Reviews Literature / Nightside

Fun, but has its flaws

I've only read the first four books so far, but from what I've seen these make for excellent popcorn reading. They're short, fast-paced, exciting, and generally a great choice when I need a good dose of Stuff Blowing Up and dark Urban Fantasy and I don't want to reread Dead Beat for the 87th time. Nevertheless, I have a few problems with the series so far.

The first is the infodumps. I've read a lot of fantasy in my time, and even tried to write some, so I've developed some tolerance for the fact that sometimes, an author is just going to have to throw a great big block of exposition at you. These books, however, have an unfortunate habit of putting it where it doesn't belong: in the middle of dialogue. Sometimes it's an "As You Know" thing, sometimes it's via The Watson, but a lot of the setting and character descriptions wind up coming out of the mouths of characters. The problem with this is that they also tend to be phrased in lengthy, poetic descriptions, and most of the characters who do it just don't seem like the sort of people who'd talk like that. It belongs in the narration.

The second is the author's treatment of minor characters. He has a nasty habit of introducing some sort of bizarre Eldritch Abomination or person with cool powers, spending several pages detailing those cool powers... then promptly killing them off. It's like a good-story version of They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character—- not only does it violate the Law Of Conservation Of Detail, it causes a certain degree of complacency in the audience; "Ah, whatever, somebody's just gonna kill it real soon- yup, there it goes. *Yawn*" It's hard to worry about the threat posed by an Eldritch Abomination when, as said on the main page, all the Eldritch Abominations have glass jaws.

The last is my most minor quibble: the recycling of phrases. I grinned the first time John said, "Not everything that looks like a car is a car, and some of them are hungry." But when I read more and realized that that same comment appeared two or three times in every book, I started to get a bit of a sinking feeling.

For all my whining, I do still enjoy these books. I'll probably finish the series— I just wish the author would take a better look at how he handles a few things.