Something From The Nightside (2003)

I listened to the audio version,, which was well voiced by Marc Vietor.

Another in the standing subgenre of paranormal private eyes, this time set in an "alternate" London. Good first in the series, but nothing especially stands out about the book for me. Plenty of mysteries about the protagonist and the world to sustain the series, which I plan to read.

My one complaint with the book is the excessive dialog, which moves away from "obvious method for knowledgeable protagonist to explain things to ignorant secondary" to "infodump because readers are dumb and won't get it." It also comes up during action sequences, when it seems that the characters move with great speed and urgency, pause, exchange smart assy remarks, and then start moving again. At times it was actually irritating, but eventually it just became funny. ( )

I read this years ago and thought it was a decent, short, pulpy read. Then, since the birth of my baby and I had no time to read, I went to the library and found a bunch of Nightside audiobooks. So I started again from the beginning with 'Something From the Nightside'...

First of all, narrator Marc Vietor is awesome. His noirish take on P.I. John Taylor is spot on, and the other main characters were all decent. I especially liked his interpretation of a certain monster...

Good pulp fun, nothing too original or brain-taxing. PI. goes back to supernatural Nightside, meets dodgy people, goes to dodgy places, tries to save the girl etc etc. Some of the supporting characters and locations were great (Strangefellows, The Harrowing, Alex Morrissey) and others I didn't really get in to at all (Shotgun Suzie, Razor Eddie, the *ahem* killer cars that eat people) but it all leads up to a pretty good ending that sees John square off against an old enemy an an apocalyptic scenario that sets up the sequel. ( )

Goes in the same line as the 'Dresden' books. Though the story was quite straight forward but mildly entertaining. ( )

This is a fast little read, only 230 pages in the paperback edition. It has a lot of similarities with his Edwin Drood series: loners trying to escape their past, names that instill fear on the heart of all who hear them, odd little places that the characters stop by for no reason that really propels the story along but just provides some humor, the world is full of every kind of nasty including aliens, unreliable backstabbing frenemies, and so forth. It's a decent enough setup for the series but the emotion sparks way too fast and big and people make snap decisions too quickly so I found a lot of the book unbelievable. As with his other books, I feel like I'm reading a superhero graphic novel without the pictures. ( )

This is a fast little read, only 230 pages in the paperback edition. It has a lot of similarities with his Edwin Drood series: loners trying to escape their past, names that instill fear on the heart of all who hear them, odd little places that the characters stop by for no reason that really propels the story along but just provides some humor, the world is full of every kind of nasty including aliens, unreliable backstabbing frenemies, and so forth. It's a decent enough setup for the series but the emotion sparks way too fast and big and people make snap decisions too quickly so I found a lot of the book unbelievable. As with his other books, I feel like I'm reading a superhero graphic novel without the pictures. ( )