Something from the Nightside (Nightside, Book 1) [Mass Market Paperback]

Simon R. Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 29, 2011

John Taylor is not a private detective per se, but he has a knack for finding lost things. That's why he's been hired to descend into the Nightside, an otherworldly realm in the center of London where fantasy and reality share renting space and the sun never shines

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Simon R. Green is a New York Times bestselling author whose works include Drinking Midnight Wine, Beyond the Blue Moon, Blue Moon Rising, The Adventures of Hawk & Fisher, and the Deathstalker series. A resident of Bradford-on-Avon in England, he is currently working on the next Deathstalker novel.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Ace (November 29, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441010652
• ISBN-13: 978-0441010653
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Contemporary

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

53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You are entering the Nightside - try not to stare, October 11, 2004

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Something from the Nightside (Nightside, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

In Something From the Nightside, Simon R. Green takes us on the initial exploration of a fascinating hidden world located far below the civilized streets of London. In the Nightside, it is always 3 AM; people (and other things) come from all kinds of worlds (including fictional ones) and times to indulge in the secret and oftentimes perverse pleasures they can never pursue in their own worlds; and anything and everything is possible - the sight of a fallen angel burning eternally in a blood-sealed circle qualifies as a mundane sight. Native Nightsiders all possess a gift of some sort - oftentimes a deadly one. It's a dangerous place, which is exactly why John Taylor left it five years ago. Now ensconced in the real world of London, he is a private detective of the film noir sort. When a rich dame comes seeking his help in finding her lost daughter, though, he finds himself returning to the secret world he vowed never to set foot in again. John Taylor's natural-born gift is an uncanny power to find things, especially within the confines of the Nightside. If anyone can find the missing girl, he can - whether he can survive long enough to do it, is a completely different matter.

Despite his misgivings, the journey back feels like going home. Little has changed in the Nightside. At Sidefellows bar, Alex Morrisey is still tending the bar (but of course, he is cursed to always remain there); Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor and Nightside's most proficient eternal killer, is still coming in for free drinks; Suzie Shooter is still around to shoot first and ask questions later; and young punks still have no better sense than to challenge John Taylor's powers. Taylor's gift can be deadly, and he is soon given the opportunity to prove that five years away have not lessened his powers. The secret of Taylor's childhood and mysterious destiny are fleshed out as the story progresses, but the one thing Taylor has been unable to find is the meaning and significance obviously attached to his life - although he's pretty sure it has something to do with his non-human mother who disappeared after he was born. Some unknown but very powerful someone (or something) has been trying to kill him ever since he was a kid, and the blank-faced, pseudo-beings called The Harrowing soon appear to claim their long-stalked prey. They are just one of several deadly problems Taylor encounters on his mission to find the missing young girl.

The actual climax of the story is a little less satisfying than what comes before, but that's about the only small weakness in this action-packed, fast-paced novel. Green proves himself a master of sly, dark humor in these pages, mixing a sharp wit with sociopolitical satire and plenty of campy hard-boiled detective adventure to create a portal to a wondrously enigmatic world where anything can happen and usually does. While the search for the missing girl remains the center of the novel, the story really shifts to that of the mysterious John Taylor himself, as we learn about his past and - thanks to a Timeslip phenomenon - a cataclysmic future he will supposedly bring about. Messiah-like references to him by the likes of the Brittle Sisters of the Hive raise intriguing questions, questions John Taylor wishes he knew the answers to himself.

The prolific Simon R. Green has created other worlds of great fascination in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, but the Nightside may be his most memorable creation, as it truly takes on a unique life of its own. Something From the Nightside leaves many a door open for Green to continue his dark and highly entertaining jaunts into this fascinating world, and the intriguingly complex life of John Taylor is guaranteed to bring delighted readers along for the ride as long as it lasts - especially if it takes us to more places where plague rats travel in pairs because they are afraid to venture out alone.

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Taylor found me!!! . . . Read it, you'll understand, September 29, 2003

By 

Shannon (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Something from the Nightside (Nightside, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Something from the Nightside is a wonderfully written fantasy under the guise of a private detective mystery. If you only read the first few pages, you're doing a disservice to yourself. It isn't until John Taylor ventures into the Nightside that we actually experience the true genius of Simon R. Green.

This was my first exposure to the work of Green. I picked this book up after reading a referral from Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files. What's funny though is I only read Butcher because of a referral from Tanya Huff, one of my favorite authors. So, ultimately, Huff led me to Green. Funny how these things work sometimes.

Back to the story. Taylor has an unnatural ability to find things, including people. This is what led him to his current profession of private detective. In walks Joanna Barrett. She's looking for her daughter and has exhausted all her leads. She turns to Taylor as her last hope. The only thing that Joanna knows about her daughter's disappearance is that she's ventured into the Nightside. Joanna doesn't know what this is, but Taylor does. He left there 5 years earlier and vowed never to return. He's strapped for cash though, and Joanna seems to be his only prayer. So together, they journey into the Nightside.
And so begins the story.
Green is a very talented author that has mastered the art of creating believable characters and painting a magical scene. This novel incorporates suspense, humor, fantasy, horror and romance, and it does it well. The Nightside is a magical creation and hopefully we will see many more novels in this series.
I eagerly await the next novel, Agents of Light and Darkness.

45 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Place Even A Rat Would Leave, May 17, 2004

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Something from the Nightside (Nightside, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.