John Taylor is back in the Nightside with his ability to
find anything, anything at all, anywhere.
Which makes him in high demand when the Grail disappears –
the Unholy Grail. The cup that Judas drank from. A cup that corrupts all those
around it, a cup that could very well bring about the end of the world.
It’s in the Nightside and lots of people want it. More
than people – the Angels of Light and Darkness want it as well – and they’re
willing to rip apart the entire Nightside to get it. They’re not subtle and
they’re awful investigators, but no force can stand against them for long, and
everything risks being utterly destroyed before they’ve finished.
Which leaves Taylor the problems of finding the Grail,
deciding who to give it to – and making sure the people who want it don’t get
the Grail first and don’t kill him to stop anyone else getting it. And with
Nightside under threat, the big powers of the strange world come out to fight.
This book is fantastic. It seems to be a theme of the
series – the fantastic. The Nightside is a place that contains literally
everything – in all its wonders and its horrors (mainly horrors). The world has
no rules and anything exists there – the richness of the imagination of this
place is incredible. From magic to sci-fi, gods to aliens, monsters – to things
I can’t even describe, things that don’t fit in any category, they’re all
amazingly imagined.
And it’s all very dark and very gritty. Nothing is pretty or sweet or generous or kind in the Nightside. Even the apparently harmless is dangerous and there’s a well maintained theme of constant risk, of constant menace in the book. There is no downtime or safe space – and that isn’t just because of the story, but a constant theme of the Nightside itself. The only safety the characters earn is because, as John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie, they have a reputation as people who are extremely dangerous. The only safety is being a bigger threat than those who want to hurt you. And it’s not just menacing, it’s disturbing. It’s never as simple as just bad guys who want to kill you – bad guys who want to kill you are nice and kind combined to what half of what the Nightside does. The menace here is a surreal, almost nightmarish quality and linked to just how strange and fantastic the world is.
What I find most impressive is not how both of these are introduced
– the fantastic and the constant menace – but how it is constantly maintained
with little references, new figures, new powers introduced just to show another
facet of this strange and terrifying place.
This maintenance of theme also did a lot to establish the
sheer might and fury of the angels (even if they started out almost dismissed
when Taylor artfully turns the two factions against each other). No matter how
many horrors we saw, how much power the
Nightside shows, the invasion of the angels was destroying it. It also serves a
lot to establish Taylor’s power – he rarely overtly shows his abilities in a
menacing way and the ability to find anything does sound pretty minor – but the
way everyone is afraid of him establishes his menace far more than dramatic
displays of flashy abilities.
What didn’t come through quite so well was the story
itself. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun story, an exciting story and one
filled with amazing characters, amazing settings, revelations and showdowns and
it was one I enjoyed immensely and couldn’t tear myself away from. But it did
feel slightly like a story that existed to show off this amazing, wonderful,
terrifying world, more than a world that existed to tell a story. That’s not
necessarily a bad thing – and this world certainly needs showcasing – but the
plot itself was relatively linear. Clues dropped in Taylor’s lap that he kept
following up to more weird locales, more dramatic confrontations and more
expansion of the world. In the end he has a grand inspiration to buy himself time
– which is epic and dramatic, and everything is wrapped up extremely satisfying
But the plot is a tool to advance the characters and the
world, not the other way round. It isn’t full of twists and odd turns. It does
have lashings of epic – but that’s because you can’t cross the road in the
Nightside without lashings of epic raining down on you. Going to the shops for
a bottle of milk involves wrestling 3 demigods, facing 6 apocalyptic beings and
dealing with forces man was not mean to know. It’s the Nightside, epic, drama
and the fantastic are its bread and butter.
There are some minorities that are largely background
characters – in fact, characters is going too far as they often don’t have
names and are more crowd fillers than anything. And, some of them, like the
Lesbian Undines drinking each other, seem to serve to stress how weird and odd the
Nightside is more than serve any actual inclusions. Still, I do love the
bouncers in the bar and would love to see more.
Shotgun Suzy is a character I’m conflicted about. After the last book I said I wanted to see her develop more than being just a walking weapon. And that happened a lot in this book – but as is so common with strong female characters, she was developed by dumping a huge portion of angst on her. She has a history of extreme abuse, rape and incest which lead to an aborted pregnancy that left me uncomfortable – not just because they were uncomfortable topics, but because of the way powerful, dangerous women always seem to need a vulnerability, a victimisation somewhere. I hope she will be developed further in a way that isn’t about her being a weapon or a victim – but I fear the third option will be as John Taylor’s love interest. Which could be a fascinating direction – but not if she is either a weapon or victim, she needs to be a full character first.
This is the second book in the series and it continues to
be immense fun. The books are shot, exciting - and I’ve overused the word but
there is no better – fantastic. I have never come across a world like this, it’s
utterly unique, completely absorbing and I love it. We have meta plot, the
ongoing question of Taylor’s mother and where that fits into everything,
lurking along the sidelines and we have some truly amazing characters that are
great fun to read.
