Book Review: Simon R. Green’s Something From the Nightside

Posted March 1, 2011 by Kathy Davie in Book Reviews, Young Adult readers

I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Source: the library
Book Review: Simon R. Green’s Something From the Nightside

Something From the Nightside


by

Simon R. Green


urban fantasy in Paperback edition that was published by Ace Books on May 27, 2003 and has 230 pages.

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Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Mean Streets, Agents of Light and Darkness, Nightingale's Lament, Paths Not Taken, Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth, Hell to Pay, Just Another Judgement Day, The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny, A Hard Day's Knight, Hex and the City, The Unnatural Inquirer, The Bride Wore Black Leather, Home Improvement: Undead Edition, Hex Appeal, Man with the Golden Torc, Daemons are Forever, The Spy Who Haunted Me, From Hell with Love, Live and Let Drood, Casino Infernale, Blue Moon Rising, Tales of the Hidden World, Blood and Honor, From a Drood to a Kill, The Dark Side of the Road, Dead Man Walking, Very Important Corpses, Moonbreaker, Dr. DOA, Property of a Lady Faire, The House on Widows Hill

First in the Nightside dark urban fantasy series for young adults and set in the bowels of London.

My Take

A mix of Sam Spade and Harry Dresden, this first novel in the young-adult, fantastical Nightside series is a fun and easy read that is just a bit scary.

Something From the Nightside serves to introduce us to the world of the Nightside. Supposedly, the under side of London, nothing actually indicates this except for using the word “London” and having the entrance to the Nightside via the Underground. Another off bit is that Green writes that John and Joanna are falling in love but there is no supporting evidence for this.

Even so, the Nightside tour is fascinating and imaginative; I look forward to reading the next in the series if only because ya just gotta love a guy who is into Doctor Who.

The Story

John Taylor escaped the Nightside five years ago and really does not want to go back when Joanna Barrett shows up in his office to hire him to find her runaway daughter. One rumor has her daughter in the Nightside but no one will take any amount of money to go there. Well, no one but our white knight, John Taylor. Seems John is both a major power and a major pain over there.