The Good, The Bad, And The Uncanny

This is the tenth, yes the tenth, book in the Nightside series by Simon Green. While the last couple books in the series have been a bit less spectacular than the rest of the series, this book picks up the slack and starts a wonderful new storyline.

The book starts out with John Taylor being hired to help an elf deliver an elven peace treaty across the Nightside (what is it about Green and his evil elves?). Anyway Walker doesn't want the treaty delivered and tries to stop John. At the conclusion of this event John is then approached by Larry Oblivion who wants help finding Tommy Oblivion. On top of all this John is getting odd warnings about Excalibur (yes, the sword from Arthurian legend) and Walker has decided that John should be his show more replacement as, the Man.

This was a wonderful Nightside novel. You get to learn a lot more about the Oblivion brothers. They aren't my favorite Nightside characters but they have interesting powers and an interesting family history. So, if you have always wondered where the dead Larry Oblivion got that elven wand, well this is the book for you...Larry will finally tell his story in his own words.

As usual the book is a lot of craziness. The usual over-the-top but oh-so-amusing descriptions of the horribleness of the Nightside are still here in force, some of the phrases you've heard before but some are new. John Taylor and crew always talk like they are walking through the frames of a comic book. Green is extremely creative with all the side descriptions of things John sees while passing through the Nightside; I love the fact that you never can guess what's going to be around the corner. The action scenes are phenomenal and the plot moves at a quick clip; always engaging never boring.

I also loved the fact that a new huge storyline is starting in this book...it deals with Excalibur and possibly other aspects of Arthurian legend. Again I love how Green doesn't shy away from mashing whatever he wants to in this story. The first big story-arc dealt mostly with the bible and John's mother Lilith; occasionally Green would through some mythological and Arthurian elements in there as well. It is great fun!

Let me see what else should you know about this book... We get to spend time with Mrs. Fate. We learn a lot more about Walker and how he runs the Nightside. Shotgun Suzie and Dead Boy (two of my favorites) are mainly absent from the story, but the story doesn't suffer from their absence. The Lord of Thorns comes back in a big way and we learn a lot more about Larry and Tommy's older brother; who is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Razor Eddie makes a few brief appearances, but mainly only to deliver dire warnings.

Overall I was really pleased with this book. I thought books 8 and 9 were kind of slow and disappointing, but I love this series so I decided to read book 10. I am so happy I did. This book is action packed, very creative, starts a great new story, and was a wonderful read! I can't wait for the next one. show less

Simon R. Green welcomes readers back to the Nightside for the series' 10th installment. As a reader who recently re-discovered the Nightside, I find every trip to the strange world to even more addictive than the last. Book 10, The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny, isn't any different -it's as mysterious, engrossing and strangely intriguing as Green's other Nightside novels, though it becomes obvious here that he's moving closer to a far-reaching resolution for the series.

Good, Bad and Uncanny picks up where Just Another Judgment days ends, when Lord Screech, a supposed peace ambassador got the elf realm, asks our hero John Taylor to help him safety open a portal to another realm. Teaming up with Ms. Fate, another wonderfully color show more character who inhabits Green's world, John Taylor must fight his way through werewolves and Neanderthals to deliver Screech to his destination -all the while that Walker, an agent of The Authorities who run the Nightside, is dying -and he wants John to take up his job.

Green weaves his signature mystery with eccentric characters and the macabre here, and delivers another woman trip to the Nightside. While it does help to have read the previous books in the series, new readers won't be completely lost in Good, Bad, and Uncanny -but I highly recommend reading the previous books first.

It's been interesting to see how Green's world has grown and evolved throughout the series, but at this point it feels like its all starting to reach critical mass. While I do love the Nightside novels, it's feeling more and more like this series is winding down to a wild and wonderful ending. show less

Walker is dying and needs someone to take over...he only trusts Taylor because Taylor does not want the job and the power. Meanwhile, Taylor is outsmarted by an elf and searches for his friend, Tommy Oblivion, who went missing during the Lilith War.

I adore this series...loved the complexity to Walker in the ending and regarding what you think is a kindness toward the Collector, but ends up being self serving. Just a great series. For fans of Clive Barker and the Jim Dresden series.

"Something is coming to the Nightside, John, something very old and very powerful, enough to scare even me. It could change everything."
I leaned forward, caught up in his intensity. "How do you mean, 'change'?"
"Something that could save or damn us all." He smiled briefly. "Whether we like it or not. Which rather begs the question: what could be powerful enough to enforce its will upon the whole Nightside and make it stick?"
"My mother is gone," I said steadily. "And she won't be coming back."
"Well, that's good to know. But I wasn't thinking of her. This is a legend that made itself true, an artefact that can rewrite history. A weapon that could sweep the stars out of the sky."
"Does it have a name?" I said.
"Oh yes. And it's a name you'll show more know. But don't be fooled by the glamour. The stories were rewritten many times, to disguise just how terrible it is."

Walker is dying and is trying to persuade John Taylor to take over his job, an elf lord employs him to help him get safely across the Nightside, and zombie private eye Larry Oblivion wants his help in finding out what happened to his brother Tommy Oblivion, missing presumed dead since the Lilith War, for which he has always blamed John Taylor. During the course of the book, Taylor receives several warnings about something old and terrible that is coming to the Nightside setting the scene for what promises to be an exciting climax to this series.

There are two books left in this rejuvenated series and they are already on my shelf waiting, but I am going to have to restrain myself and leave it at least a couple of months before reading them, as I know that I get bored if I read too many books in the same series too close together. show less

The Nightside series has always been a bit dark, a bit twisted, a bit tongue-in-cheek, a bit absurd, and always funny. The Good, The Bad, and The Uncanny, the tenth installment of the series, in no way disappoints in that regard. John Taylor finds himself a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place as Walker is suddenly everywhere, offering him the one thing he never wanted and refusing to take no for an answer. John is forced once again to pair up with a varied and motley crew from the Nightside as he unwittingly involves himself in politics in the realm of Fae and the Nightside itself. The series seems to be moving back toward what was such a strong force for it in the earlier novels, an over-arcing plot. And I'm glad to see it. If show more you liked the series before, but wandered away, now is definitely the time to make your return. show less

So, this is a pretty standard Nightside book. For those who don't know the series, the Nightside is a hidden city reachable through London, where if Simon Greene can come up with it, it can and will exist there, probably buying services that would be illegal anywhere else. Greene is very good in somehow combining noir sensibilities, where everything is gray and shady, with a world where everything can be true and things are a bit over the top. Somehow it works.

Anyway, this book was kind of meh for me. It almost was like Greene took two novellas and stuck them together to make a short book. TGtBatU wasn't any shorter than the average novel in the series, but the fact the first chapters had only a tangental relationship to the second half show more of the book, we got a chapter from another character's POV about how he accidentally freed Queen Mab from Hell years ago, and the narrative payout seems to have been deferred to the next book, it make the book feel shorter.

The first story was Our Hero, John Taylor, taking a job from an elf lord to get him out of the Nightside with a treaty that would end the war between Oberon and Titania's elves and Mab's. Of course the Powers that Be in the Nightside, as represented by Walker, would rather the elves stick to warring among themselves, so we get a good old fashioned 'running the gauntlet' scene. Given I had just finished The Man with the Golden Torc and that I remember at least one or two other scenes in theNightside series where John and a friend with a car have to brave Nightside traffic, I suspect Greene has a real thing for writing these.

There are two things I like here. The first is that Taylor's power -- the ability to find anything and occasionally remove it -- is shown to have a weakness, in that he eventually ends up running on fumes. Since the previous ones had been bought off through the narration, it's a nice reminder while this is an awesome power -- he can find abstract concepts, such as 'what is this thing's weakness', he can remove bullets from guns, fillings from mouths and the specific wavelength of moonlight that causes werewolves to change from the spectrum -- it doesn't make Taylor invincible.

The second might seem like a minor thing to most people. Taylor recruits the help of Ms. Fate, a crime-fighting superheroine who happens to be male in her mundane identity. Greene (or Greene-writing-Taylor) used the correct pronouns for her -- the only times Ms. Fate was referred to by masculine pronouns was when speaking of her mundane identity. While the idea of a man dressing up as a woman to fight crime is something easily mocked, the character got as much respect as any crime-fighter. (In other words, while comic-book tropes, especially female superhero tropes, might be silly, the character is treated as a real person.)

Anyway, part two was another case, interwoven with Taylor's conflict with Walker. Walker is retiring -- in the old-fashioned way, which is 'through a coffin' -- and wants Taylor to take over his job. As much as Taylor considers himself a force for good (mostly) in the Nightside and admits Walker has crazy amounts of power as the guy who turns policy into results, he doesn't particularly want to do what Walker does, which is keep order at any cost. Which was a nice narrative conflict, to go with the footwork as Taylor tracks down a missing friend with the friend's brother, but again, it felt short.

Overall, this is the kind of book you get because you enjoy the series, but it won't make any converts. show less

This felt a bit like two separate short stories stuck together, with Walker's story arc tying everything together. I'm reading a book from the series each month and that pace has kept me engaged without the series feeling to repetitive.