Unfortunately, this book review is a bit negative. Mainly because the book I read didn’t live up to my expectations. If you’ve browsed around the blog a bit, you’ve seen my mostly positive reviews of the Nightside series, by Simon R. Green. I found it incredibly imaginative, and it hit the right nerve of my morbid humor, with lots of insane situations and clever get-aways.
The first few were enjoyable, if dark and sometimes rather macabre. I liked the main character, John Taylor, a private eye with an actual Third Eye that lets him see all sorts of hidden secrets and find those things that never want to be found.
However, on reading the next one, Paths Not Taken, I found myself disappointed. For a couple of reasons. First, a lot of the writing remains repetitive. The same stock character descriptions are employed numerous times, and Green’s solutions to the characters’ getting into tight situations almost always feel like deus ex machina in this book. Oh, there’s tension and such, but you can almost always guess how they’re going to get out of their current predicament because you’ve seen their same tricks in the previous books. Also, this book becomes entirely morbid and shows the characters in an increasingly distasteful light, I thought. Maybe it’s a way for Green to set them up to redeem themselves in the next book, but I don’t know. I was honestly turned off to Taylor’s methods and the methods he employs in this book. That might be a sign of how well Green portrays this guy and the character arc he is traveling, but I’m afraid that it’s just going to get worse.
Basic plot: John Taylor has discovered his mother is the Biblical Lilith, the creator of Nightside, and so he is trying to discover a way to fight her–a journey which takes him back in time with a few choice allies, all while trying to prevent a horrible future that will destroy everything they love.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy all the creative situations, the colorful setting and all that, but if I can’t even make myself root for the good guy (or if there really isn’t even a “good guy” left) then what is there to enjoy?
The problem is, I really liked this series up until this point. So do I try the next book in the hope that it will be better and show some more originality and fresh plot twists? Or do I let it go and try to find another author to snag my interest? Maybe I’ll browse the first few chapters and see if I can keep going, or I’ll find a place to buy it real cheap so I’m not risking too much in case it disappoints.
Anyways, if you have read this series, or are reading it along with me, let me know what you think.
I see that smile.