (2005) is the fourth urban fantasy novel in the Nightside series, following Nightingale's Lament. In the previous volume, John Taylor and Dead Boy brought Rossignol back from death and Walker took the Cavendishes away. Then Taylor found that his client has been dead for two years; hard to collect from a ghost.

In this novel, Taylor is hired by the Great Auction Hall to watch over the chaos butterfly. Supposedly, possession of the butterfly means control of future events. Most of the major players, or their agents, are in the hall for this auction.

Everything goes well until bidding starts on the butterfly. First everybody starts humming or singing the same song and then the wards and protections break and blow apart. Soon psychenauts show up from the Outside and Taylor takes certain corrective actions.

After the auction hall incident, Taylor passes on the details of where to send his check and goes out for a dinner date with his secretary. Cathy has already selected Rick's Cafe Imaginaire, where the food comes from extinct or imaginary animals. They order dragonburgers and salads, with Cheshire Cat ice cream for desert. After the meal, Lady Luck drops by to offer Taylor a job.

Lady Luck wants Taylor to find out the origins of the Nightside. She offers to tell him about his mother in return for his services. Since Taylor wants to know about the origins as much as about his mother, he agrees to take the job. Naturally, Walker tries to dissuade him.

In this story, Taylor consults the wishing well in the Mammon Emporium. While the future is subject to change without prior notification, the well has a good reputation for predicting the present. For one drop of blood, the wishing well tells him the present location of the Madman.

The Hotel Clappe is very willing to provide Madman's room number if Taylor will only take him away. The desk clerk even says please. Madman sees reality in all its terror and strange things happen around him. Madman agrees to accompany Taylor in his search.

Next Taylor recruits Sinner for the search. Sinner had sold his soul for true love, but Satan cheated. Sinner didn't care and went to Hell still loving Pretty Poison, the succubus of his dreams. Satan wouldn't have a happy Sinner in the nether regions, so he threw him out and Pretty Poison went with him. Rejected by both Heaven and Hell and not really alive nor dead, Sinner is impervious to just about any form of attack.

Taylor interviews residents who have been in the Nightside for a long time; first Merlin, then Herne the Hunter and finally the Lamentation disavow all knowledge of the origins. So he searches back through time. Eventually, he discovers his answer, but the information is more than he really wants to know.

This story involves Taylor's mother. After three volumes filled with allusions to his mother, we finally learn something about her nature and even a little about his father and his friends. Maybe the information wasn't worth the effort, but Taylor does get more than he had expected.

Highly recommended for Green fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of arcane adventure, exotic environments, and strange fellows.

-Arthur W. Jordin

The Nightside is a dark, seedy place. It's a magical place--always 3 in the morning, where monsters walk among men, where ideas such as love and lust not only run rampant, but actually have personifications. The Nightside is where people go to escape the rest of the world, or are sent because damnation isn't harsh enough for them. Such as Madman, who has witnessed the truth behind the world, and gone insane by it. And Sinner, who was rejected by both Heaven and Hell. And John Taylor.

John has taken on some rough assignments in the past. Hell, he's battled angels and demons--actual angels and demons. He's seen hell is all its glories. But never has John taken on a case like this. He is up against his deadliest and closest enemy--himself. For John has been hired to find the origins of the Nightside, and his quest is a personal vendetta--to find out just who (or what) his missing mother was, and determine if he really is the bringer of destruction, as many seem to think he is. Can John Taylor, a man with a gift and an unbearable curse, really bring about the destruction of the Nightside? And just who is willing to stop him--by any means necessary?

"Hex and the City" is easily the most gripping Nightside adventure yet, because it helps to wrap up many unanswered questions--while creating even more. Simon R. Green has found a superlative narrator in John Taylor, a sympathetic hero up against insurmountable odds. This is a book you will not be able to put down, I guarantee it.

In the first Nightside book we learned a little about John's possible impact on the world. In the second book there was a teaser about the purpose of the Nightside. Now in the fourth book we return to these themes in a big way. Lady Luck has hired John to find out the origins of the Nightside. As payment she will tell him about his mother.

As John starts his quest, he teams up with some very interesting characters (not Susie this time). As he looks for answers we get to see more of the Nightside and how it can affect others on all levels. All the while John wonders about the possible future he saw and how he can prevent it. In the end we have plenty of revelations and John is even more determined to make sure the bleak future he saw will not come to pass.

I felt the third book in the series was a little weak but this one does not suffer from that problem. This is probably the strongest book in the series and my favorite after the first. Suffice it to say, you do not want John on your bad side.

The Nightside series centers around a private investigator named John Taylor. John is powerful but hunted and really a bit too nice for the Nightside, underneath his hard outer persona. The Nightside is a dark part of London where the sun never shines and where most anything goes. In _Hex and the City_, his client has asked him to find the origins of the Nightside - but his mother's identity is tied in with that, so by the end of the book he is told her identity as well.

While John's past and parentage have played a part in the previous books in the series, this book is about John more than any of the other novels. It is about his search for his mother, who his parents were before he was born, and how things changed after he was born.

Shotgun Suzie is not part of this novel, but John does get some new traveling companions: Madman, Sinner and Pretty Poison. The identity and background story of each of these is unique and interesting and . . . fascinatingly weird. Green's dialogue and interaction among characters were some of the things I enjoyed most about this book.

Similar to the end of _Agents of Light and Darkness_, there is also a theme of hope and redemption running through the background that comes to light near the very end.

One caveat: I would seriously recommend that anyone new to this series read the first three books BEFORE this book. Otherwise, the reader will miss the significance of the information in this book about things such as the Harrowing, Shotgun Suzie, Merlin, John's mother and a possible future timeline of the Nightside.

Overall, a very good book. I couldn't put it down once I had started it.

No matter how bad something seems, it can always get worse. After finishing three tough cases back in the Nightside after he had been away for years, John Taylor is hit with a case that dwarfs the other three: find the origin of the Nightside. Taylor has a sinking feeling that the beginning of the Nightside may also have something to do with the mother he never knew. It might be easier if there weren't so many people trying to make sure Taylor doesn't succeed in his quest...

Simon R. Green does it again. The originality of these books is absolutely amazing and this fourth installment is no exception. The reader finds out more in this book about John Taylor than maybe even the other three combined. 'Hex and the City' still has the Nightside's trademark noir atmosphere. More and more 'major players' are introduced and Taylor teams up with some more colorful (if not clearly mad) characters. Read this book and enjoy. It was leave you salivating for the fifth installment which comes out this fall. I can honestly say this will be one of the best books I will read all year and it's only March!

John Taylor finds things. It's his gift, a magical one. He was born in Nightside, a disturbing, dark, and absolutely fascinating alternate London where it is always 3:00 in the morning, monsters walk among men, multiple realities co-exist, and nothing is what it seems. Concepts such as love, luck, and lust not only run rampant, but they actually come to life as living personifications. Denizens of the Nightside can escape the mundane world to buy, sell, or find just about anything.

Taylor we've seen before in Green's previous novels. A few previous characters are back, but there are some exceptionally entertaining new cohorts who appear in this one: Madman, an eccentric genius who has witnessed the true nature of the world and was driven insane by it, Sinner, who made a deal with the devil yet was rejected by both Heaven and Hell, Pretty Poison his supernatural girlfriend, and Bad Penny, the sometimes mercenary/sometimes assassin. We learn some fascinating new information about Walker, Merlin, The Authorities, and John Taylor's past and possible future.

Taylor is hired by Lady Luck to uncover the secret history of Nightside and figure out how and why it exists. In exchange he is offered knowledge of who and what his mysterious, long-vanished mother truly was. Unfortunately for our hero, major Powers are lining up on both sides of his quest--both to help it succeed, and to ensure that it fails. For finishing his mission could mean very bad things not just for Nightside, but for all of existence as well.

All of Green's novels of the Nightside are well crafted, entertaining, absolutely fun to read, and, oddly enough, believable. The characters are so "real" and the settings so interesting that it is easy to suspend your disbelief and become carried along by the fast pace and excellent writing. I devoured this one in just two days. Very highly recommended!

Simon R. Green's first Nightside book was pretty good; the second was a limp rag of a Weird Harold show; the third was fairly entertaining; now the fourth stinks. Watching the author furiously signal what the narrator thinks is secret, watching the ho-hum story play to an inevitable end, I felt like a rubbernecker at a traffic accident. Everything the author could do wrong, he does.

First, Green goes back to a Weird Harold display. For those who don't know that term, it refers to a story in which the author displays a (putatively) interesting character, only because that character is interesting. In his usual mode, supernatural PI John Taylor searches the phone book of amusing fantasy stereotypes, gets no info, and moves on. You could read each encounter in any order, they add so little to the story.

Then, though characters warn Taylor almost from the first that this case will hasten the end of all things, he refuses to get off. He insists that he will not, and WOULD not, bring on Armageddon, even as he persists in the one action he has been warned will make it happen. Perhaps we're meant to think him honorable for sticking to his guns, but to me he just looks kind of thick.

Finally, the dénouement of the novel disappoints. The author promises that we will finally learn the secret of this series, a secret apparently known to everybody but Taylor himself. In fairness, we do get what we've been promised. The problem is, the big reveal arrives, and we discover that the secret we've waited four novels to learn is... ripped off from a popular role-playing game franchise. Boo! Hiss!

This series started off so well. Though it was only one voice in a crowded fantasy mystery market, I really felt the first book had such promise. It's a promise that hasn't come through. Green squanders his best ideas on a geek show. In a crowded publishing market, with so many good books waiting to be read, I just don't have time for boring make-work like this.

I hate to give this book a three. It doesn't deserve a three. It deserves, like, a 3.8. Maybe even a 4, if I were feeling charitable. And, like my fellows, I feel that most of the latest contribution to the Nightside series was a lot of fun--but there are flaws.

Now, I'm a fan of the Nightside. I've read all four, and I find them extremely charming. The setting itself is, in Hex and the City, as delicious as ever it is. The characters--particularly the reality-warping Madman--are wonderfully original. The gods are nasty. The Authorities are mysterious and self-serving. Green's real problems, though, are threefold: He underuses his characters, his writing can be rather repetitive, and he's a fan of the deus ex machina.

Probably the most regrettable lapse is Green's habit of creating memorable characters and doing absolutely nothing with them. The abovementioned Madman, a mathematician who had Seen reality as it truly is and been driven insane by it, accompanies John throughout most of the book--but he is generally mentiond only for comic relief. Green treats him as a lightswitch--turn him on when we need something silly or Yoda-spooky, turn him off the rest of the time. Pretty Poison and Sinner, the demon-saint couple, tend to be very flat: Sinner is uniformally a Good Guy, and Pretty Poison is the average succubus.

The repetition thing is really just a problem I have with Green's writing, in general. He uses the same expressions over and over--and it isn't for parallel structure or any such juicy thing. It seems more like he forgets that he already said, "The bar went very quiet, after that," only a page earlier. Then again, some of the expressions--"My third eye, my private eye"--are made more classic by their repetition. Like most things, therefore, it rather depends on the context.

But the most atrocious lapse in the book is one that Green is all too fond of: Everything snaps shut at the end. In the last twenty pages, all of the exposition that happens throughout the entire book is laid out, plain and unadorned. All of the character flaws throughout the entire piece are neatly shelved and straightened. It is as though Green was nearing a word count limit, and thought, "Hey, I better resolve all the nastiness with two pages, now!"

...but I'm being too cruel. The above attitudes don't really take the book for what it is: A simple, uncomplicated pseudo-horror book, with occasionally painful and occasionally grinworthy humor tossed in far too often for legality. As usual, the entire work is peppered with fun little references to this and that, of the sort that one gets excited at recognizing (I believe it was Something From the Nightside that contained a Nine Princes in Amber reference. I definitely squealed like a girl on reading about the "Prince of Amber" who'd lost his memory.). At that, therefore, Hex and the City succeeds quite well, and, in spite of my criticisms (which are really only there because I'm old far before my time), I'd recommend the work to anybody with some spare time on their hands.

Oh, but read the other three first. They're better, in my opinion, and you need the setting, or you won't have as much fun.

This is where the series departs from its first three installments of detective story and moves more towards supernatural mystery while some may have a problem with this I do not. With this installment the books started to get much more complicated and interesting. John has a fight with a group of combat magicians that will have implications for the rest of the series and that is just one thing that happens in this book.

Important questions are raised specifically the origins of the very Nightside itself. For each of these "origin" books John has allies in addition to Suzie in this case Sinner the only man ever to escape from Hell through the power of true love. All in all this character and his girlfriend contributed much to my enjoyment of this particular installment.