I know it's out of the ordinary as I usually have just one quarterly reading list every three months, but I've had some extra time on my hands, and a bunch of these books are comparatively shorter next to the Dresden Files series I had been reading. Unfortunately, this means that instead of one post for the months of July, August, and September, I'm going to end up splitting it into three parts. Unfortunate because it's two more posts that I'll have to annoy you with.
Continuing with the supernatural detective theme and the nostalgia of re-reading old books, I decided to re-read The Nightside novels by Simon R. Green. These novels star detective John Taylor as he solves supernatural mysteries in The Nightside, a hidden world within London filled with every fantasy and horror you can imagine. Taylor uses his Private Eye to find hidden things and solve mysteries no one else can solve.
Something From the Nightside by Simon R. Green
"'But, I don't do insurance work, I don't do divorces, and I don't solve crimes. Hell, I wouldn't know a clue if I fell over it. I just find things. Whether they want to be found or not.'"
"'You can buy or sell anything in the Nightside, and no-one asks questions. No-one cares. There's a nightclub, where you can pay to see a fallen angel forever burning inside a pentacle drawn in baby's blood. Or a decapitated goat's head, that can tell the future in enigmatic verses of perfect iambic pentameter.'"
John Taylor is a financially struggling private investigator in London with a unique paranormal gift - he can find anyone or anything whether they want to be found or not. Except that his power only works in The Nightside, a mysterious city hidden within London where gods and monsters walk among mortals and all your deepest, darkest fantasies are available for a price. Hunted by his enemies since he was a child, Taylor left The Nightside 5 years ago with a bullet in his back and vowed never to return. When a prospective client walks through his doors and asks him to find her daughter who has run off into The Nightside, Taylor has no choice but to return home to find the missing child. Together, he and his client wander The Nightside, searching for clues and revisiting old faces.
The first book of The Nightside novels moves a little slow to allow Taylor to roam all over The Nightside, a home he hasn't visited in 5 years, and introduce the reader to the wonders of the world. Honestly, one of the main appeals of these novels is the setting and other side characters, which I always have more questions about before we continue along with the actual plot. In The Nightside, EVERYTHING is blended together: Science, magic, and religion; past, present, and future; humans, monsters, and aliens; alternate dimensions, alternate histories, and alternate realities. All of it merged into one city. One of those characters in this book is Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor. That's an intriguing name, right? That right there should make you want to read the book just to find out more.
Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green
"'Mr. Taylor, it's imperative you locate the Unholy Grail for us, before agents of the Lord or the Enemy become directly involved. Make no mistake, if agents of the Principalities go to war here, they could level the Nightside.'"
"I smiled nastily at him, and to his credit he didn't flinch. 'Your guns aren't loaded,' I said.
The three gunmen looked at each other, confused. I held up my closed hands, opened them, and let a stream of bullets fall out to clatter loudly on the tabletop. They pulled the triggers on their guns, and looked very upset when nothing happened.
'I think you should leave now,' I said. 'Before I decide to do something similar with your internal organs.'"
John Taylor is asked by an agent of The Vatican to track down a powerful relic that has found its way to The Nightside: The Unholy Grail, the cup Judas Iscariot drank from at The Last Supper. Unfortunately, not only are the other typical nasty folks of The Nightside after the grail, but so are Angels of Heaven and Hell. An angel war could destroy The Nightside and kill everyone living in it unless Taylor retrieves the grail and delivers it to one of their sides instead.
In case you were wondering how insane The Nightside series is, consider this: Agents of Light and Darkness is only book 2 of the series and there is already an angel war! Taylor is unable to use his gift to immediately find the grail as the angels watching over The Nightside are able to pull his consciousness from his body when he uses his gift. Teaming up with infamous bounty hunter Shotgun Suzie Shooter, Taylor goes in search of the Unholy Grail across The Nightside, as well as a weapon to deal with the invading angels that have taken to murder and destruction. That weapon is The Speaking Gun, a firearm made of flesh and bones and teeth. A living weapon filled with hate and rage, it can erase its target from existence by speaking its true name backwards. And all it wants to do is destroy everything, a psychic force it pushes onto whomever is holding it.
Nightingale's Lament by Simon R. Green
"'It seems that my Rossignol sings only sad songs these days. And that she sings these sad songs so powerfully that members of her audience have been known to go home and commit suicide.'"
"The last time some idiot tried to smuggle a bomb into Victoria House, the defences turned him into something. No-one was quite sure what, because you couldn't look at him for more than a moment or two without projectile vomiting everything you'd ever eaten, including in previous lives."
John Taylor is hired by the father of a famous singer just to check-up on his daughter as no one in their family has been able to speak with her in years. Rumors float about The Nightside that her voice can literally drive people to commit suicide. Discovering something is not quite right when he tracks her down and is finally able to speak with her, Taylor decides to investigate the pair that hold her contract and the mysteries that surround them.
Nightingale's Lament feels like the third book in a series that Green perhaps wasn't sure if publishing companies would keep buying. Or, perhaps after The Angel War that threatened the entire Nightside in the previous book, this case offered a cooling-off period to the series where the stakes aren't so high. It has the feel of another book Green wrote while he waited to hear a commitment from the publishing house for the rest of his series. That said, it is still a great book worthy of being part of The Nightside series. Taylor travels to the business sector of the Nightside which doesn't get a lot of attention most of the time, and goes deeper into some of the other side characters which is always my favorite part of these stories (I will never stop repeating that). To handle the fighting in this case, Taylor brings on Dead Boy, a teenager who was murdered in The Nightside but returned by possessing his own corpse to avenge his death. As an undead, he's got supernatural strength and doesn't feel pain, constantly patching his body with staples and stitches and duct tape.
Hex and the City by Simon R. Green
"You can buy or sell anything here, especially it it's something you're not supposed to want in a supposedly civilised world. The price is often your soul, or someone else's, but then you know that going in."
"Madman can be extremely dangerous to be around. He doesn't believe what he sees is real, so for him it isn't. Around him the world follows his whims and wishes, his fears and his doubts, reality reordering itself to follow his drifting thoughts. Which can be helpful, or confusing, or scary, because he doesn't necessarily believe in you, either."
John Taylor is put on a case to discover the true origins of the Nightside, who created it and for what purpose. In seeking out answers from some of the oldest beings of the Nightside, he'll also get closer to the other, personal quest that has been haunting him: Who is his mother?
Starting what I consider The Lilith War trilogy section of the Nightside series, Taylor spends this book doing old-fashioned P.I. work - tracking down the oldest beings in the Nightside to learn what they know. Unfortunately, it appears there are others who oppose his case and they're out to stop Taylor from doing his job. This makes for some great action scenes that make full use of Taylor's gift and under-handed tricks, and the three accomplices he brings along to help solve the case: Madman, a man so insane that reality itself warps around him; Sinner, a man who fell so deeply in love with a succubus that Hell tossed him out; and Pretty Poison, the demonic succubus learning about love.
Paths not Taken by Simon R. Green
"Tommy liked to talk. It was said by many, and believed by most, that Tommy Oblivion could talk his own firing squad into shooting each other to get away from his relentlessly reasonable voice. He thrived in areas of moral obscurity, uncertain reality, and cases so complicated you couldn't pin anything down even if you used tent pegs."
"I still felt like hell, but the brief respite had put some strength back into my legs. My head still pounded, but my thoughts were clear again. And my hands were very near my coat pockets. I grinned nastily at Herne. He really should have killed me while he had the chance."
John Taylor answered the one mystery that has haunted him his entire life: who is his mother? She is actually the biblical Lilith, Adam's first wife that refused his authority and descended into Hell to breed monsters, and the creator of the Nightside. After her warning that she is returning to cleanse and remake the Nightside, Taylor decides to take a trip through time to find how she was previously banished, hoping to use it as a weapon against her.
The story starts with a sort of throw-away plot involving a man whose own past and divergent-future selves are attempting to kill him for the choices he made. It is, however, a great way to introduce Tommy Oblivion, the existential detective, armed with, what I consider, a gift almost as strong as Taylor's. Oblivion's gift allows him to "reason" with people into seeing his point-of-view, and even with reality itself, to reshape it the way he wants. The second book of The Lilith War let's Taylor and friends explore the history and see the creation of the Nightside. They'll encounter Forces and Powers still alive in their own present-day as well as solve mysteries as to why things are the way they are in their time. Book two is definitely a calm before the storm, especially compared to the chaos brought on by Lilith's return.
Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth by Simon R. Green
"Her presence filled the air, like the roar of massed cannon announcing the start of war, or a choir singing obscenities in a cathedral, like the first scream of being born or the last scream of the dying. No-one could look away. And many a lesser god or goddess knelt and bowed, recognising the real thing when they saw it, come at last to the Street of the Gods."
"I snapped my fingers, and all the fillings disappeared from their teeth. Along with all crowns, caps, bridges, and veneers....
'Any more words of dissent,' I said, 'and I will show you another variation, that involves your lungs and a whole bunch of buckets.'"
With Lilith now returned to reclaim the Nightside and reshape it back to what it was meant to be, John Taylor must face off against his mother to protect his home and everyone in it. To make his choices even harder, he already knows that he can't go to war with her as that would merely bring about the apocalyptic events that he had already forseen.
The final book in The Lilith War trilogy sets Taylor against his mother, Lilith, Adams's first wife and biblical myth returned to our existence. It's a satisfying conclusion to not just the trilogy, but, if Green had ended the series, I would've been happy with this being the end as well. My only gripe with this book is a brief section that Taylor utilizes various mirror and pools to view the destruction Lilith causes throughout the Nightside. I know, it's important for the reader to understand just how powerful Lilith is compared to all the other Powers in the Nightside, but (to me) it didn't really have any consequence as all the events Taylor saw already happened and there is nothing he can do to rewrite them.
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