Nightingale's Lament: Nightside, Book 3

I have now finished listening to all nine novels in the Nightside series -- a feat that took most of the last six months, as I treated them like radio series by listening to them while I was doing my morning walk along the streets of the city I live in. That's nearly seventy hours of really interesting storytelling. I envy those of you starting the series from the beginning as you have a lot of truly great listening ahead of you for fantasy, when well crafted, has the power to pull you out of this existence and transport you to new places; it's pure escapism at it's very best.

Cat Eldridge / Green Man Review

Now I've said it before, but I'll repeat it again -- all of these audioworks have great story, terrific narration, appropriately used music, and crack production, which is true of all the audiobooks that Audible does in house. Certainly I was really, really impressed at how well the narrator, Marc Vietor, does in creating a believable cast of characters who each have their own distinctive voice. Dead Boy is voiced as a weary, seen it all sort of zombie (or perhaps not, as Green doesn't say that he is such a creature; nor does Green say that he isn't). Dead Boy sounds different than John Taylor, and all of the other characters are also voiced in a manner that lets you know who is on stage.

Nightingale's Lament has everything I like in an urban fantasy -- an interesting and very cool protagonist, snappy dialogue, loads of violence, quite a bit gore, a smidgen of sex, weird characters, a bit of a mystery, and a pacing that never lets up. And for once, there's a reasonably happy ending for the client, a rare occurrence in the annals of John Taylor!

Nothing is like a real book. I do find it nice to have something good to listen to on trip.

John Taylor. He's John Taylor.

If you can go though a Nightside book and not laugh, chances are your already died.

This story was tough to follow. I had to start the story over twice. It wasn't till towards the end, that the story picked up and by then, truly, not by much. I kept with it though because I really like the narrator, I have the complete series and I really want to know who John Taylor's mother is and the full extent of their powers, abilities and purpose(s). Besides, that place called nightside is like a garden variety of paranormal soup filled with all types supernatural paranormal stuff.

This is the first book I've downloaded from this series, since the reviews for the first two weren't exceptionally positive. I thought it was worth a shot, though, because I really like urban fantasy. This book is entertaining and I liked the narration, but the actual writing is sloppy - The bad guys have a tendency to spill everything just before they take action so there is time for the main character/his allies to take action; the phrase "my third eye, my private eye" is repeated quite often. Additionally, the main character is very impressed with the "weirdness" of the Nightside and goes on and on about it, which seems a bit odd - What jaded native, as he is supposed to be, is so impressed with how "weird" a place is? Why wouldn't he take it in stride? All in all, I wouldn't recommend it, but it's fine as a time filler.