Just Another Judgement Day

Title: Just Another Judgement Day

Author: Simon R. Green

Publisher: ACE

Copyright Date: 2009

Print Date: January 2009

ISBN: 9780441016747

Pages: 263

Series: 9th full-length Novel of the Nightside

Book Description (from dust jacket):

I'm John Taylor. I work as a PI out of an office tucked away on a shadowy street in a corner of the Nightside, that secret centre of London where the clocks always read three A.M., where terrible things happen with predictable regularity, and where the always-dark streets are full of people partying like Judgement Day will never come.

Now it may have arrived — God's own enforcer, the righteous engine of destruction known as the Walking Man, has come to the Nightside.

The past few months, the Nightside has seen its share of chaos, some of it because of me. Still, things were getting back to as normal as they can ever be around here. But the arrival of the Walking Man has the Authorities seriously worried. He's a being whose sole purpose in life is the elimination of the wicked and the guilty — and given the nature of the Nightside, there's a good chance that once he gets started, he'll just keep on until there's no-one left.

So they've hired me to stop him. Legend has it that he can't be killed. I'm very much hoping that the legend isn't true...

Comments:

I really enjoy this series; this book was no exception. I'm not quite sure why that is — the whole series is gory and disturbing and pokes at various human flaws and ideologies.

Anyway, this time John has been hired to help the new Authorities to keep the Nightside — and them — from being wiped out in the name of "justice" and vengence and "God." Some familiar characters appear as do some new. Themes addressed include humans preferring false beauty to true ugliness (even when the truth was requested), the utter lows of what humans can be and do (and the existance of human monsters), reasoning vs. violence in the name of right and good, blind faith vs. reasoned faith, pride and humility, fate vs. free choice vs. a combo-deal, the virtues of hope, and the potential for miracles. Quite a lot there, but it doesn't come across as preachy or anything...just questioning (or, maybe it'd be more accurate to say, prodding the reader to question).

I've read some reviews by people feeling let down by this book. They feel that the series is due to end. I, however, did enjoy it, and I'm looking forward to reading The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny which came out this January (I have it on hold at the local library). In any case, the series is scheduled to end with book 12.