The order is important
So I learned an important lesson this week:
Don't read paranormal fantasy noir that apes Raymond Chandler right after reading Raymond Chandler.
I say this because I finally got around the reading The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, the first two Philip Marlowe novels, and right after finishing the second, I started Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green, which stars, you guessed it: a hardboiled PI hired by a mysterious femme fatale for a case that is more than it seems.
The difference, of course, is that Marlowe's world is the real (or close to real) Los Angeles of the thirties and forties, while John Taylor's is modern London with a twist-the Nightside, the dark, magical heart of London that exists in parallel with the mundane city. So far, so good. It's a nice twist.
The problem is that I can recognize Marlowe in everything, but an inferior knock-off of Marlowe without the author's own twist or sets of competing influences to make John Taylor a compelling character on his own. Hell, Green even mentions Raymond Chandler in the book. Real subtle. Also, Chandler's plots were twisty-there was never one crime or one set of motivations; instead, there were three or four, weaving in and out of each other. Green's plot is about as straightforward as it can be, so the twist ending isn't much of a twist.
The last thing that bothers me is the writing itself. Green writes in short, choppy sentences, and his paragraphs are littered with fragments. Again, this apes Chandler to a certain extent, but it apes the wrong things. The "noir style" that Chandler used was annoying. What saves it is that Chandler was a poet and therefore a wordsmith; he turned some glorious phrases. So what you've got is a book that steals from a master without realizing what makes the master great. And if I'm going to put up with a book like this, I'd better not do it when the master is still fresh in my mind.
Don't read paranormal fantasy noir that apes Raymond Chandler right after reading Raymond Chandler.
I say this because I finally got around the reading The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, the first two Philip Marlowe novels, and right after finishing the second, I started Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green, which stars, you guessed it: a hardboiled PI hired by a mysterious femme fatale for a case that is more than it seems.
The difference, of course, is that Marlowe's world is the real (or close to real) Los Angeles of the thirties and forties, while John Taylor's is modern London with a twist-the Nightside, the dark, magical heart of London that exists in parallel with the mundane city. So far, so good. It's a nice twist.
The problem is that I can recognize Marlowe in everything, but an inferior knock-off of Marlowe without the author's own twist or sets of competing influences to make John Taylor a compelling character on his own. Hell, Green even mentions Raymond Chandler in the book. Real subtle. Also, Chandler's plots were twisty-there was never one crime or one set of motivations; instead, there were three or four, weaving in and out of each other. Green's plot is about as straightforward as it can be, so the twist ending isn't much of a twist.
The last thing that bothers me is the writing itself. Green writes in short, choppy sentences, and his paragraphs are littered with fragments. Again, this apes Chandler to a certain extent, but it apes the wrong things. The "noir style" that Chandler used was annoying. What saves it is that Chandler was a poet and therefore a wordsmith; he turned some glorious phrases. So what you've got is a book that steals from a master without realizing what makes the master great. And if I'm going to put up with a book like this, I'd better not do it when the master is still fresh in my mind.