Nightside City

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Nightside City will die in the coming dawn -- so why is someone trying to buy up the town? A blend of hard science fiction and hard-boiled film noir detective story. The far-side of tidally-locked Epimethus seemed like a good site for a city, far from the destroying rays of a dangerously close sun. But the planet actually is rotating and the value of property and life in Nightside City is rapidly depreciating. Detective Carlisle Hsing is one of the many left in town with insufficient funds to move off-planet. But ... why is someone buying up all the doomed property? Is someone going to save the planet? Why keep it a secret? ...[Carlisle] Hsing is a believable heroine pursuing a slowly unwrapping mystery.' â Postviews... a good crisp adventure/mystery... a suitably gritty future-urban ambience; the plot is logically constructed around an interesting problem in planetology; the writing is consistent and well-paced, each chapter ending with a neat narrative hook. A very solid, professional piece of work.' â OtherRealms
'...a novel rich in context.... contains a wealth of intriguing material....complex and evocative....worth the read.' â SFRA Newsletter'For years, when people asked me what was my favorite of all the novels Iâ d written (which is, by the way, not a good question to askâ itâ s very much like, 'Which is your favorite of your children?'), if I answered at all, I would name Nightside City.' â from the afterword by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Mystery, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Noir

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Also publishes as Nathan Archer

Reviews

[Велислав Върбанов · Rating 4 out of 5]

Много симпатична детективска фантастика! Главната героиня живее в бедност в Нощния град на тъмната страна на планетата Епиметей. Тя разследва различни загадки в напрегнатата футуристична атмосфера, а към даден момент е наета от бездомник, за да разбере кой изкупува имоти в края на града при доста неизгодни условия. Този случай привидно е безсмислен, обаче детективката решава да се захване с него, което я въвлича в големи опасности...

[Martin Doychinov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Романът е публикуван през 1989-а година (2008-а у нас) и е в стила научно-фантастичен детективски трилър - стига да се приеме, че такъв съществува.
Свят: По-неприятната като условия за живот планета в система с двойна звезда се нарича Епименей, и се върти със скорост точно 138 см/ден, а дневната страна изобщо не е оферта, особено ако си човек. Доста оригинално! 5
Персонажи: Главната героиня е детектив, около 40-годишна, дребна и корава жена. Интересна и развиваща се личност. Едва няколко второстепенни такива, като почти никой няма достатъчна сцена, за да се развие особено. Все пак има наченки при 1-2, но като цяло главната героиня заема огромната част от повествованието. 4,5
Сюжет: Скоро гибелните лъчи на по-силното слънце ще започнат да изпепеляват западния край на разположения в крате град, а някой започва да изкупува сградите на безценица. На 78-а страница си мислех, че има голям спойлер относно сюжета, но бях опроверган. Всъщност развръзката беше доста неочаквана, макар и леко анти-климактична. Тази, която ми се оформи като теория ми звучи по-добра. :) 4
Стил - добър, все пал Уот-Евънс е носител на Хюго. От време на време има някакви ръбати моменти, които може и да са от превода, но едно ултра-тъпо решение на главната героиня със сигурност не е. А то е и особено важно за сюжета. 4
Може да се обобщи, че това е един доста добър и неангажиращ роман. Даже има продължение от 2010-а (Realms of Light), което наистина ще се постарая да намеря, а "Градът на нощната страна" със сигурност си заслужава! 4.38

[Kelly (Maybedog) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so disappointed that this appears to be a one-off for Watt-Evans because it's excellent and I want more! (He appears to be primarily a fantasy writer.) Nightside City is basically a classic noir detective novel but with a twist: the detective is a woman and the night is permanent as she lives in a crater on the nightside of the planet. You can read the blurb for more info about the plot so I'll focus on the important points: This woman is strong and smart. She's also Asian as is just about every other character in the book (unusual for an SF novel written in English). The science makes sense and was necessary for the story. I had no idea where the story was going and was nicely surprised by the ending. The story moved along at a good clip. I loved that there were tons of sentient machines--most books that have sentient machines have them as the focus of the book (human/sentient rights or creating sentience in machines). I think it's unusual to have them be just another part of the world the characters live in. My only complaints are that a minor character has a change of heart way too easily and I find it hard to believe that putting a cap across a crater the size of Las Vegas with all the captial of a city like LV is too cost-prohibitive. But it's necessary for the plot and I can live with it.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating:  3.75

Lawrence Watt-Evans has written a light but entertaining science fiction, cyberpunk, noir detective novel.  This relatively short novel starts off slowly but the pace picks up fairly quickly.  The setting is a future (24th century) interstellar civilization dominated by immensely powerful corporations, with the elites being of East Asian (specifically, Japanese) origin.  Nightside City is a city devoted to casinos and gambling, which is located in a crater on the permanently dark Nightside of the planet Epimetheus that is (almost, but not quite) tidally locked.  The "almost" part ends up causing problems, with the entire city approaching obsolescence once the slow rotation of the planet brings it into the Dayside, where the devastating glare and deadly radiation of the nearby sun would make human life there impossible.  This impending apocalypse is something the inhabitants of Nightside City are desperately trying to escape, preferably by acquiring enough money to to afford to relocate off-planet.  However, down on her luck, P.I. Carlisle Hsing must still earn a  living.  What was supposed to be a simple case to help squatters being evicted from worthless property located too close to the imminent sunrise turns rather nasty when she starts digging too deeply.  The twist was something I was not expecting.  I loved that the sentient/ semi-sentient robots, as well as other "future-tech", make up an integrated part of the world without drawing undue attention to themselves - they are just there as part of everyday life.  I found this book to be an enjoyable reading experience.

PS:  It's not everyday that you read a novel that starts off using the word "cacophoty" (NOT a spelling mistake or typo!) in the first sentence.

[Христо Блажев · Rating 3 out of 5]

Градът на нощната страна е обречен да бъде огрян: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/g...

Малко старомодна приключенска фантастика винаги ми идва добре – “Градът на нощната страна” на Лорънс Уат-Евънс обещава традиционните съставки: оригинален декор от бъдещето и нахъсана и крайно бедна детективка, която е склонна да се заеме с някаква работа, за да изкара още няколко дни. Бъдещето пред нея и всички наоколо е слънчево… но не в положителния смисъл – те населяват град, замислен да е винаги в сянка, но който скоро ще бъде окъпан в унищожителна светлина. И точно в края, от който ще започне ожаряването, някой купува падналите до безценица имоти. Нещо се мъти – и Карлайл Хсинг трябва да разбере какво.

Издателска къща БАРД
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/g...

[Joel Flank · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early under rated gem from Watt-Evans, this hard sci-fi mystery follows the case of a lifetime for down on her luck P.I. Carlisle Hsing on a (almost) tidally locked planet, set in it's Vegas-like capital, Nightside City. With the entire city approaching obsolescence, Carlisle gets a case to help some squatters in worthless property from unexpectedly being evicted. Most investigators wouldn't even give the case the time of day, but with little else on deck, she helps out, figuring it could keep her fed and paying rent a few more days. Little does she expect that the case will take her to the upper echelons of the elite in the decadent city.

On one hand, this is a competent mystery, without treading on the tropes of murder and whodunit, and on the other, it takes all of the high tech science fiction toys and gadgets and shows how they don't make it any easier to solve a mystery. The real beauty of this book is how deeply integrated all of the science fiction ideas are into the world, without even being the focus of the story, and how prophetic many of them are. Published in 1989, this book not only accurately extends technology in it's infancy today in 2020, but more impressively addresses social issues that technology raises, such as privacy in a world of easily creating cyber identities and scanning biometric and dna and drone surveillance of even casual passerbys.

Any book that delights in one genre is a pleasure to read, but by succeeding as both a science fiction and as a mystery book, the pleasure is squared.

[Peter Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally an unexpected 5-star diamond in the rough!

You want a solid cyberpunk noir experience?
Detectives?
Detectives in space?
Science?
Good tech with good science?
Good science in general?
An author way ahead of his time?
All of the above?

Then this is the book for you!

Bonus points if you’re a gamer and absolutely loved Cyberpunk 2077. This genuinely feels like it could be placed in the same universe (haha), only 300 years in the future.

[Matt Kuhns · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a favorite. I have read it repeatedly.

Written in the late 1980s, it has aged like a fine wine. Nightside City could be released as a movie, this summer, and seem just about as plausible a story of the future now as it did upon the book's publication date.

Make this a beach read some time.

[Jeff Youngstrom]

My review from December 12, 1998

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

An extremely interesting set-up blown out of the water with a thin plot and just...oodles of repetition.

[Plamen Uzunov]

Още в началото ми дойде малко като вайб на Blade Runner (1982), но кратера не ми хареса кой знае колко... дали поради факта, че самият аз съм бил в кратер на вулкан, когато бях в Италия - е, пресъхнал и не действащ разбира се... но в тази книга си е част от цялостния сюжет.

С високите сгради, изгряващото слънце и наближаваща гибел, някак си ме обземаше едно спокойствие. Дори едно чувство на самота на моменти - високите изостанали сгради, озарената от слънцето дневната пустош, окъпана в радиация...

Бих казал, че книгата се чете леко и спокойно. Няма излишни сложни термонологии, както в повечето стари фантастики.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this not knowing anything about Watt-Evans' other works, and very much enjoyed Nightside City.

World building isnt over the top, characters are just fleshed out enough, and the plot overall hits along at a nice pace. The ending was a bit of a miss, mostly from a "really, thats what you went with" point of view, but overall this doesnt ditract from an good read.

Could have seen a few novels written in this setting, suprised we only go this (and its more recent sequel)

[Howard Brazee]

Carlisle Hsing is a detective on an extremely slow-rotating planet that has a city in a crater that is on its nightside that will soon (within a few earth years) be moving into the sun and be unlivable.

Lots of neat SF-type observations of her life. Casinos ruled the city, and she wasn't welcome there, but she takes a case for squatters who are in the unused part of the city that's already almost in daylight.

And we have a hard-boiled detective novel!

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent premise and one good sequence on the dayside of the planet, but too listless overall with an ending that fizzles.

[Alexandre Jorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

a underrated cyberpunk novel.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great sci-fi noir. It's gritty and has some solid twists.

[Jeff Bowes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noir cyberpunk

This is the third time I have read this book and I enjoy it more each time. It really captures detective and cyberpunk well. Like Noir classics the plot is not earth shattering.

[Nikola Tasev · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had great expectations about this book, and it started pretty good, having mysterious atmosphere and original writing style.
Well, it wasn't slow, there were just so few things happening there I was amazed. The main character just does the same thing over and over again, going from one guy to the other, asking questions and threatening to publish everything she knows on the net. When the happens the third time with the most powerful character I was like 'You promised not to speak the last two times your questions were answered, why should anyone believe you now?'.
The ending was extremely anti-climatic, though somewhat original. Easy and, I admit, pleasant read, even if it was disappointing in the end.

[D. T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

After spending a lot of time in Watt-Evans's fantasy realms of Ethshar, I picked up this sci-fi story for something different by him. "Nightside City" uses an intriguingly unique setting and a bit of cyberpunk for a classic noir detective story. It's perhaps a bit heavy on the exposition in the beginning, but once the action gets going, it's a fun little read. Like his Ethshar books, I really enjoyed the world-building and characters. I was glad to discover Watt-Evans revisited Nightside City in a sequel "Realms of Light" some twenty years after this was published. I will be seeking that one out.

[Alain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun!!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A futuristic detective yarn.

[Warren Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a sort of cyberpunk detective novel. Good premise for the story and a good read overall.