The Dark
Heart of the Nightside by Simon R. Green, Nightside #5-6I’m John Taylor, a private eye on the dangerous streets if the Nightside, the hidden city in the heart of London. My gift, if that’s what you want to call it, is that I can find things, anything... for a price, of course. First up it’s a little family reunion as Mummy dearest comes back into town, only she wants to destroy the Nightside and every being, living or dead, within it. Then it’s just another day at the office as I have to save the Nightside, and all of reality while I’m at it, from the greatest threat it’s faced since the last one. Me.
The Dark Heart of the Nightside is the 3rd omnibus edition published by Solaris in the popular Nightside series, and combines the fifth and the sixth stories, “Paths not taken” and “Sharper than a Serpents Tooth”. I already gave a short recap of the events in the review of Haunting the Nightside, so I’ll spare it for you in here. All of it still holds true, but rather due to some unexpected events in the fourth book the story took a turn in a bit of a different direction.
Paths not taken.
Like I mentioned the fourth book in the Nightside series, Hex and the City pushed the style of the occult investigation theme for our main protagonist, John Taylor, towards a more greater objective on the whole, producing a sense a build op and promise with his mother Lilith. In Hex and the City he was tasked in finding out the origin of the Nightside by Lady Luck, however finding out that not everything was what it seemed to be. Paths not taken follows up the events of the fourth book, but first there is still a job to complete. My first thoughts were actually “ow no”. I wanted to dive directly into the action that was build up and see what happened. Before this happened, John sets foot for the first time in his office and a confused man comes barging in requesting John attention, so I was guessing it would be a “case-file” story again, because it dived pretty quickly pretty deeply into the case. I admit that this case was pretty cool, this time not being a damsel in distress but actually a guy plagued by alternate versions of himself!
The intentions of the solving the case became quite clear later on, producing an introduction in the main aspect of Paths not taken, which is time. Yes, Time travel galore, strap in your buckle. This was actually a major shift for me that is continuing even in the 6th book (which I will get to in a moment). With the time travel to figure out more how to stop his Mummy dearest Lilith, this book abandoned the more investigative type of story and fully focused on John Taylor himself.
With each Nightside book we got to see more and more of the current dealing in the Nightside, the different movers and shakers, the Powers and Beings, and there were actually quite a lot of them, all unique and well. The time travel aspect that was introduced offered a lot of new possibilities and was there for quite neat, it gave to a certain degree even more depth of the origins of the Nightside itself as well as the “earlier” versions of some of the Powers in the Nightside like Herne the Hunter for example. It was a nice to link the past and the future together. But with time travel there are always a few reservations that I personally have, and that is making sure that the storylines keep their logic. John pulled of some tricks in different time tracks. Though there is quite some traveling carried, Simon R. Green keeps the fundamentals behind it actually quite simple and does not go over the top with it, allowing him to make it work for the full 100%. The initiating of time travel is a “magic” aspect so it’s pretty much a blackbox, but it’s great to read about. Another thing is that in the present Nightside, John’s characters has an infamous reputation, with going back in time you see that he loses his reputation and that he has to rely on other tricks to get the job done.
We already got to see a few of the amazing and rather bizarre characters that the Nightside harbors. In Paths not taken again you are in for a surprise and it truly does seem that Simon R. Green’s. Imagination doesn’t know any boundaries. The crew of John this time consists of Suzy Shooter or Shotgun Suzy, who it rather trigger happy with guns and lobs a grenade here and there. We already new Suzy so I will skip her. The other addition that was again unique is that of Tom Oblivion. Who is also a private eye but with a different ability than John. The power of shifting probabilities. This gift can be used on a scale that I hadn’t imagined. John’s “friends” just keep on amazing me.
A lot of important events happen in Paths not Taken that all feel like laying down the ground work for its sequel “Sharper than a Serpents Tooth (see below). The time travel aspect that resonates all throughout Paths not taken was cool decision. It further reveals much about the strangeness of the Nightside but also allowed me to link events that happened in the first four books to events that John is setting into motion in the past versions of the Nightside. Simon R. Green thought well about the time travel. Making the story go backwards quite linear, but using the time travel events in a circular way that when you think about what happened in the earlier books can be owed to what John did in Paths not Taken. There weren’t obvious gaps in this, and otherwise, it’s still the Nightside! anything can happen at any moment of the day, ow wait. it all happens around 3AM. Paths not taken is a great read that progresses for me the success that was made in the fourth book, and I feel a battle building up!
Sharper than a Serpents Tooth
And were already at the sixth story of the Nightside series. Sharper than a Serpents Tooth. Just upfront. This book delivers. It shows everything. All the groundwork that had been laid down in first fifth book, is now all being used to create a stunning finisher. It is a bit a pity to see the promise that was building up in the first five books coming to an ending, it feels that a rather short time has passed.Might be that I read the omnibus edition which contains 2 books at a time. However looking back at the story so far, it is spread over six books and all the things that we have been allowed to see in the cases of John Taylor so far of the Nightside and its comings and goings is actually very rich, bizarre, sometimes rather grotesque but on the whole , and it doesn’t seem to know a stop.
As for Sharper than a Serpents Tooth, the story again takes place in the “trusted” Nightside. John now has one clear goal. Stopping his Mummy dearest, Lilith from completely remaking the Nightside to suite her own purpose, making her the singular power. You may already guess what will happen, yes! Both Lilith and John are prepping for an all out war! If you are also this far into the Nightside it hasn’t escaped you that though the Nightside houses a rather bizarre cast of beings of Power. Isn’t a great influence of Heaven and Hell, yes you have the occasional demons and angels there, they aren’t allowed to interfere. So even though John is one of the good guys, he has to fall back on his friends and can’t call on the “good” side.
However unfortunate for John, Lilith manages to pull of something that forces him in some tight corners. Which causes him to think up of some rather tricky means to fight of his mother. And in his endeavor to save the Nightside and on top of it the real world and reality itself. He is assisted by most of all the characters that we have seen so far. Razor Eddy, Punk God of the Straight Razor, Tom Oblivion, Dead Boy and Suzy Shooter. Story wise Simon R. Green, lifts each character to a complete new level in using them in how the story unfolds around John. John, a man with always one last trick up it sleeve, can do a lot on its own, but it just comes to show that when you have some back-up, things in the Nightside become a lot easier. Sharper than a Serpents Tooth is a great case of letting everything come together, characters and the world that surrounds them. And it seems that John ability is even more powerful than he thought it himself to be. I think John is coming to understand his power on a whole new scale, I have high hopes for him in the books to follow.
In Sharper that a Serpents Tooth, all Hell breaks loose, literally. The already sixth addition in the Nightside series complete finish one part of the story. However it does not feel as an ending of the series.It feels like a seasons finale, that will return full force! Simon R. Green not only was building up a storyline with John’s mother Lilith and her plans to destroy the Nightside. He also managed to completely lay down the foundation of the world of the Nightside itself with all it characters. So I do not part with this sixth book with an empty feeling but rather this rich, bizarre and imaginatively dark world definitely allows Simon R. Green to create unlimited stories, just as how the Nightside is!