Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth: Visit the Nightside of the future

Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green

In Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth, the sixth novel in Simon R. Green’s NIGHTSIDE series, John Taylor and Suzie Shooter have just returned from the past where they discovered the origin of John’s mother, Lilith, and witnessed the birth of the Nightside. Now that they’re back in the present, they are determined to stop Lilith from destroying what she created and remaking the Nightside in her own image.

First they must rescue John’s secretary, Cathy, who has been kidnapped. Then John wants to raise an army that they hope can stop Lilith, but he’s haunted by visions of a future where he has destroyed the Nightside and his friends, so he decides to travel forward in time to get some answers. Perhaps if he knows the future, he can change it.

Besides the future, the other interesting places John visits include the cellar of Strangefellows, Rotten Row, Simulacra Corner, the Necropolis, a faerie sweat shop, the Bazaar of the Bizarre (a reference to Fritz Leiber’s LANKHMAR books) and the Street of the Gods (another Lankhmar reference). Along the way he gets help from and/or pisses off a lot of the strange characters we’ve already met, and some new ones, too. There’s Alex Morrisey, Kid Psychoses, Tommy Oblivion, Sneaky Pete, Razor Eddie, Sandra Chance, The Collector, The Little Sisters of the Immaculate Chain-Saw, dancing ghost girls, the Carrion in Tears, Dead Boy, Julien Advent, Jessica Sorrow, Count Video, King of Skin, the Doormouse, the Engineer, Walker, the Beadle, Merlin Satanspawn, and the Lord of Thorns. He even meets the guys in suits who run the Nightside on the backend.

Eventually there’s a huge long battle when Lilith appears on the Street of Gods and everything blows up. This becomes so furiously paced, so “epic,” and so over-the-top that it is actually dull. Green hits us with everything and everyone at once — each person is more powerful than the person mentioned before, wiping away enemies with their vague superpowers such as “undoing probabilities and spreading nightmares” (what does that look like?). For all the build-up, it was a little disappointing, mostly because the action was so frantic and intangible. This part of the story, which was the climax, had little tension or impact, though several characters die. (I’m not sure if they’ll stay dead.)

In previous reviews I’ve complained about the repetitive language in the NIGHTSIDE books. It’s a little better here. Green continues to entertain with his imaginative characters and John Taylor’s amusing voice: “You here to cause trouble?” he said in a voice so deep that he must have had a third testicle tucked away somewhere.

Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth ends a major plotline in the NIGHTSIDE series. I can’t say I’m sorry since I was getting tired of Lilith. I’m looking forward to getting back to John Taylor’s private investigations in the next book, Hell to Pay. I’m listening to Marc Vietor read the audio versions. He’s fabulous.