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Taylor is the name, John Taylor. My card says I'm a detective, but what I really am is an expert on finding lost things. It's part of the gift I was born with as a child of the Nightside. I left there a long time ago, with my skin and sanity barely intact. Now I make my living in the sunlit streets of London. But business has been slow lately, so when Joanna Barrett showed up at my door, reeking of wealth, asking me to find her runaway teenage daughter, I didn't say no. Then I found out show more exactly where the girl had gone. The Nightside. That square mile of Hell in the middle of the city, where it's always three A.M. Where you can walk beside myths and drink with monsters. Where nothing is what it seems, and everything is possible. I swore I'd never return. But there's a kid in danger and a woman depending on me. So, I have no choice - I'm going home. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
plutoempress similar style, though i (and this is my opinion) find john taylor funnier than harry dresden.
lookitisheef Jim Butcher and Simon R. Green both have created great supernatural male-lead detective series. I think they provide a nice balance to the girls-kick-butt series out there...don't get me wrong, I love the work of Kim Harrison and Laurell K. Hamilton (to name a couple), but it's nice to see that authors can create plausible male leads in the supernatural fiction world, too.
Also recommended by DovSherman
90
amberwitch Another urban fantasy P.I. noir series. Different kind of setting - Boston instead of London, and less cartoonish, more Tolkien inspired characters.
Also recommended by MyriadBooks
20
amberwitch More complex plots, less cartoonish characters. Very nice descriptions of a London where necromancers are in demand as more and more undead lingers.
by anonymous user
Member Reviews
This first book in the Nightside series begins like a noir hard-boiled detective story. John Taylor is scraping a living as a private investigator in London. Then a woman walks in with a problem. She's offering big bucks to Taylor to find her runaway daughter. Intrigued by the case and the woman, Taylor agrees. But there is a problem - the case will take him back to the Nightside he left six years earlier.
From that point the book shifts to a dark urban fantasy with more than a touch of horror as Taylor travels the Nightside with his client meeting old friends and old enemies in his quest to find the missing teenager.
The worldbuilding was intriguing and, frankly, horrifying. A house that eats people and dead zones that transport people show more to other times were intriguing. The characters and dialog seemed ripped from a 1940s mystery.
While I enjoyed this story, the horror aspects will keep me from continuing on with the series. Fans of horror and noir mysteries will likely want to continue. show less
From that point the book shifts to a dark urban fantasy with more than a touch of horror as Taylor travels the Nightside with his client meeting old friends and old enemies in his quest to find the missing teenager.
The worldbuilding was intriguing and, frankly, horrifying. A house that eats people and dead zones that transport people show more to other times were intriguing. The characters and dialog seemed ripped from a 1940s mystery.
While I enjoyed this story, the horror aspects will keep me from continuing on with the series. Fans of horror and noir mysteries will likely want to continue. show less
I wish I could give this 1.5 stars, as it doesn't even quite even live up to 2 stars.
'Nightside' was supposed to be an urban fantasy, leaning farther into horror, about John Taylor...a private eye with...a 'private eye' as his magic power. That gives you an idea of the quality and creativity you'll experience throughout the book. John is pulled back into the shadow city (the Nightside) within London in service of a case after 5 years away and vowing never to return to his place of birth.
Its kind of hard to fully miss these days with urban fantasy, but this manages to do so. The Nightside (which, as others have said is a name/phrase we see ENTIRELY to frequently throughout the book) feels like a thinly veiled and poor shadow of the show more London of Neverwhere. In fact, the book as a whole feels like an artless imitation of Neil Gaimen's work mashed up with more mainstream urban fantasy, traditional hard-boiled detective novels without a solid grounding in the tropes of genre, and horror minus anything actually disturbing or horrific. It frequently tells rather than shows, with long exposition between characters info-dumping descriptions and information on one another rather than letting us experience the world. While some nods to Zelazny's Amber and Moorcock's Champion are fun references, they push the feeling of the overall book further into realm of low-quality fan fiction. As does the frequent shifting of tone from what is clearly attempting to be horrific/disturbing to a humorous tone that never actually manages to be funny. show less
'Nightside' was supposed to be an urban fantasy, leaning farther into horror, about John Taylor...a private eye with...a 'private eye' as his magic power. That gives you an idea of the quality and creativity you'll experience throughout the book. John is pulled back into the shadow city (the Nightside) within London in service of a case after 5 years away and vowing never to return to his place of birth.
Its kind of hard to fully miss these days with urban fantasy, but this manages to do so. The Nightside (which, as others have said is a name/phrase we see ENTIRELY to frequently throughout the book) feels like a thinly veiled and poor shadow of the show more London of Neverwhere. In fact, the book as a whole feels like an artless imitation of Neil Gaimen's work mashed up with more mainstream urban fantasy, traditional hard-boiled detective novels without a solid grounding in the tropes of genre, and horror minus anything actually disturbing or horrific. It frequently tells rather than shows, with long exposition between characters info-dumping descriptions and information on one another rather than letting us experience the world. While some nods to Zelazny's Amber and Moorcock's Champion are fun references, they push the feeling of the overall book further into realm of low-quality fan fiction. As does the frequent shifting of tone from what is clearly attempting to be horrific/disturbing to a humorous tone that never actually manages to be funny. show less
If you like fantasy with a dark comic twist, the Nightside novels should be books you will you enjoy. The Nightside is a dark London, peopled with old gods and magic beings. John Taylor is the "hero": a private eye who has a third eye that allows him to find anything, anywhere Of course, when he opens this eye, some things can also find him...things that you don't want to know about.
These novels are short, funny, and action-packed. What I find interesting is who enjoys reading them. I've loaned them to my mother, my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law. All of them have very different tastes in reading, but they all enjoyed the Nightside series. My mom is a murder mystery reader; my husband reads a lot of science fiction and sword show more and sorcery fantasy; my sister likes Charles de Lint and Jan Karon; her husband recently retired, and has just started to get into reading for pleasure again. They all like the dark humor and the bizarre scenarios that Simon Green cooks up. You never know what will happen in the Nightside. show less
These novels are short, funny, and action-packed. What I find interesting is who enjoys reading them. I've loaned them to my mother, my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law. All of them have very different tastes in reading, but they all enjoyed the Nightside series. My mom is a murder mystery reader; my husband reads a lot of science fiction and sword show more and sorcery fantasy; my sister likes Charles de Lint and Jan Karon; her husband recently retired, and has just started to get into reading for pleasure again. They all like the dark humor and the bizarre scenarios that Simon Green cooks up. You never know what will happen in the Nightside. show less
Overall I enjoyed this book.
The characters were very interesting and in a very short time you really got the feeling that they had a history together, even the ones that only showed up once in the book.
The pacing was good, the concept was an interesting take on an old idea, and the twists were good and even though it was a fairly dark story, there was humor and lightness scattered around.
My only quibble was that I never really got a feeling for The Nightside itself. It never felt like a city, more like a story that is happening in a series of set pieces.
The characters were very interesting and in a very short time you really got the feeling that they had a history together, even the ones that only showed up once in the book.
The pacing was good, the concept was an interesting take on an old idea, and the twists were good and even though it was a fairly dark story, there was humor and lightness scattered around.
My only quibble was that I never really got a feeling for The Nightside itself. It never felt like a city, more like a story that is happening in a series of set pieces.
Surprisingly dark and gory in places, it's an interesting twist on urban fantasy PI.
It opens fairly predictably, in a nice homage to noir detective genre that eventually spawned UF: John Taylor is a overworked underpaid PI with a conscience. Down on his luck and owing a lot of money to various nefarious influences he realizes his luck might have turned when an obviously extremely rich women enters his office. She wants him to find her daughter and finding things is John's specialty - there's only two snags, one is that she wants to accompany him (and John's not adverse to having a rich woman on his arm), and the other is that her daughter has gone to Nightside, somewhere she shouldn't know about, let alone be able to visit. And show more somewhere that John fled from five years ago with no intention of ever going back. Nightside isn't where dreams go to die, it's where they grow mix mingle and mutate into things stranger than nightmares. And as it quickly turns out , John is something special there, powerful with a reputation to match, even after 5 years. John eases his client (and the reader) into the strangeness of Nightside where creatures from all over time and any place mingle and merge, but somehow through the absolute fiat of the unspecified Authorities, a veneer of civilization remains. However his target is not in the nicer parts of Nightside, and between him and there are the people he fled from to start with.
It's obviously a heavily edited first book. Short and to the point, with enough description to be fun, but lacking in complex characterization. It seems that the author does have a greater design and won't just feature more stories of John fighting monsters. There were only little glances into John's backstory but they were all intriguing. I'm likely to read more of this series. show less
It opens fairly predictably, in a nice homage to noir detective genre that eventually spawned UF: John Taylor is a overworked underpaid PI with a conscience. Down on his luck and owing a lot of money to various nefarious influences he realizes his luck might have turned when an obviously extremely rich women enters his office. She wants him to find her daughter and finding things is John's specialty - there's only two snags, one is that she wants to accompany him (and John's not adverse to having a rich woman on his arm), and the other is that her daughter has gone to Nightside, somewhere she shouldn't know about, let alone be able to visit. And show more somewhere that John fled from five years ago with no intention of ever going back. Nightside isn't where dreams go to die, it's where they grow mix mingle and mutate into things stranger than nightmares. And as it quickly turns out , John is something special there, powerful with a reputation to match, even after 5 years. John eases his client (and the reader) into the strangeness of Nightside where creatures from all over time and any place mingle and merge, but somehow through the absolute fiat of the unspecified Authorities, a veneer of civilization remains. However his target is not in the nicer parts of Nightside, and between him and there are the people he fled from to start with.
It's obviously a heavily edited first book. Short and to the point, with enough description to be fun, but lacking in complex characterization. It seems that the author does have a greater design and won't just feature more stories of John fighting monsters. There were only little glances into John's backstory but they were all intriguing. I'm likely to read more of this series. show less
I'd already read Nightside books two through four and six before I got a copy of book one, Something From the Nightside, so I was already spoiled for some secrets. That didn't keep me from enjoying this book.
John Taylor, private investigator, fled the Nightside five years ago. His gift of being able to find anything doesn't work in the real London, but he doesn't intend to return to the dark and dangerous version of London that is the Nightside. Of course he gets a rich client, Joanna Barrett, whose daughter, Cathy, is missing - and she's gone to the Nightside.
The Nightside promises a chance to fulfill one's desires, no matter how perverted. Not everyone in the Nightside is human, as Joanna finds out as soon as they get to the show more Underground [Subway] Station to the Nightside. We don't get a full tour, but there's enough to give a sensible person pause. Our P.I. and client are only on the train when we get a hint about John's parentage.
While the reader is lurched from danger to danger, we're introduced to the oldest bar in the world and series regular spot, Strangefellows. We're also introduced to recurring characters Razor Eddie, Suzie Shotgun, better known as 'Shotgun Suzie'; Walker, Alex Morrisey, Lucy & Betty Coltrane, and the Collector, etc.
NOTES:
Chapter 1:
a. Taylor, his office in the real London, Joanna Barrett, and a bit of the Nightside are described.
b. Nightside calls the real London 'the Smoke'.
Chapter 2:
a. John Taylor has been 30 for a few months. His father drank himself to death because his wife wasn't human.
b. The way to the Nightside is described.
c. John runs into Blind Pew.
d. A graduate of the Deep School is on the train. Later, the Brittle Sisters of the Hive pester the passengers.
Chapter 3:
a. Some of the conveyances of the Nightside are mentioned and demons pretending to be a street gang who up.
b. Taylor uses his gift.
Mentions: Salvation Army
Chapter 4:
a. Strangefellows is described, as is its owner, Alex Morrisey.
b. Merlin Satanspawn is brought up. John has seen him manifest at Strangefellows once.
c. We learn what happened to a customer who asked Alex to play Country Western music. Alex says a poltergeist is in the cellar and what Pale Michael is claiming.
d. Ffinch-Thomas picks a fight with John Taylor. We're told why.
e. Lucy and Betty Coltrane, the bouncers, are described.
f. We're introduced to Razor Eddie after learning a bit about his backstory.
g. Alex has a weakness for blondes. He tells Joanna about John and the Fortress.
Mentions: Merlin, Logres, the Stranglers and their song, 'No More Heroes',
Chapter 5: John and Joanna are attacked by the Harrowing.
Chapter 6:
a. John and Joanna take a hansom carriage owned by a talking Clydesdale with silver hooves.
b. The Fortress is between a Voodoo Business School and an Army Surplus Store.
c. They meet Suzie Shooter/Shotgun Suzie.
Mentions: Baron Samedi, the films 'Girl on a Motorcycle' and 'Easy Rider,' and Roger Corman Hell's Angels films
Chapter 7:
a. John and Joanna enter a timeslip to 82 years in the future. Once a timeslip is established, it's there for its duration unless the Courts of the Holy shift.
b. John hates creepy-crawlies.
c. We meet the Collector.
Mentions: sirens, Al Capone, ley lines, the Rainbow Run,
Chapter 8:
a. John and Joanna go to the Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill, where it's always the 1960s. We will learn why.
b. Persons seen there: the Sonic Assassin, the Notting Hill Sorcerer, the Victorian Adventurer, the Amber Prince, the five Tracy brothers, the entire Cornelius clan,
c. Joanna gets John to talk about his friendship with Razor Eddie.
d. John's father worked for the Authorities. We meet their voice, Walker
Mentions: the Kink's 'Sunny Afternoon,' the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Daydream', beatnik, the Animals' 'House of the Rising Sun', Turin Shroud, the Fifth Dimension's 'Aquarius' and 'Let the Sun Shine,' The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's 'Fire,' the Maltese Falcon, Raymond Chandler, and Eton.
Chapter 9: Blaiston Street is described. A wise person wouldn't go there.
Chapter 10: Shotgun Suzie joins John and Joanna.
Mentions: the first line of Mary Howett's 'The Spider and the Fly' is quoted.
Chapter 11: We get more of John's backstory. Ditto Joanna's. We learn another side of John's gift.
Mentions: a Judas Goat,
Epilogue: John hires a secretary.
Even in this first book, Mr. Green does a very good job of showing what a frightening place the Nightside can be. I love the descriptions of the place and its inhabitants. The semi-final destination was no surprise for me because I'd read that plot in a horror comic book decades ago, but this version was even more effective. I happen to love horror and mysteries, and I recommend this series to other dual fans (or even mystery fans). If you don't like horror, this is not a series for you. show less
John Taylor, private investigator, fled the Nightside five years ago. His gift of being able to find anything doesn't work in the real London, but he doesn't intend to return to the dark and dangerous version of London that is the Nightside. Of course he gets a rich client, Joanna Barrett, whose daughter, Cathy, is missing - and she's gone to the Nightside.
The Nightside promises a chance to fulfill one's desires, no matter how perverted. Not everyone in the Nightside is human, as Joanna finds out as soon as they get to the show more Underground [Subway] Station to the Nightside. We don't get a full tour, but there's enough to give a sensible person pause. Our P.I. and client are only on the train when we get a hint about John's parentage.
While the reader is lurched from danger to danger, we're introduced to the oldest bar in the world and series regular spot, Strangefellows. We're also introduced to recurring characters Razor Eddie, Suzie Shotgun, better known as 'Shotgun Suzie'; Walker, Alex Morrisey, Lucy & Betty Coltrane, and the Collector, etc.
NOTES:
Chapter 1:
a. Taylor, his office in the real London, Joanna Barrett, and a bit of the Nightside are described.
b. Nightside calls the real London 'the Smoke'.
Chapter 2:
a. John Taylor has been 30 for a few months. His father drank himself to death because his wife wasn't human.
b. The way to the Nightside is described.
c. John runs into Blind Pew.
d. A graduate of the Deep School is on the train. Later, the Brittle Sisters of the Hive pester the passengers.
Chapter 3:
a. Some of the conveyances of the Nightside are mentioned and demons pretending to be a street gang who up.
b. Taylor uses his gift.
Mentions: Salvation Army
Chapter 4:
a. Strangefellows is described, as is its owner, Alex Morrisey.
b. Merlin Satanspawn is brought up. John has seen him manifest at Strangefellows once.
c. We learn what happened to a customer who asked Alex to play Country Western music. Alex says a poltergeist is in the cellar and what Pale Michael is claiming.
d. Ffinch-Thomas picks a fight with John Taylor. We're told why.
e. Lucy and Betty Coltrane, the bouncers, are described.
f. We're introduced to Razor Eddie after learning a bit about his backstory.
g. Alex has a weakness for blondes. He tells Joanna about John and the Fortress.
Mentions: Merlin, Logres, the Stranglers and their song, 'No More Heroes',
Chapter 5: John and Joanna are attacked by the Harrowing.
Chapter 6:
a. John and Joanna take a hansom carriage owned by a talking Clydesdale with silver hooves.
b. The Fortress is between a Voodoo Business School and an Army Surplus Store.
c. They meet Suzie Shooter/Shotgun Suzie.
Mentions: Baron Samedi, the films 'Girl on a Motorcycle' and 'Easy Rider,' and Roger Corman Hell's Angels films
Chapter 7:
a. John and Joanna enter a timeslip to 82 years in the future. Once a timeslip is established, it's there for its duration unless the Courts of the Holy shift.
b. John hates creepy-crawlies.
c. We meet the Collector.
Mentions: sirens, Al Capone, ley lines, the Rainbow Run,
Chapter 8:
a. John and Joanna go to the Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill, where it's always the 1960s. We will learn why.
b. Persons seen there: the Sonic Assassin, the Notting Hill Sorcerer, the Victorian Adventurer, the Amber Prince, the five Tracy brothers, the entire Cornelius clan,
c. Joanna gets John to talk about his friendship with Razor Eddie.
d. John's father worked for the Authorities. We meet their voice, Walker
Mentions: the Kink's 'Sunny Afternoon,' the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Daydream', beatnik, the Animals' 'House of the Rising Sun', Turin Shroud, the Fifth Dimension's 'Aquarius' and 'Let the Sun Shine,' The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's 'Fire,' the Maltese Falcon, Raymond Chandler, and Eton.
Chapter 9: Blaiston Street is described. A wise person wouldn't go there.
Chapter 10: Shotgun Suzie joins John and Joanna.
Mentions: the first line of Mary Howett's 'The Spider and the Fly' is quoted.
Chapter 11: We get more of John's backstory. Ditto Joanna's. We learn another side of John's gift.
Mentions: a Judas Goat,
Epilogue: John hires a secretary.
Even in this first book, Mr. Green does a very good job of showing what a frightening place the Nightside can be. I love the descriptions of the place and its inhabitants. The semi-final destination was no surprise for me because I'd read that plot in a horror comic book decades ago, but this version was even more effective. I happen to love horror and mysteries, and I recommend this series to other dual fans (or even mystery fans). If you don't like horror, this is not a series for you. show less
John Taylor is a private detective. And not a very successful one, given his mounting debts and declining business. He used to be very good – 5 years ago when he was still in the Nightside where his ability, to be able to find anything, actually worked.
But the Nightside is a dangerous place, where literally anything and everything can exist. Wizards and aliens, monsters and demons, ghosts and gods – anything imaginable is in there somewhere; and John is well clear of it.
Except he has a client who is willing tom give him an awful lot of money to find her daughter – in the Nightside. Against his many reservations he finds himself plunging back into this fantastic world, the dark underbelly of London, to face old enemies and old show more allies, from the sinister to the sublime to the ridiculous. The investigation is dangerous, horrifying, fantastic and macabre, with new revelations even he never imagined, and a threat far greater than he expected. But it does feel like coming home…
This world is one of the strangest, deepest and weirdest I’ve ever come across. Everything you can imagine – absolutely everything – can exist in the Nightside. From aliens and their abductions to gods, to extra-dimensional entities to ghosts to the fae to werecreatures to everything else imagineable. There are timeless pockets where you can drink old style Coca-cola in an eternally 60s café, there are dark and dangerous streets where even the architecture will eat people. There are cars, carriages and other conveyances that will eat people and old hansom cabs pulled by talking horses.
This book has some amazingly fun characters. John Taylor himself is a hard boiled detective with all that means – the good, but very little of the bad. We hear some of his past, enough to make him interesting, menacing and a bit scary, but not enough to destroy his mystery. He is a bit of a Gary Stu in the way everyone is in awe of his power and reputation and his power does have some severely extreme applications. But he also has his considerable limits and there’s a suggestion, at least, that part of his reputation is inflated. It is a powerfest though – but that can be fun. I also appreciate a character with a good grasp of quips and sarcasm.
The writing hits that perfect balance for me when it comes to pacing. Even though it’s quite a short book, the descriptions and exposition are vivid enough to give a strong sense of place – which is especially important when we have a world that relies so much on its alien, fantastic quality. But it isn’t bogged down or distracted, the action keeps coming – never in an overwhelming fashion (the characters themselves actually get overwhelmed and need a break) but event after event, each balancing the description and the exposition and every one of them having some kind of plot. Whether to introduce clearly important characters, to establish a meta plot, move the main plot forwards or provide essential world explanation, every part of this book is necessary. Because of that it doesn’t feel short, it feels concise – just as long as it needs to be.
However, the writing is probably a taste matter. For me it hits the balance and fits the hardboiled detective theme – it is dramatic, even overwrought at times but I think that fits the subject matter. I enjoyed it, but I can see why others wouldn’t.
The story itself is fun but relatively simplistic along its rails – what you’d expect from many first books - there’s the plot that is interesting (and has a totally unexpected twist at the end), introductions of themes and metaplot I can see lasting the whole series (his mother, the authority) while mainly being concerned with introducing the cast of characters and letting us explore the world. This book is an excellent foundation.
read more show less
But the Nightside is a dangerous place, where literally anything and everything can exist. Wizards and aliens, monsters and demons, ghosts and gods – anything imaginable is in there somewhere; and John is well clear of it.
Except he has a client who is willing tom give him an awful lot of money to find her daughter – in the Nightside. Against his many reservations he finds himself plunging back into this fantastic world, the dark underbelly of London, to face old enemies and old show more allies, from the sinister to the sublime to the ridiculous. The investigation is dangerous, horrifying, fantastic and macabre, with new revelations even he never imagined, and a threat far greater than he expected. But it does feel like coming home…
This world is one of the strangest, deepest and weirdest I’ve ever come across. Everything you can imagine – absolutely everything – can exist in the Nightside. From aliens and their abductions to gods, to extra-dimensional entities to ghosts to the fae to werecreatures to everything else imagineable. There are timeless pockets where you can drink old style Coca-cola in an eternally 60s café, there are dark and dangerous streets where even the architecture will eat people. There are cars, carriages and other conveyances that will eat people and old hansom cabs pulled by talking horses.
This book has some amazingly fun characters. John Taylor himself is a hard boiled detective with all that means – the good, but very little of the bad. We hear some of his past, enough to make him interesting, menacing and a bit scary, but not enough to destroy his mystery. He is a bit of a Gary Stu in the way everyone is in awe of his power and reputation and his power does have some severely extreme applications. But he also has his considerable limits and there’s a suggestion, at least, that part of his reputation is inflated. It is a powerfest though – but that can be fun. I also appreciate a character with a good grasp of quips and sarcasm.
The writing hits that perfect balance for me when it comes to pacing. Even though it’s quite a short book, the descriptions and exposition are vivid enough to give a strong sense of place – which is especially important when we have a world that relies so much on its alien, fantastic quality. But it isn’t bogged down or distracted, the action keeps coming – never in an overwhelming fashion (the characters themselves actually get overwhelmed and need a break) but event after event, each balancing the description and the exposition and every one of them having some kind of plot. Whether to introduce clearly important characters, to establish a meta plot, move the main plot forwards or provide essential world explanation, every part of this book is necessary. Because of that it doesn’t feel short, it feels concise – just as long as it needs to be.
However, the writing is probably a taste matter. For me it hits the balance and fits the hardboiled detective theme – it is dramatic, even overwrought at times but I think that fits the subject matter. I enjoyed it, but I can see why others wouldn’t.
The story itself is fun but relatively simplistic along its rails – what you’d expect from many first books - there’s the plot that is interesting (and has a totally unexpected twist at the end), introductions of themes and metaplot I can see lasting the whole series (his mother, the authority) while mainly being concerned with introducing the cast of characters and letting us explore the world. This book is an excellent foundation.
read more show less
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ThingScore 100
It has 2 powerful sides – the light, cheesy fun of Shotgun Suzy and the grim darkness of Razor Eddie. The two aspects of the book really work well together without conflicting – which is a really skilful balancing act. It leaves me wanting to reads the next book to see where this series is going – the cheesy, fun and slightly whacky hijinks or the grim, gritty and slightly horrific darkness.
added by JalenV
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Author Information
210+ Works 37,169 Members
Science fiction and fantasy author Simon R. Green was born in 1955 in Bradford-on-Avon, England. He received an M.A. in Modern English and American Literature from Leicester University. He is the author of the Deathstalker series, a member of the British Fantasy Society, and occasionally does some Shakespearean acting. (Bowker Author Biography)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Something from the Nightside
- Original publication date
- 2003
- People/Characters
- John Taylor (private investigator); Alex Morrisey (Strangefellows owner and bartender); Joanna Barrett (Taylor's rich client); Cathy Barrett (Joanna's daughter); Razor Eddie (Punk God of the Straight Razor); Shotgun Suzie (a.k.a. Suzie Shooter | bounty hunter) (show all 19); Lilith (mentioned); Blind Pew (the rogue vicar); the Brittle Sisters of the Hive; Lucy Coltrane (Strangefellows bouncer); Betty Coltrane (Strangefellows bouncer); The Harrowing (terrible and deathless creatures sent after Taylor); Ffinch-Thomas (yuppie punk with two fathers who are big in the city); talking Clydesdale with his own hansom carriage; Old Henry (the Clydesdale's employee); The Collector (he'll collect anything and he can travel in time); Victoria (Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill waitress); Walker (voice of the Authorities); giant cockroaches
- Important places
- The Nightside, London, England, UK (fictional); London, England, UK; Strangefellows (the oldest bar in the world); The Fortress, Nightside (refuge for former alien abductees); Taylor Investigations (Taylor's office in the real London); Blaiston Street, Nightside (show all 9); a possible Nightside 82 years in the future; Hawk's Wind Bar and Grill, Nightside; a brick and mortar house on Blaiston Street, Nightside.
- Epigraph
- I went to a house that was not a house.
I opened a door that was not a door.
And what I saw, I saw. - First words
- Private eyes come in all shapes and sizes, and none of them look like television stars.
- Quotations
- A good dramatic scene helps to keep the flies off.
...'Every private eye has to have a smart-mouthed secretary who knows a thing or two. I think it's in the rule book.' (epilogue)
Never get personally involved with a client. It’s written in large capital letters on page one of How to Be a Private Detective, Right next to Get as much cash as you can up front, just in case the cheque b... (show all)ounces, and Don’t go looking for the Maltese Falcon because it’ll all end in tears. ... (chapter 8)
'We don't really have weather, as such, in the Nightside,' I explained patiently. 'Or seasons, either. Here, the night never ends. Think of temperature changes here less as weather, and more as moods. Just the city, expressin... (show all)g itself. If you don't like the current conditions, wait a minute, and something new but equally distressing will come along. Sometimes, I think we get the weather we deserve here. Which is probably why it rains a lot.' (chapter 5)
... Every city has at least one area where all the rules have broken down, where humanity comes and goes, and civilisation is a sometime thing. Blaiston Street is the kind of area where no one has ever paid any rent, where e... (show all)ven the little comforts of life go only to the strongest, and plague rats go around in pairs because they're frightened. ... (chapter 7) - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Just...something from the Nightside."
- Blurbers
- Butcher, Jim
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 2,581
- Popularity
- 7,388
- Reviews
- 105
- Rating
- (3.64)
- Languages
- 7 — Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 17
- ASINs
- 11