3.25.2010

Reading Thursday: Nightside books by Simon R. Green


This week I re-read the first book in Simon R. Green's Nightside series. I picked up a handful of them at a used bookstore and so now I'm going to try and read them in order.

The Nightside series is the perfect blend of cliche (but awesome) film noir detective novels and sci-fi fantasy novels. The main character is John Taylor, a gruff private eye with a heart of gold type who is from the Nightside, but chooses to live a less complicated life in our world. Until he's drawn back into the Nightside by a client in search of her missing daughter. Taylor has some hereditary gifts, like being able to find anything, that he can only use in the Nightside - but since when he's there people try to kill him, he's been staying scarce for a while.

What I love about these books is the descriptions. The detective part of the books are right on, and the sci-fi / fantasy parts are unique, urban and fun. Everything from how you get to the Nightside to what happens when you get there is awesome and detailed. Sometimes cars aren't really cars, and you never know when they'll be hungry. There's a ghost of a 60's cafe where you can get your nostalgia fix. Gods, Goddesses, the dead, the living - everyone can and is in the Nightside. In a way, it sort of reminds me of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, or del Toro's Hellboy movies. It has that level of thought put into it and that amount of detail.

I want to start the second in the series sometime soon, but I have a lot on my plate right now, so we'll see. Has anyone else read these? What did you think of them?

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